Page 30 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

They were gone, but the charge remained, clinging like static to the corners of the room. My pulse hadn’t steadied. The air still felt claimed, marked by something I didn’t have language for. The book in my lap blurred into white noise, the words collapsing beneath the hum building in my chest.

I wasn’t alone.

A soft rustle caught my ear, barely more than fabric against skin.

I turned and found her, Bellamy, curled in the oversized armchair like she’d been there for hours, watching.

One leg was tucked beneath her, the other stretched beneath a worn throw, her Kindle balanced loosely in her hands.

She wore a gray tank, dark sweatpants, her hair twisted into a messy knot, but nothing about her looked careless. Even her stillness felt chosen.

Her eyes—cool, dark, alert—were locked on me with unnerving precision.

“She can be kind of a lot, huh?” she said, voice low and even, her mouth curving just slightly.

The dry timing caught me off guard. I let out a sound, almost a laugh, more breath than voice. “You could say that.”

Bellamy tilted her head, amusement sparking brighter. “Not what you’d expect from someone under house arrest in witness protection.”

“No,” I said, shifting on the couch. “She’s like… glitter in human form. With unresolved issues and zero off-switch.”

She snorted. “More like a sexy golden retriever with trauma.”

That startled an actual laugh out of me. I shot her a sideways glance. “Jesus. That’s disturbingly accurate.”

“She grows on you,” Bellamy said, eyes flicking back to her Kindle. She turned the page with a lazy swipe, though I caught the way she watched me in her periphery, measuring the shape of my edges without testing them.

My gaze dropped to the device, brow furrowing. “Wait. I thought electronics weren’t allowed. No signals, no networked anything.”

“They’re not,” she said, tone warm, unapologetic. “This one’s stripped. No browser. No apps. Carrick rebuilt it from scratch. I begged. Repeatedly.”

Something in the casual way she said it made my chest tighten.

I frowned. “That sounds pretty controlling.”

She didn’t laugh or explain. Didn’t defend him. She lowered the Kindle to her lap, folded her hands, and met my gaze. Her eyes didn’t flash or harden. They steadied, not confrontational, just solid.

“Yeah,” she said. “It is.”

The word held a deeper truth than I’d expected. Not an excuse, but ownership.

She shifted slightly, the blanket slipping lower on her hips. One hand tucked beneath her thigh, the other rested on her knee, calm and deliberate. Her voice softened, not rehearsed, but sure.

“But it’s the kind of control I chose. I gave it to him.

Not because I had to, or didn’t know how to survive on my own, but because I was tired of fighting the world with my teeth bared and my fists up.

When I let Carrick take control; not of me, but of space, structure, and safety, I wasn’t giving up power. I was claiming peace.”

I held her gaze, a strange pressure blooming in the hollow of my chest. “You make it sound like giving up control is some kind of freedom.”

“It is,” she said without hesitation. “When you do it on purpose . When it’s negotiated, trusted, and earned. When it’s given, not taken.”

I blinked, trying to process that. I didn’t disagree, not exactly. But it was such a foreign concept, all this kinky stuff. I still wasn’t sure I’d wrapped my head around it.

“So…” I said, reaching for footing. “You and Carrick. You’re together? And it’s… kinky?”

Bellamy gave me a look like I’d asked if water was wet. “Oh, it’s very kinky.”

“And it’s not just him?”

She shook her head, smile deepening. “There’s not a guy in this house who isn’t kinky in some form. They’re all wired for it—power, control, connection. Each one just speaks it a little differently.”

I studied her face, the calm way she said it, like we were discussing favorite movies. “You’re serious.”

“Dead serious. Some lean Dominant. A few are service tops. One’s a sadist. But none of them are dangerous, not in the way you think. They don’t use kink to take something. They use it to give. To connect. To build trust, especially where trust didn’t come easy.”

The room felt warmer. Closer. My fingers drifted to my arm, brushing over skin like I might find a bruise that wasn’t there. “I always thought kink was… abusive,” I admitted. “About power and control. About taking something. Humiliation. Degradation. Hurting people who didn’t know how to say no.”

Bellamy didn’t flinch. She didn’t correct me either. She let it land, let the air clear, then spoke, quiet and sure.

“Not here.”

Her voice was calm, like stone under water. “Here, it’s about choice. About surrendering because you want to. Trusting someone to hold you while you come undone. Letting go in a way that makes you feel seen, not erased.”

I turned toward her fully now, no longer pretending I wasn’t invested. “And it’s… safe?”

Bellamy nodded. “Always. Unless you ask them to make it unsafe.”

My brow furrowed, and her expression shifted, softened.

“There’s a big difference between danger and damage,” she said. “And this house? We do danger really fucking well. But damage? That’s the line.”

I stared at her, something unspooling in my chest. She didn’t look like someone who’d been overpowered. She looked like someone who’d taken her power back in a way most people wouldn’t understand, and was better for it.

That terrified me, because for the first time, it didn’t sound like a threat, or surrender.

It sounded like a possibility.

And I didn’t know if I was ready for what came after that.

“So, how did it start between you two? Did you ask him to do those… things to you?”

“No,” Bellamy said with a small smile. “He offered. And I said yes.”

The pause that followed was quiet but full. I looked down at my hands, still in my lap, fingers twitchy, like they needed something to grip or fight. I didn’t know what to do with this tenderness. It felt intimate. And it felt like danger, too.

I cleared my throat. “And what if you’d said no?”

She didn’t blink. “Then he would’ve respected that.”

I gave her a look. “Just like that.”

“Just like that,” she repeated. “Consent isn’t conditional. It’s not an obstacle course he has to beat to get what he wants. It’s the whole game.”

I narrowed my eyes slightly. “Okay, but let’s be honest. He’s a man. And he’s hot. And intimidating as hell. Are you seriously telling me he would’ve just… walked away?”

Bellamy laughed. “Carrick would’ve backed off so fast it would’ve made your head spin. And then probably muttered something about how I clearly had bad taste.”

That surprised a snort out of me. “Okay, now that sounds more believable.”

She shrugged, still smiling. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s intense. And once I said yes, he became relentless. But never without permission. And never without checking in. Even when I didn’t realize I needed him to.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, chewing on her words, letting them settle in pieces. “That sounds like a fairytale,” I muttered.

Her expression softened. “Sometimes it can feel like that, sure. But not always. When you are first learning about kink, you think you understand how intense it can get, especially emotionally. But you learn pretty quickly that being that vulnerable, even with yourself, takes time and trust. I’ve had scenes that were just a hot, sexy good time, but I have also broken down and cried in the middle of more scenes than I can count. .”

That startled me. “Seriously?”

She nodded. “Oh yeah. The first time Carrick and I were together after my brother died, I fucking ugly cried. On my knees. Couldn’t breathe. My head was all over the place. I felt exposed and terrified and angry at myself for wanting what I wanted.”

My voice was quieter. “And he didn’t stop?”

“He did,” she said. “He stopped the scene. He pulled me into his lap, wrapped a blanket around me, and held me until I came back to myself.”

I exhaled slowly, something between grief and longing curling in my chest.

“And then what?” I asked.

“Then I asked him to keep going,” she said. “And he didn’t… not that night. But the next day, we sat down and had a conversation about limits and triggers and headspace and aftercare, and….”

I raised a hand. “Whoa, whoa. Aftercare ?”

Bellamy grinned. “It’s exactly what it sounds like.

You don’t just walk away from something that intense without taking care of each other.

Sometimes it’s physical, blankets, water, food.

Sometimes it’s emotional reassurance, decompression, cuddling.

Sometimes it’s silence and a safe space.

But it’s always there. Because if there’s no aftercare, it’s not a scene. It’s an emotional drive-by.”

I blinked at her. “That’s… more nurturing than I expected.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “It is.”

Silence again, but now it was gentler. There was something about the way she said it—soft, certain—that made me want to say something I hadn’t meant to share.

“I’ve never had anyone take care of me like that,” I said before I could stop myself.

Bellamy didn’t react with pity. She didn’t soften her tone like I’d just admitted something fragile. She just looked at me with that same steady calm and said, “Then they weren’t worthy of you.”

I stared at her, throat tight.

She leaned back, stretching her arms out over the blanket. “You know what the hardest part of submission is?”

I shook my head.

“Letting yourself want,” she said. “Not needing. Wanting . That’s what terrifies us. Because when you need something, it’s survival. But when you want something? That means you could lose it. That’s where the real vulnerability is.”

I laughed, bitter and automatic. “Yeah, well. Wanting gets you hurt.”

She nodded. “So does holding your breath forever.”

Touché.