Chapter 25 Two People Twisted in the Exact Same Way
My body was still trembling when he finally loosened his grip on me. My breath came in uneven pulls, my pulse loud in my ears. Knox rested his forehead against my shoulder for a moment, his chest rising and falling against mine as we both tried to catch up to what had just happened.
Then he lifted his head and looked at me.
His mismatched eyes were dark and intense, still burning with everything he hadn’t said out loud.
He stepped back just enough to fix himself, tugging his clothes into place. Then he moved in again, bent slightly, and hooked his arms under me, lifting me clean off the floor before I could react.
I gasped and instinctively wrapped my arms around his shoulders.
“Bedroom,” he said quietly.
I swallowed and pointed down the hall. “Second door on the right.”
He carried me through the dim hallway, the tension still humming between us. When we reached the bedroom, he nudged the door open with his shoulder and crossed the room in a few quick strides before setting me gently on the bed.
For a moment he just stood there.
His chest rose and fell with uneven breaths, his hands flexing at his sides like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. Then something shifted in his expression, a sudden realization flickering across his face.
“Nathan,” he muttered under his breath.
Right. The driver was still outside. Waiting. Probably wondering if Knox had been murdered in my foyer.
Knox pulled his phone from his pocket and typed something quickly.
“What did you tell him?” I asked softly.
“That he can go home,” Knox said without looking up. “I’m staying.”
He didn’t ask. He didn’t check whether it was okay. He said it like a simple fact, something already decided.
When he finished, he set the phone aside on the nightstand and sat down beside me on the edge of the bed. His elbows rested on his knees, his head lowering slightly as if the weight of the evening had finally caught up with him.
His breathing had steadied, but the tension still held in his shoulders.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The room was quiet except for the faint hum of the house settling around us.
When he finally lifted his head and looked at me, his voice was low.
“I didn’t plan for any of that.”
“I know,” I said softly.
He dragged a hand through his hair. “I lose control around you. I don’t do that with anyone else.”
Something in my chest tightened. “You didn’t hurt me.”
“That’s not the point,” he said. “I let go. More than I ever have.”
He looked at me again, eyes searching. “You weren’t scared?”
“No,” I said. “Not for a second.”
His eyes softened, the tension in his shoulders easing just a little. “Good.”
A silence settled between us, softer this time. He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from my face, his touch gentle now, almost reverent.
“Ashley, you were a virgin at twenty-six.” His voice wasn’t judgmental. Just curious. Careful. “Why?”
I hesitated. I knew the real answer. I knew exactly why I was the way I was, the shadows of a life I had lived before, the things that were done to me, the things I survived. Why certain things lit me up. Why certain kinds of touch made my pulse spike.
But I couldn’t tell him any of that.
He didn’t need that darkness. He needed the version of me that existed now.
So I gave him the version that was true enough.
“I didn’t feel attraction for a long time,” I said quietly. “Not the way other people did. I thought maybe I was asexual. Or broken. Something like that.”
He didn’t push. He simply waited.
“But then I got older,” I continued, “and I started reading things. Romance books. Stories where the men were… more forceful. Not violent. Intense. Confident. In control.”
His eyes darkened slightly.
“And I realized I liked that. The idea of someone being rough, but only because I wanted it. Only because I could stop it at any time. Consensual, but… not.”
He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t look away.
“I didn’t know how to explain that to anyone,” I said. “So I didn’t. I just… waited.”
Knox’s voice was quiet when he finally spoke. “You’re not broken.”
I looked at him.
He held my gaze. “You’re not strange. You’re not wrong. You’re just wired a certain way. And you’re not the only one.”
My breath caught. “What do you mean?”
He leaned back slightly, his expression rawer than I’d ever seen it. “I have fantasies too. Ones I never acted on. Not with anyone.”
“Why not?”
“Because they require trust,” he said. “Because if I choose wrong, it could ruin my life. One misunderstanding. One person twisting it into something it isn’t. One accusation. I can’t risk that.”
His jaw tightened. “I’ve never met anyone I trusted enough to let go with.”
My chest tightened again, this time with something warm and terrifying and real.
He looked at me. “What we did tonight… that wasn’t even close to the edge for me. And I could tell it wasn’t for you either.”
I swallowed. “It wasn’t.”
His voice dropped. “Tell me.”
I hesitated, then spoke quietly. “I like it rougher. I like… resistance. Being held down. To say no when I mean yes. Fighting back. But only when I can stop it.”
A slow, dark understanding settled in his eyes.
“You want to give up control,” he said. “I want to take it. I want to overpower, to hear resistance and know it is invited. To see fear and know it is pretend. To hold someone down, but never actually hurt her.” His jaw tightened.
“And I have never let myself go there, because I did not trust anyone not to use it against me.”
My pulse jumped.
He reached out and cupped my jaw, his touch gentle.
“Chances like this do not come along often,” he said quietly. “Two people twisted in the exact same way.”
I bit my lip and looked up into his eyes, my expression in awe. Something in his voice, in the way he said twisted, made my pulse jump. Not fear. Recognition.
He leaned closer, his forehead brushing mine. “You trust me with this?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
The word left my mouth before I could second-guess it. Before I could think about how dangerous trust had been in another life. Before I could remember all the ways it had been used against me.
But with him, it felt different. It felt like stepping toward something instead of away from it.
Knox exhaled, a slow breath that sounded almost relieved. His hand slid to the side of my neck, warm and steady, grounding me.
“Good,” he murmured. “Because I don’t take that lightly.”