Page 13 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

Jax

My jaw still ached, not from the brief altercation, but from the moment her body had slammed into mine and I hadn’t let go.

And from the second I wrapped my arm around her waist and forgot to release her.

There was a breath—half of one—when everything blurred.

The perimeter. The plan. The goddamn job.

Gone. All I knew was the sound she made when I pinned her.

That raw, breathless growl, part fury, part defiance.

The way she’d twisted in my grip like she didn’t care who she broke open, even if it was me.

Wild. Cornered. Dangerous. And not once did she ask for permission.

That’s what fucked me up the most. She wasn’t mine. But every nerve in my body disagreed.

I headed for the weapons room without thinking, driven by a pressure I didn’t want to name.

The bag was right where I left it, half-unzipped on the shelf.

One pocket bulged with a familiar coil of rope—well-worn, clean, balanced in my palm like memory.

I hadn’t planned to use it. Not really. But I’d known the second I pulled her off that fence that something in me would need release.

Energy like that doesn’t fade. It bleeds out somewhere.

“Don’t tell me you’re leaving.”

Niko’s honed voice caught me off guard, and I froze for a moment. He wasn’t accusing me. Not yet. He was just standing behind me, giving the silence a chance to tell on me first.

I didn’t turn. Just adjusted the strap across my shoulder and kept walking, the weight of the bag pressing straight into the tension already burning in my ribs.

Of course he followed. His steps were soft but unshakable, the kind that weren’t trying to block your path.

They were trying to get you to reconsider it.

“You gonna tell me what the hell that was?”

I stopped because I knew I wouldn’t get past this issue without confronting it. I turned slowly, pulse thick behind my teeth. “What do you think it was?”

My voice came out too level. Too contained for the mess I felt in my chest.

Niko folded his arms. “Don’t play dumb, Jax. You let her run.”

“She never made it past the inner perimeter,” I snapped back, too quickly.

“That’s not the point,” he said, sharper now. “You watched her break the rules. You let her try.”

“I was tracking her.”

“Bullshit. You watched it get interesting.”

“I waited until I had proof.”

He stepped closer, eyes narrowing. “You waited because you wanted to see what she’d do. You wanted to chase her.”

That one landed hard enough to make me shift my weight, jaw clenched so tight it ached.

“And you liked it,” he said, softer now, like the quiet would make it hurt less.

I turned away, the weapons room door within reach. The hallway felt too fucking claustrophobic, like the walls had shrunk by inches. Like the air itself was watching.

“You smiled when you brought her back in.”

“That wasn’t a smile,” I muttered, hand finding the knob like it might shut this whole thing out.

“Then why the fuck did I clock it when I checked the security camera?”

I pushed into the room, hoping space might kill the heat crawling up my spine. But Niko followed, silent and surgical. He didn’t need volume. Just his force of presence. That was his weapon of choice.

“You enjoyed it. The fight. The look in her eyes when she thought she might get away. When she realized she wouldn’t.”

I grabbed the bag, rope visible now, trailing slightly from the side pocket like it wanted to be noticed. Niko’s gaze tracked it instantly, and something in his posture changed; less sharp, more wary.

“Really?” he asked, quieter now. “ That’s where you’re headed?”

“I need space,” I said, not looking at him.

“You don’t tie to forget,” he countered. “That’s not how you play.”

“Maybe I’m not playing tonight.”

The words came out flat. Hollow. Like they’d been sitting in my mouth too long.

Niko moved to block the door, still not touching me, but there. That was enough. “She’s not a toy.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

His voice dipped low. Serious now. “Jax, it looks like you’re about to take this out on the wrong girl because this one rattled your cage.”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Because he wasn’t wrong, and we both knew it.

“She’s not yours,” he said.

I looked at him. Finally. “You sure about that? You and Carrick both laid claim pretty fast, Nikolai. Why shouldn’t I?”

“That’s not the point.”

Silence spread between us like oil. Heavy. Slick. Waiting for a spark.

And then I gave him one.

“Do you think I’m the threat to this operation, Niko?”

He blinked once. Barely. But I saw it.

“I think you want to be,” he said. Calm. Final.

It knocked the air out of my lungs more effectively than a punch. I moved past him without another word, shoulder brushing his. At the front door, I paused with my hand on the knob. Voice stripped of everything but the truth.

“Don’t wait up.”

The door shut behind me with a sound that felt louder than it should’ve.

Outside, the air bit colder. The sky was deep and starless. And none of it helped. My chest still burned, my blood still simmered, and the image of her—wild, furious, perfect in her resistance—refused to fade.

Not even rope was going to fix this. Not tonight.

But I had to try something .

The building didn’t look like much from the outside, just steel and shadow and a discreet keypad tucked beneath a rusted porch light. No sign. No name. That was the point. If you didn’t know what it was, you didn’t belong.

I punched in the code and stepped back. A low click unlocked the reinforced door, followed by the quiet whir of internal systems scanning—camera, heat sensor, biometric sweep. All of it was overkill. All of it was necessary. Places like this weren’t built on trust.

The man at the front desk looked up as I entered. Mark. Ex-military, shaved head, sharp eyes. We’d served together once, for about five minutes in a desert that felt a hundred years away. He gave me a curt nod, no small talk.

“Jax.” His voice was low, even, as if acknowledging me was more habit than greeting. “Room’s prepped. Calla’s already inside.”

I handed him my ID anyway. Routine. He scanned it with one hand and reached for the waiver with the other.

“Did she sign in already?”

“She always does,” he said, sliding the clipboard back into its slot.

The music behind him pulsed low, bass-heavy and slow, like a heartbeat coaxed into submission.

Not for dancing. This was mood music. A moan surfaced from somewhere down the corridor, followed by a laugh, a command murmured against skin.

Velvet lighting pooled through the space, shadows moving with the charged tension that defined places like this. Not a playground. A crucible.

I nodded and walked on, past the place where leather gave way to candlelight and people blurred into silhouettes.

Lounges cradled quiet couples. A trio tangled on floor cushions.

A Dom whispered something brutal into a kneeling man’s ear.

I didn’t linger. Tonight wasn’t about watching or learning. It was about not thinking.

The rope bag knocked against my hip with every step.

My boots found rhythm on the floor I’d walked a hundred times, though my head wasn’t anywhere near the building.

The room I’d reserved sat at the far end.

Room Eight. Private. Quiet. Thick walls.

Low light. A space where control filled every corner. I knocked once, then opened the door.

She was already kneeling. Calla, still as glass, centered on a folded mat like an answer waiting to be given. Her arms rested behind her back, head bowed, hair braided and pinned high to bare her neck. Camisole. Thigh-highs. No panties. Her skin gleamed. Her readiness did too.

“Sir,” she murmured.

Instinct. Rehearsed. A role she wore like a second skin.

It should’ve stirred something. It didn’t.

I stepped inside and shut the door behind me, the latch clicking into place with a hush that sealed the room like a breath held too long.

The silence here wasn’t clean, like at the house. It had an edge. Intent.

I set the bag on the bench and uncoiled the rope. Familiar motion. Repetition in the service of control. But my body stayed tight, haunted by the shape of someone else still ghosting through my arms.

Stella.

I shoved it down. This wasn’t about her. This was about process, about converting chaos into symmetry. Structure. Precision. I looked at Calla—perfect, poised—and hated the hollowness that echoed through my chest. I crossed the room, rope loose in my grip.

“Stand.”

She rose with fluid grace, every line of her body shaped for dance.

I moved behind her, starting the chest harness from memory, diamond weave, my hands tracing the pattern before thought could interfere.

The first pass hugged beneath her breasts.

I drew it tight, slowly and smoothly, the jute hissing against itself.

Her breath deepened, her body yielding with practiced ease.

She always breathed into the knots.

She always did.

It was easy. Too easy.

I worked in silence, binding her upper arms back, framing her shoulders.

Her skin warmed under the rope, every small shift of her body automatic, graceful, rehearsed.

Her body moved like clockwork. Every breath offered on time, every shift precise, her muscles softening into the rope with a grace that should’ve satisfied me. But it didn’t.

There was no fight in it. No tension waiting to snap. No storm coiled under her skin. She didn’t test the boundaries. Didn’t squirm. She didn’t look at me like she might set the entire room on fire just to prove she could.

She looked like she wanted to please me. And that should’ve worked. It used to.

But now it felt hollow.

I didn’t want pretty submission, wrapped in silk and obedience. I wanted the kind that clawed back. That bit the hand holding the rope. That made surrender mean something, because it cost something.