Page 14 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

And she wasn’t it. She wasn’t the one still under my skin, still burning through every second of silence like a name I couldn’t stop saying in my head.

She wasn’t Stella.

Calla moaned softly when I drew the final knot between her shoulder blades. It wasn’t performative. She enjoyed this. She always had. I tied a center support line and fed it through the ring overhead, watching as her body tilted into tension, spine arching beautifully.

Her thighs trembled. Her breath came quicker now.

I tightened the last knot and stepped back.

I should’ve felt something.

But all I could think about was a girl in socks and a hoodie, sprinting toward a fence like freedom had teeth and she was willing to bleed for it.

I looked down at her. Her face was so composed, so willing. And still, it felt like a performance. Like recitation without meaning.

I stepped back.

“No,” I said quietly. “I want something different.”

She blinked once. Didn’t flinch. Just dropped her gaze again and gave the faintest nod.

I crouched again, slower this time. Untied her with care, each knot undone as reverently as it had been formed. The rope fell away in quiet sighs; her skin reddened where it had pressed deepest. She stayed still throughout, breathing evenly, not asking for more.

When the last knot came loose, she shifted forward, rolling her shoulders. She didn’t reach out for me.

“You’re not here for me,” she said.

“No,” I answered, not cruel. Just true.

It was never about Calla. Not really. Not when Stella moved like defiance was her only armor. And maybe I was done pretending I didn’t want to chase that. I didn’t know how she’d gotten under my skin so thoroughly less than twenty-four hours after arriving at our safe house, but there it was.

My mind ran through endless logic loops, trying to find the sense in it, but there was none to be found.

One moment I had no idea who this woman was, and the next moment there was an attraction so intense and unexpected it took my breath away and turned my brain to mush.

And normally I would just squash pesky feelings like this down, lock them away, never think about them again.

But this time, there was a variable I hadn’t accounted for, and couldn’t ignore.

I was certain that Stell had felt it, too.

The rope didn’t fight me as I took it apart.

It never did. That was the problem. Each knot loosened without protest, leaving only the creak of hemp brushing my hands as the harness unraveled cleanly.

Predictable. Calla’s skin would carry the faint outline until morning, but even that would fade, and with it, whatever pretense we’d clung to.

She stood by the cabinet, adjusting her camisole with polished detachment.

The space between us wasn’t hostile. Just hollow.

She didn’t ask for reasons or apologies.

That wasn’t her style. She slipped on her stockings with practiced care, voice quiet as she reached for the door.

“You don’t owe me anything. But I hope you find what you’re looking for. ”

I nodded because I didn’t have the words. The truth was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to find it. I wasn’t sure I could accept it if I did. But I knew this wasn’t it.

The door shut softly behind her. She hadn’t left the club, just the scene. And I stayed kneeling on the mat, rope pooled at my side like debris from something that never touched bone. My hands didn’t itch for more. They ached for different. For her .

I sat back on my heels, muscles wound tight, palms resting flat on my thighs like they were waiting for an order I hadn’t learned how to give.

The silence in the room had shifted. Not heavy.

Hollow. Like something scraped clean and left aching for a truth I hadn’t wanted to name.

None of it—the rope, the room, the girl—had touched what I needed.

It was never about control. Not really. Not the sweet submission or the practiced surrender. I didn’t need someone to kneel. I needed someone to fight. To bare their teeth. To make me earn it, inch by inch, until surrender carried weight.

I didn’t want compliance. I wanted resistance. Something that bit when you held it too tight. Something wild enough to make the bruises worth it.

What I got tonight was a shape that looked right, but felt wrong.

I dragged a hand down my face, jaw locked, tension spidering through every inch of bone and muscle. The scent of rope oil clung to my skin, but under that, I still felt her.

Stella.

The way she hit me like she meant it. The venom in her voice, low and sharp, spitting curses that could slice skin. That sound she made, not pain, not fear, but something primal had shredded my grip on control like it was never built to hold.

She hadn’t meant to give me anything. But she had.

And it stayed with me.

Still raw. Still burning, like a bruise I couldn’t stop pressing just to feel it again.

I coiled the rope without thinking—loop, turn, twist, pull.

The rhythm came back easily, loosening my shoulders, but not the hollow in my chest. I used to love this.

The bite of jute against muscle. The strain where tension met skin.

The breath a sub took before surrendering to stillness.

There was power in that. Not dominance, not ego, but something deeper.

Tonight, it felt empty. A ritual without fire.

Choreography with no soul. Just movement for movement’s sake.

The truth was, Stella wouldn’t kneel to please me.

Wouldn’t perform for praise. She’d kneel like it was a provocation, like she might bite through the rope and use it to strangle me.

And God help me, that did something to me.

Beneath the rage, the fear, and the venom she wielded like a weapon, there was something unshakably real. Something I couldn’t ignore.

Maybe I didn’t want blind submission. Maybe I wanted a choice. Her choice. Not obedience. Not approval. Just the moment when the fight in her stilled. When she gave herself over, not because I asked, but because she wanted to. Because she trusted me not to break her. Because she stayed.

I found Calla a few minutes later in the lounge, lacing her boots like none of it had touched her. She was calm. Perched on a bench, focused, quiet. Some subs needed blankets and whispers to come down. Calla didn’t. She never lingered. But I wasn’t about to let her leave without checking in.

“You good?” I asked. Not clipped. Just tired.

She looked up and met my eyes. The nod she gave me wasn’t out of habit. It was honest.

“I’m fine, Jax. You were careful. You always are.”

I handed her a bottle of water from the mini-fridge and dropped into the armchair across from her. She took a long drink, then held the bottle in both hands like it meant something.

“I didn’t mean to pull you in when I wasn’t all there,” I said after a beat. “I should’ve canceled.”

“You’re allowed to need an outlet,” she said gently, her voice steady.

“I knew what I was walking into. I trust you.” That hit harder than I expected.

I hadn’t earned that kind of faith tonight, but I’d done right by her, and that had to count for something.

She stood slowly, testing her weight, and I assessed her with the same practiced instinct I always used—breath, balance, color. She was steady. Grounded. Fine.

“Let me know if anything aches tomorrow,” I said as I stood and stepped forward to open the door.

“Always do.” She brushed past with a soft smile. “Get some rest, Jax. Don’t let whatever’s in your head ruin you. And Jax? I meant what I said before. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for.”

I waited until her footsteps dissolved into the velvet hush of the club, then turned back toward the rope room, where the tie mat still held the ghost of what we’d done.

Loops left loose. Knots half-undone. Like I’d known I wouldn’t finish the scene the way I began it.

I sat at the edge and picked up a coil, letting it slip slow through my hands.

It should’ve grounded me, but it didn’t.

The friction scraped raw. Grief bloomed where peace used to anchor.

I pulled tighter out of reflex, muscle memory taking over as thought spun jagged and directionless. It used to mean something; geometry made sacred by intention. Language older than want. A prayer in silence and tension. Every wrap a whisper of I see you . Every bind a promise of I’m still here .

I used to believe in that. The ritual. The unraveling.

The way a body gave itself away slowly until all that remained was breath and the echo of being held.

But tonight it felt performative, choreography dressed as meaning.

Movement pretending to be truth. As if surrender only counted when it ended in wreckage.

The rope burned against my palm as I cinched the last coil, the whisper of it folding into the stillness. I stared down at the finished length. Neat. Perfect. Technical. And I felt nothing.

Out of reflex more than purpose, I reached for my phone.

No messages. No missed calls. Just the blank pulse of the home screen.

I scrolled anyway, thumb hovering over the search like I could summon her name from instinct.

But Stella didn’t have a phone. And still, her absence hit harder than presence—louder, sharper, like something I should’ve been able to touch but never could.

I dropped the phone beside me, screen dark. No contact. No message. Just the weight of her still pressed beneath my ribs like a knot I didn’t know how to undo.

Perfect rope. Wrong girl.

Outside, the late summer air pressed warm against my skin, the humidity causing beads of sweat to appear on my forehead almost immediately.

I stood still, not moving, not thinking, just letting the silence settle around me.

Overhead, one of those cheap security lights buzzed and flickered like it wasn’t sure it cared enough to stay lit.

A car door slammed in the distance. Tires crushed gravel.

An engine rumbled low and steady as it pulled away.

I slid into the driver’s seat of my own car and let the door thud shut, leaving the engine off while I stared at the dash like it might offer clarity I hadn’t earned. My hands rested on the wheel. Not gripping. Not trembling. Just still.

Tonight wasn’t about Calla. And it wasn’t about the rope.

It was about the fact that I couldn’t fucking shake her .

Stella.

I didn’t know her. Not really. I knew the shape of her in shadows—stockinged feet in grass, moonlight kissing defiance into the lines of her jaw.

I knew the twitch of her muscles before she moved, the calculation in her eyes, the panic buried beneath all that rage.

I knew the weight of her against me. The way she fought even as I held her, the way her heart thundered through every inch of contact like she didn’t care if she lived or died as long as she did it on her own terms.

But I didn’t know her voice when it wasn’t weaponized. Didn’t know her laugh, if she remembered how to laugh at all. Didn’t know the rhythm of her thoughts, or the shape of her fears.

She wasn’t mine. I didn’t want her to be. That wasn’t what this was.

At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.

I didn’t want soft. I never had. Sweet never did a damn thing for me.

But forgettable? That, I couldn’t stomach.

And Stella—she was a scar already forming.

A question I didn’t want answered.She was sharp edges wrapped in control.

Wildfire masked as discipline. A woman who carried her anger like a weapon and didn’t blink when you met it head-on.

She didn’t look at me like a threat, or a fantasy, or a shield.

She looked at me like a puzzle she didn’t intend to solve, like a line she meant to cross just to see what I’d do when she did.

And maybe that was the part I couldn’t walk away from. The part with its teeth in me now, low and deep and permanent.

It wasn’t her body or her voice or even her defiance that undid me.

It was the way she made me feel like I was the one about to break.

I started the vehicle with a motion too familiar to mean anything, focused on the engine’s hum like it could anchor me, like it could drown out the memory of the rope cooling behind me and the girl I’d watched walk out of that room, kind and understanding and already fading from the part of me that mattered.

The road stretched ahead—dark, empty, familiar—but I didn’t feel any closer to leaving her behind. Not the ropes. Not the club. Her. The memory of her body mid-run, all instinct and adrenaline, heart crashing against mine like a dare.

I hadn’t wanted to catch her. Not really.

I’d wanted to see what part of me would follow if she got away.

And maybe that was the truth I hadn’t been ready to say out loud, not that I was looking for surrender, but that I’d spent years binding control when what I really craved was something wild enough to break it.