Page 27 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

This time, I held the ripcord without clinging. The first wrap circled my arms, warm and smooth, brushing skin that had nearly forgotten what intention felt like. It didn’t bite. It whispered. It didn’t feel like a basement, or cold tile, or mildew-stained air. It felt like now.

“This is still your body,” he said. “I’m not here to take anything. Just here with you.”

Another wrap followed. My breath caught, not in fear, but with something lower and hotter, something I didn’t have language for yet. It pressed behind my ribs like the moment before a scream or a moan. My eyes drifted closed before I could stop them.

That’s when it crept in. The memory. The cold. The sound of chains. My body locked. Hands shook. “I can feel them again,” I whispered.

“Open your eyes.”

He wasn’t commanding. Just guiding. Steady. I opened them to find him in front of me now, crouched low, gaze anchored to mine. “They’re not here. This isn’t then. This isn’t them. This is your moment. Your rope. Your rules.”

My fingers twitched on the cord. “But what if I can’t tell the difference?”

“You don’t have to. That’s my job. You stay honest.”

I nodded, throat tight. It burned, but I did it.

He kept going, slower now. The next wraps came like breath, steady and deliberate.

They held me without binding. Kissed without claiming.

And inside that stillness, I realized I didn’t want to pull the cord.

Not while I could breathe. Not while my body still said, this is mine .

He didn’t finish the tie. Left it open on purpose. No knot. No closure.

“If you want out,” he said, “simply say the word.”

But I didn’t want out. And that was more powerful than the fear.

I didn’t flinch when he reached again. Didn’t pull away as he began to remove the rope once again.

The panic still shimmered beneath the surface, a ripple waiting to crest, but it didn’t break through.

I stayed upright, cross-legged on the blanket he’d given me, and when I watched him prep the rope again, hands slow and steady, it didn’t feel like something ending.

It felt like design.

He moved with intent, every gesture quiet, each fingertip brushing the rope like it held meaning only he could read. When his gaze met mine, there was no urgency. Just calm.

“We’ll start fresh. Clean rope. Clean energy. No tension. Just placement.”

He said it like a man outlining a process, not testing my limits.

I wasn’t being measured. There was nothing to prove.

He handed me the ripcord again, even slower this time, not as a safeguard, but as a signal.

I took it and let my hand settle around the loop, eyes drifting shut for a breath to feel the jute—warm, textured, anchoring.

It didn’t punish. It didn’t shrink me. It reminded me that I still had a say.

This wasn’t compliance. This was consent.

He shifted behind me, knees bracketing the blanket. Close, but never crowding. I felt the brush of his breath near my shoulder as he spoke.

“I’m going to wrap your forearms. Loose at first. You control the signal. Say the word, and we stop. That simple.”

“Okay.” I said, nodding my understanding.

He gave a subtle nod in return, then began.

The first pass skimmed my skin, barely there, but impossible to miss.

My breath caught at the sensation. Every fiber of jute.

The position of his hand. The space thickened around us.

Heat. Presence. Gravity. He moved with precision, symmetry, and care.

Each wrap was placed with purpose. It didn’t feel like control.

It felt like structure. A frame I could stand inside.

Memory clawed at the edges—the warehouse, the zip ties, the scream I hadn’t let out. My chest tightened, but Jax’s voice found me before the spiral took hold.

“You’re doing perfectly. You’re not there. You’re here.”

His words weren’t soft. They were steady. And they pulled me back. I inhaled, slow and deliberate, anchoring myself in the cedar-thick air and the friction of rope against skin. I didn’t pull the cord. I breathed through it.

The rope didn’t confine. It held. Supported.

Each loop felt like a thread stitching me back together.

Somewhere in the shift, my jaw loosened.

My shoulders dropped. My grip on the ripcord softened.

When he tied the final knot, it wasn’t meant to bind.

It was just a closing of the movement. His way of saying you choose when it ends .

There was no added pressure. There didn’t need to be. His presence was enough. And with it came something I hadn’t expected. An internal settling that wasn’t loud or dramatic, but honest.

I adjusted slightly, letting the rope take more of my weight.

It wasn’t armor. It wasn’t a cage. It was a boundary made of texture and touch, and for the first time, it felt like something I owned.

When I opened my eyes, he was still behind me.

Still and silent. Not waiting for a reaction. Just holding space.

And for once, I didn’t want to run from my body.

I stayed. Because I could.

When he finally began untying me, the rope didn’t fall away.

It released me, quiet and patient, like a breath leaving after being held too long.

Jax’s hands moved with the same reverence they’d had tying it, unhurried, intentional.

Each loop came free like it carried weight, not just across my arms, but from deeper places I hadn’t realized were still bound.

I didn’t move right away, afraid any shift might disturb the fragile calm.

My skin still hummed where the rope had been, and its absence pressed in like a bruise; tender but grounding.

Jax didn’t crowd me. He stayed behind, quiet, giving the moment space to breathe.

His presence didn’t intrude. He was intentional, not invasive.

He wasn’t analyzing or fixing; he was witnessing.

My hands moved to my arms without thought.

Not to rub. Not to erase. I didn’t want the feeling to fade.

I wanted to keep it. My fingers skimmed where the jute had rested, and I realized I missed it—the weight, the stillness, the clarity.

“How do you feel?” he asked, his voice low but steady.

I didn’t answer at first. The truth felt too large to hand over in fragments. I looked down, tracing the heat still lingering beneath my skin, then said quietly, “Like my body’s mine again.”

He didn’t smile. Didn’t offer a quippy line to wrap the moment.

Just nodded, something loosening in his frame, like tension I hadn’t noticed had finally let go.

Then he rose, smooth and quiet, giving me space to do the same.

No outstretched hand. No softening gesture.

I appreciated that. I didn’t need help. I needed to feel the shift for myself.

When I stood, it wasn’t graceful, but it was solid.

My body felt stronger, heavier in a way that grounded rather than weighed me down, like I’d finally landed inside it after hovering somewhere above for too long.

I turned toward the window, letting the sunlight reach me.

Late afternoon had turned the trees to gold, shadows long and feathered across the clearing like brushstrokes.

It all felt sharper. More present. I didn’t know if it was the rope, or Jax, or something inside me that had quietly turned a corner.

Still facing the glass, I let the question slip before I could second-guess it. “What would an actual scene be like?”

Behind me, the air didn’t move, but it focused.

I didn’t turn, but I felt it. That dense quiet that forms when someone chooses not to speak too fast. When I finally looked, he hadn’t stepped forward.

Just watched me with that calm, weighty stillness that said more than words.

There was no surprise in his eyes. Just clarity.

I held his gaze. He didn’t blink or soften. Just tilted his head slightly, assessing.

“Are you asking out of intellectual curiosity,” he said, voice even, “or because you are considering the experience on a personal level?”

I didn’t flinch. “Maybe both.”

Silence stretched again, this time warmer, slower. Heat coiled in my chest like smoke. He stepped forward once, then stopped.

“You’re not just asking what I’d do to your body,” he said, reading me in that unsettlingly accurate way once more. “You’re asking what it would mean.”

My pulse jumped. “And?”

“It would start with trust. With clearly defined boundaries and deliberate negotiation. A framework constructed from a shared language specific to us. It would start with consent.”

The words sank into me, low and deliberate, and something inside tightened. My breath caught. I didn’t look away. “Then maybe I want to learn the language.”

His jaw shifted, barely, but the rest of him changed with it. Like the weight of that admission had already found a home in him.

“Then let’s begin.”

He turned without another word and moved toward the far wall.

There was nothing showy in the way he opened the drawer, but the economy of it—the control, the ease—made it hard to look away.

He returned with a black notebook and a pen, sitting again against the cedar wall with that same restrained intensity, all power and quiet restraint.

The rope between us stayed coiled, but I could feel it, like it remembered me.

I settled in across from him, folding my legs, feeling the buzz of something electric thickening in the air. My arms felt too bare. My skin missed the pressure. The wrap. The possession.

He looked up, and it was clinical and carnal all at once. “We will start where one should always start in this type of situation.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to sound composed, and failing. “What’s that?”

“Limits first. Hard limits are off-limits. Always. Soft limits are the edges, what you’re unsure about, what needs conditions.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What, like you beating me?”