Page 45 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

Jax

She gave me her wrists like an offering.

No ceremony, no fanfare, just the quiet certainty of a woman who’d made a decision.

And maybe that was what hit me hardest. Not the act itself, but the way she trembled slightly and still didn’t pull back.

Her hands hovered between us, tentative and open, her pulse visible beneath delicate skin like the beat of a war drum muffled under silk.

The rope, already warm in my hands, coiled like breath before a confession.

I unspooled it slowly, easing tension from the fibers as I stepped in closer.

She didn’t stiffen or shift. Her eyes tracked each movement, cataloging expression, breath, muscle twitch.

High-level threat assessment in real time.

The survivor in her, still scanning. But the woman?

She was giving me a chance. Daring me to be careful. Daring me to be worth it.

“You sure?” I kept my voice low, the sound a steadying line through the static between us. I didn’t move closer. Didn’t break her radius. Consent wasn’t just the ask; it was the pause after.

“I am,” she breathed. The sound barely registered, but the steadiness did.

Only then did I move, closing the gap until her heat reached mine.

I wrapped the first pass around her wrists, slow and deliberate.

Let her feel every drag of rope, every ounce of intention.

She exhaled hard through her nose, but didn’t flinch.

She watched my hands like they held prophecy.

Like she was memorizing the rhythm of care.

I shifted her arms slightly, adjusting the angle with methodical precision.

Each wrap was placed with clean geometry, a visual thesis on resilience.

Most people misunderstood restraint. They thought it was about removal.

It wasn’t. Done right, it was a revelation.

You showed someone what had been there all along.

“You could end this, just like with the paper.” I said, brushing below her palm. “One word, and you’re free.”

She didn’t hesitate. “But I won’t.”

No defiance. No doubt. Just fact. A woman choosing stillness, not because she had to, but because she could. My breath caught in my throat. That wasn’t surrender. That was strength.

“I trust you,” she added, quieter now. “And I don’t say that lightly.”

The weight of it settled deep, not as a burden, but as an anchor. The kind of gravity that changes your center of mass. I finished the final knot, smoothing the line as I stepped back to see her.

She was flushed, upright, with no collapse in her frame. Her wrists were wrapped in clean lines. Her shoulders were still drawn, but her face had changed—eased, softened. Like something inside her had stilled for the first time in a long while.

“You’re not tied to me,” I said, voice thicker than I liked. “You’re tethered to yourself. I’m just here to keep you steady while you hold the line.”

She didn’t blink. Just looked at me for a long, suspended second before stepping forward. Not stumbling. Not falling. Just... closing the distance. Like she wanted to get near enough that my meaning became touch instead of sound.

Her bound hands met my chest. Not forcefully, just enough pressure to feel the shape of my heartbeat under her palms. Her skin was hot. Her breath was even hotter where it ghosted against my neck.

“I don’t need saving,” she said.

“I know,” I replied, letting the rope between us shift slightly. “You never did.”

“But I do need this.”

“Then it’s yours,” I said. “All of it. Me. The rope. The quiet. The fire. The goddamn stars, if you want them.”

She studied me like she didn’t quite believe it. Then something in her eased, barely, but enough to notice. Not weakness. Just honesty surfacing through tension.

“You’re not like the others,” she said.

“No,” I told her. “I’m the one who sees you.”

She didn’t smile or pull away. Just breathed. And somehow, it felt louder than anything else in the room. Her wrists stayed at my chest, her head tilted toward my shoulder like she needed somewhere to rest but wasn’t ready to say so.

I didn’t move or guide. Just stayed with her, breath steady, matching her rhythm until her forearms softened. When her weight shifted into a lean, I stayed grounded beneath it. That kind of silence meant something. You didn’t get it for free.

When she finally spoke, it came out raw. “Do you know how hard it is to feel safe in a body that’s been in survival mode for weeks?”

I swallowed. “Yeah. I do.”

She tilted her head as if the answer surprised her. Her eyes searched mine for contradiction.

“Then how do you make it feel easy?” she asked.

I let out a breath. “It’s not easy. It’s intentional. Every second with you is a choice to stay soft when I was trained to be sharp. You’re worth that.”

She looked away, like the words were too much, and I didn’t push. I just moved with her, slow steps toward the bed, rope shifting slightly with each motion. She sat, legs close to mine, hands curled in her lap, elbows drawn in like she still needed the armor.

“Lie back for me,” I said. “Only if you want.”

She paused, not out of fear, but because letting go takes its own kind of strength.

And she gave it. Slowly, she reclined, spine curving into the mattress, wrists resting gently over her stomach.

Her hair spilled across the pillow like a sigh.

She looked like something deliberate. Something claimed.

I knelt beside the bed and placed my hand on her knee. “I’m not going to take from you,” I said. “I’ll hold whatever you give. Whatever you need to let go of.”

She swallowed and shut her eyes for one beat. Then, she opened them again.

“What if it’s too much?”

“Then I’ll hold it longer.”

“And if I break?”

“Then I’ll remind you that you’re allowed to.”

She looked at me like she wasn’t sure whether to kiss me or cry, and I could’ve lived a thousand lives in that expression.

But instead, I leaned in and kissed the side of her knee, then her thigh, then the soft crease where her hip met the edge of her lower lips.

Each touch was deliberate. I wasn’t trying to provoke.

I was trying to rebuild her from the bones out.

She exhaled again, this time like her ribs had finally let go of something they’d held too long.

When her hips lifted slightly, it wasn’t frantic or pleading. It was permission.

I didn’t reach for her like a starving man at a feast, though every part of me ached with need.

Not just for the curve of her hips or the heat in her skin, but for the vulnerable defiance in her gaze.

The kind of offer you don’t snatch. You earn it.

Carefully. Intentionally. Like peeling open a relic you’re scared will disappear if you move too fast. So I knelt.

My knees hit the floor with the kind of weight I only felt in two places—combat and worship.

She sat at the edge of the bed, legs parted, heart visible in the flutter of her throat.

The paper still curled around one thigh like a fragile crown, the last remnant of what I’d peeled away.

Everything else had been removed with slow hands, like old armor I refused to tear.

Just one piece remained. One deliberate tether.

Just enough to say, I see what you’re holding.

I will not take it. I’ll wait until you offer it freely.

I lifted my hand and grazed my knuckles along her thigh beside the strip. Her breath hitched.

“You still want to leave this one on?” I asked, my voice low, steady. Not just a question, but an anchor.

She nodded at first, then stilled. Remembered. “Yes,” she said softly. “Leave it.”

When I looked up and met her gaze, something shifted in the air.

She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t hesitant. She was letting me see the unfiltered version of her desire; and that kind of honesty didn’t just spark hunger.

It rewrote gravity. Every command I’d ever given felt like preparation for this one moment.

“Tell me,” I said, reverence and heat braided into every syllable. “Tell me you want this. Tell me what you need.”

She hesitated, jaw twitching like the words scraped their way out. And then, brave as hell, she gave them to me.

“I want your mouth again. Please.”

The words hit like flame, searing through every thread of control I’d kept wound tight.

My grip on her thigh tightened, not rough, just enough to tether us.

That kind of truth didn’t arrive dressed for seduction.

It came bare. Shaking. Willing to risk being seen.

This was the same woman who once tucked her hunger behind silence, now claiming pleasure like it was hers to take, not beg for.

“My mouth, hmm?” I teased her gently, not wanting to break the reverence of the moment. “Didn’t get enough the first time, did we?”

“I want…” Her voice cracked, then steadied. “I want to know what it feels like to be unraveled by something that doesn’t hurt.”

My breath stuttered as I dropped my forehead to her thigh, anchoring myself before I unraveled too.

My hands were shaking. My pulse had no rhythm left.

She wasn’t just offering her body. She was offering belief.

That I might be the one to show her softness didn’t mean weakness.

That falling apart could feel like safety, not failure.

I slid my hands beneath her thighs, drawing her closer. I pressed a kiss to her mound, right above her slit. Not rushed. Not desperate. Just a promise made in contact. Her whole body jolted.

“Jax…” she gasped, fingers twisting in the blanket behind her.

I looked up, dragged my tongue over my bottom lip. “Say it again. Slower.”

“I want…” She trembled. “Your mouth.”

“Good girl,” I said, voice low and frayed. Her pulse fluttered beneath my touch.