Page 43 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

Stella

The door clicked shut behind me as I entered Jax’s room, soft as a dare, and for a moment, I stood in the hush, barefoot on the hardwood, heart thudding like it might give away the ending before I even stepped inside.

Three days had passed since I’d told Jax I wanted to try again.

Three long, quiet days where nothing had happened—except everything.

Jax hadn’t pushed. Hadn’t hovered. He’d just given me space, the kind that meant something.

We had passed each other in the hallway, shared a room now and then, and every time, his eyes found mine like a question he didn’t need to voice.

And every time, I almost answered. Almost.

But it wasn’t just Jax haunting those in-between hours.

It was Violet. Her name lived under my skin like a current, soft but relentless, and I couldn’t stop wondering if she was scared, or hurt, or still believed I was coming.

No one else even knew she was gone. Not the Reapers.

Not the police. Just me, and the people who had taken her.

The ones who made the rules clear with a voice that didn’t leave room for doubt.

If I told anyone, she’d die. And I believed them, not out of fear, but certainty.

These weren’t people who bluffed. They didn’t threaten. They promised.

So, I stayed silent and wore the truth like armor laced with acid, letting it eat me from the inside while I played a role I didn’t believe in.

Every hour I kept my mouth shut tasted like betrayal, but each time I tried to speak, the image of her bleeding stopped me cold.

I told myself to think logically, that silence kept her safe, but fear doesn’t answer to logic.

It answers to loss. And my brain replayed every possibility like a broken reel, each one darker than the last, each one ending with me being too late.

The shame hit hardest when I admitted I had no real path forward.

The Reapers were chasing leads about the mafia’s bigger plans.

The cops had their theories about why they’d tried to steal my business.

None of them knew she was even missing. If I moved without clearance, I could get her killed.

And survival sometimes meant surrendering to what couldn’t be changed.

I couldn’t out-think trained killers, or stop a machine already in motion.

The most useful thing I could do was stay whole, hold my pieces together long enough to act when the world cracked open.

Because it would. And when it did, I needed to be the kind of woman Violet could look at and know; she came for me.

But tonight wasn’t about fear, or betrayal, or loss. It was about reclaiming myself. It was about proving that there was at least one person in this world that I could trust with my most vulnerable self, even if not my deepest truths.

Jax stood at the center of the room, barefoot and still.

His black T-shirt stretched across shoulders that had once pinned me down and held me up, sleeves cuffed around his arms like a habit he didn’t think about.

Scruff shadowed his jaw, catching the light in a way that made him look carved from something rough and unyielding.

He didn’t speak, just watched me with a steadiness that felt like gravity—anchored, patient, already waiting.

The bed behind him was neatly turned down, but it wasn’t the linens that caught my breath. It was what waited atop them: a stack of narrow white paper strips, a roll of tape, and silver scissors.

He nodded toward them like he was offering a truth instead of a toy.

“No rope tonight,” he said, voice low enough to hum along my spine.

“No knots. Just paper. You could break it with a flick of your wrist.” He stepped closer with a purpose that didn’t press, every move deliberate and quiet as sin.

“That’s the point,” he murmured. “I don’t want you trapped. I want you to choose.”

My chest pulled tight, not with fear, but with something deeper.

That kind of ache that only comes when someone sees every bent, bruised shape you’ve tried to hide, and doesn’t look away.

I hadn’t felt whole since waking up in my bedroom after being kidnapped.

It was like they’d stolen not only my peace, but a part of my soul.

But Jax didn’t want perfection. He wanted openness. He offered softness like it was strength. Surrender, not as a prize to be earned, but a gift I was free to give. I could walk away. And the fact that he trusted me to draw the line made me want to give him everything.

He led me to the center of the room and stood facing me, close enough that I could feel his breath, and see the steady throbbing of his pulse in the veins of his neck.

When he spoke again, his voice had taken on a different edge.

He wasn’t just Jax the computer whiz anymore.

He was in charge in a way I was only beginning to understand.

“Tonight is all about choosing the restraints. Knowing that I will untie you from rope is one thing, but understanding that you can rip the restraint away easily at any point drives the truth home in a deeper way. Choosing to remain under my control becomes an act of victory, not just surrender. Does that make sense?”

I nodded my understanding. He gave a brief smile and lifted one hand to cup my cheek. The touch was electric, and my breath stuttered for a moment, causing his smile to deepen. “Good girl. Are you ready? We are going to begin now.”

He met my gaze like he already knew the answer. When he reached for the first strip of paper, I didn’t flinch. This wasn’t just about control. It was about reverence. And I was done pretending I didn’t want to be worshipped.

“Can I have your wrist?” he asked, voice spun from velvet and heat. Not a command, but an invitation shaped to fit the space between fear and freedom.

I gave it to him slowly, like the offering it was.

My wrist lifted with purpose, not panic, because this wasn’t just about restraint.

It was about trust, the kind that lived in scars, and still chose softness.

His fingers curled around mine with care sharp as devotion, and when the paper wrapped my skin, it didn’t bind.

It whispered. A vow without demands. A question I didn’t have to answer.

He sealed it gently, then leaned in. His breath grazed my ear, his mouth close enough to tilt the axis of the room.

“You could rip it,” he said, low and steady. “Right now. It all ends.”

His words landed softly, but struck like a match across dry stone, and my whole body stilled beneath the weight of something I hadn’t realized I needed until this moment, even though he had already explained it.

I could stop this. He would let me. No questions, no consequences, just quiet consent.

And still, every part of me throbbed with the truth that I didn’t want to stop. I wanted him to keep going.

“You won’t,” he said, his mouth brushing the edge of my jaw. “You want to see how far I’ll go.”

His hand found my waist, anchoring and hot, and when his thumb slid just beneath the hem of my shirt, my knees wavered under the sudden heaviness of want. “You want to be held together,” he murmured, “without being held down.”

The truth in those words brought something raw and buried straight to the surface. Shame curled into longing, and I let him see it all. I didn’t look away. Didn’t brace. I stayed open while the silence stretched, until my voice returned in a whisper that trembled but didn’t break.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, Jax.” His name left my mouth like a promise, and something in his eyes changed.

Heat and reverence catching like fire. He reached for another strip of paper, and I gave him my other wrist, watching as he secured it with more tape, then looped a third strip between both wrists, binding them together like origami handcuffs.

This was never about power. It was about being wanted without question.

And for the first time, I didn’t want to hide from that.

He dropped to his knees, one hand on my ankle, the other lifting paper with care. “You ever notice how quiet the world gets when someone touches you just right?” he asked, wrapping the strip like it meant more than restraint. “Like your body finally stops shouting.”

I looked down, heart pounding. “Are you always this poetic when you tie girls up with printer paper?”

He smirked as he sealed the strip. “Only the ones who pretend they don’t want to be worshipped.” Then he looked up. No teasing. Just a quiet promise.

“I’m aware,” I murmured.

“Good.” His mouth curved as he sealed another strip. He leaned in slowly, the rasp of his scruff dragging across my calf like he meant for me to remember it. Like he wanted to mark me without leaving a trace.

A noise caught in my throat, but he didn’t pull away. “You make the prettiest sounds when you don’t mean to.”

I rolled my eyes, trying to cover the whimper building behind my pride. “God, you’re arrogant.”

“No,” he said, rising with unhurried grace. “Just observant.”

He reached for the next strip and glanced at my shorts. I slid them down. He didn’t leer. Just exhaled, like I’d given him something sacred.

My shirt skimmed the tops of my thighs, but he didn’t reach beneath it. Not yet. He stepped in close, knuckles grazing skin and leaving goosebumps in their wake. No one had ever touched me with reverence like this.

He ran the paper across my thigh, slow and deliberate. When he spoke again, his voice had roughened. “You’re soft here.”

“Observant again?” I asked, reaching for sass as he taped the ring in place.

His gaze lifted, eyes dark with promise. “Greedy, actually. Trying to memorize what it feels like, in case I don’t get the chance again.”