Page 26 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

Stella

If I’d had any sense, I would have left the second I saw the rope still sitting there, half-coiled, half-undone, like it hadn’t finished speaking.

It looked patient in the way only dangerous things are, daring me to come closer and un-spool the question I hadn’t known how to shape.

But I didn’t leave. I stayed, curled at the edge of his rug with my spine against the wall, knees pulled tight, arms looped around them like I could brace for something that was already happening beneath my ribs.

Jax hadn’t moved. He sat across from me in the same position he’d taken after finishing the last tie, posture steady, forearms resting on his thighs, back straight like it was carved that way.

He didn’t speak or shift, just let the silence stretch while my whole body buzzed beneath my skin, too many thoughts knotted too close to separate.

The light had changed while we sat there.

Afternoon warmth spilled across the floor, gilding the rope where it lay between us, catching in the fibers as if it meant to make them sacred.

Even the air had thickened, heavy with something I couldn’t name—reverence, or warning, maybe both.

My gaze dropped to the rope. Then him. Then back again.

“I don’t get it,” I said. The words fractured the stillness like a crack in glass.

He didn’t answer immediately. Just watched, quiet and still, like he was waiting for the truth I hadn’t said yet.

I gestured vaguely toward the rope, hand limp.

“I mean, I think I understand what you said about why you like to do the tying, but I don’t understand why someone would allow you to do that to them .

Why would anyone want that? Being tied up.

Letting someone that close. Isn’t the point to protect yourself from that? ”

His expression didn’t shift, but the space between us tightened.

“It’s not actually about surrendering power,” he said, voice low. “It’s about determining where that power is directed. You give it intentionally, with structured safeguards and the option to withdraw at any moment.”

I folded my arms, not to argue, but because I didn’t know how to admit how much that made something ache.

“Still sounds like therapy with rope burns,” I muttered.

That drew a ghost of a smile, slanted and brief but real.

“I’ve heard stranger comparisons,” he said. “But it isn’t centered on pain. Or at least, not only pain. It’s about sensation, about deliberate focus. It creates a framework that encourages full embodiment. Living in your body becomes an active process.”

I looked at the rope again, my brow tightening. “And what if someone doesn’t want to live in their body?”

He tilted his head slightly, not condescending, just attentive. “Then that’s probably worth exploring further. But when it comes to rope, there isn’t much space to dissociate. You feel everything. That is the point.”

I didn’t answer right away. The silence was filled with more than hesitation. It held memory. Fear. Longing. All the ghosts I hadn’t quite exorcised.

Jax shifted slightly, not forward, not back. Just enough to deepen his presence.

“I could demonstrate,” he said. “Not a full tie. Not a scene. Just… sensory input. A method for reconnecting with your body, if that’s something you’re open to.”

My whole body tensed at the offer. Not because I was afraid of him, but because I had no idea what to expect. I’d never been around kinky stuff like this in my life, and it was a bit overwhelming. I’d have been lying if I’d said I wasn’t a tiny bit curious, though.

His tone remained soft. Measured. “You’d be in control the entire time. I’ll explain everything in advance, before initiating any physical contact. And if you change your mind, we stop immediately.”

It wasn’t a line. It wasn’t a dare. It was an offering. One without strings, except, of course, the ones he held in his hands.

“I…” I swallowed, throat tight. “Yeah. Okay. Just to see.”

“Good.” He nodded once, his voice like low percussion, steady enough to ground a melody. “We’ll start slow. And we’ll stop slower.”

I watched him uncoil the rope in his lap, his hands deliberate and sure. There was something ritualistic in the way he handled it, like it deserved respect.

“You keep tracking the movement in my hands,” he said, not looking up. “That kind of focused attention usually correlates with unspoken cognitive processing. You’re trying to formulate a question.”

I blinked. “Do you always read people this well?”

He looked at me then, gaze sharp but not unkind. “Not always. But your body language is basically shouting at me.”

I hesitated. Then asked the thing I hadn’t wanted to put words to. “Have you ever tied someone who panicked?”

“Yes,” he said. No hesitation. “More than once.”

“And?”

“I untied them as quickly as I could. Sat with them until they felt safe. Then I usually made them peppermint tea.”

That caught me off guard enough to draw out a surprised breath. “Tea?”

“I find that it has a calming effect on the nervous system. Helps bring the body down gently.”

“Of course you know that,” I muttered, not quite rolling my eyes.

His mouth tilted, amused now. “Of course.” Then quieter, steady. “I won’t push you. Not now. Not ever.”

Something in me released. Not completely. But enough.

He spread the rope across his lap, flattening the fibers with the backs of his knuckles. “You'll feel every step. No surprises.”

I nodded. Once, then again, softer. “Okay.”

That word felt heavier than it should have. But it was mine.

He didn’t crowd me. He never did. Every move was deliberate, telegraphed, slow enough I could have stopped it with a breath. I didn’t. I wanted to prove to him, to myself, that I could do this.

The first loop brushed across my forearm, light as air, but my body reacted like it was iron. My chest seized. Heat flared sharply under my skin. I told myself it was just rope. Just fiber. Just touch. But the moment it circled a second time, the air fractured.

The cedar walls blurred. The floor dropped.

Suddenly it wasn’t Jax’s hands anymore; it was theirs.

Rough, faceless, unrelenting men who had jumped me without warning and bundled me into a van without windows.

The scrape of jute turned to the bite of plastic cuffs.

The room filled with damp concrete, mildew, chains clinking in the dark. My pulse detonated in my throat.

“Breathe,” Jax said softly, steady as bedrock.

But I couldn’t. My lungs locked. Panic roared up from the basement of my memory and drowned me. My fingers clenched the ripcord so hard the loop burned against my skin, and before the scream could claw its way out, I yanked.

Everything stopped. Instantly.

The rope fell away like it had never been there, and his hands were gone so fast it stunned me. No hesitation. No argument. Just release.

My body curled in on itself before I could stop it, arms folding over the places that had been touched as if I could erase the ghost of it. I shook so hard my teeth hurt. Breath came shallow and useless.

“You’re safe.” His voice cut through the static—low, even, certain.

I lifted my eyes. He hadn’t moved an inch closer. He stayed exactly where he was, steady and unshaken, like he knew the last thing I needed was anyone reaching for me. He didn’t analyze. Didn’t fix. He just waited.

The panic came in waves, jagged and merciless, each one breaking me open a little more. I pressed my fists to my knees, fighting the urge to bolt, but the rope lay limp in my lap—undone, harmless. It looked almost pitiful, nothing like the monster my mind had made it.

And slowly, painfully, my body remembered the truth: I had pulled the cord. I had stopped it. I had chosen.

By the time the tremors eased, my throat burned raw with unshed words. I didn’t know if I wanted to sob or scream, only that I’d been cracked open in a way I couldn’t hide anymore.

Jax didn’t speak. He sat with me in the quiet, elbows braced on his knees, gaze soft but focused. Not sharp. Not forceful. Just present. And somehow, that settled something inside me.

“I can do this.” I said finally. “I’m stronger than that. I want to try again.”

“You don’t have to prove anything,” he said finally, voice low, stripped of challenge. “Not to me. Not to yourself.”

I rubbed a hand down my face, trying to shake off the static still buzzing under my skin. “That’s the thing, though. I do.”

He tilted his head slightly, the way he always did when looking for what I wasn’t saying. “Why?”

“Because I walked out of that basement and told myself it didn’t matter. That I was fine. But one strand of rope and….” I shook my head. “I panicked. So either I’m lying to myself, or there’s something still buried.”

“You can be strong,” he said, “and still need healing.”

It landed deeper than I expected. Like he spoke directly to the part of me I’d hidden. I exhaled, slow and uneven.

“Do you ever get tired of being the calm one?”

He almost smiled. “Not yet.”

He reached for a new coil—smoother, loose in his hands, nothing threatening about it.

“If you are willing to try again, we’ll proceed more slowly.

You’ll hold the ripcord, same as before.

If something feels wrong, even for a moment, you pull.

Everything ceases immediately. No hesitation. No judgment.”

I looked at the rope. Then at him. Then nodded.

He unspooled the jute with quiet care, letting it glide through his fingers like it meant something more. It didn’t look like restraint. It looked like a language. Like intention. Maybe even a prayer.

He moved behind me, close enough to feel but not to touch. “I’m going to loop it around your forearms. Same place. No pressure yet. Is that acceptable?”

“Yeah.”