Page 46 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

I didn’t rush. I gazed at her sex from mere inches away. Let her feel the full weight of my gaze. Not cold. Not awestruck. Just steady. I wasn’t trying to worship her. I wanted her to feel real. Rooted. Not a fantasy. A miracle.

I lowered my mouth and tasted her more deeply than I had been able to when she was standing—slow, deep, patient.

Her moan cracked the room wide open. This wasn’t about sex or surrender.

It was about release. About being touched without being taken.

About the proof that want didn’t have to end in pain.

Her taste hit like scripture. Her thighs trembled, but I didn’t let go.

I licked slowly, dragging heat across her clit until her breath vanished.

Her hips bucked, but my hands held, never to restrain, only to steady.

I lapped and licked over every inch of her, devouring her like a starving man, drawing her ever closer to climax.

When she neared the edge, when her body surged with the rhythm of the wave rising, I pulled back. Not to deny. To control. My mouth hovered. My breath washed over her in soft, coaxing pulses. Her body answered, shaking, reaching for me like gravity itself bent between us.

“Jax…” she gasped, voice wrecked and shining, full of life and too much need to contain.

I didn’t answer her with words. Just dropped lower and dragged my tongue through her with a filthy, reverent stroke that tore a sound from her chest. My name followed, not as a request, but as a raw plea, ripped from something deeper, something wild and newly unguarded. I was drunk on it. On her.

“You taste like sin and surrender,” I breathed, brushing my mouth along the inside of her thigh before claiming her again. “You don’t even know what you do to me.”

She whimpered and arched, chasing it. I didn’t stop her.

I let her move, let her grind against me, let her feel what it meant to be wanted without hesitation.

Every sound she gave drove me deeper into the space where devotion blurred into desperation.

My hands slid higher, cupping the swell of her ass, angling her just right so I could suck hard on the aching bundle at her center.

She cried out, unraveling.

“Oh, my God…Jax…please….”

Her voice fractured when I did it again, every part of my mouth working in tandem—tongue, lips, teeth—with focused, unrepentant hunger. She was a melody. And I was the only one who knew how to play her.

When I slid two fingers inside her wet heat, slow and sure and curved just right, her body arched like lightning had touched her. She clamped around me, pulsing in waves that shivered up my spine.

She came hard. Loud. Undone. The kind of orgasm that changes your breath pattern forever.

“Good girl,” I murmured, still deep inside her, my mouth soft as I licked gently at what she gave. “That’s it. Let go for me. Just like that.”

She collapsed back, breath coming fast and uneven, chest rising in sharp bursts.

Her eyes were dazed, lips parted, body slack with release.

She looked holy in the aftermath. I didn’t retreat.

I kept touching her. Kept speaking softly.

My mouth traced kisses along her thigh, up to her hip, then just above the imprint of the waistband that still clung faintly to her waist. When her fingers found mine, I took them without hesitation, our hands twining with ease.

She didn’t speak. Just breathed like it was something new. And maybe it was. I’d held other women. Kissed them. Broken them open in ways that were careful, safe, and restrained. But none of them had looked at me like this. Like I was the first man to ever see every part of her and not flinch.

Her pulse still flickered under the rope wrapping her wrist. Her body trembled, hair tousled from where my hands had held her too tightly in my own need. But she didn’t look fragile. She looked wrecked and rebuilt. Not from force. Not from power. From permission.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she whispered, voice frayed from use, trembling with something close to reverence. “Like I’m sacred.”

“You are,” I whispered, brushing my mouth across her thigh. “You just forgot.”

She made a sound, half scoff, half whimper, and her eyes closed like the truth of it might be too much to hold. But she didn’t flinch when my hands moved again. When I touched her like she was something worthy. Not of worship. Of memory. A verse I’d carry with me long after her breath was gone.

I moved up beside her on the bed and untied her wrists, letting the rope fall away, and then pulled her shirt up slowly, dragging the fabric across skin still echoing with release.

She raised her arms in silence, and I slipped it off, letting it fall behind us.

She didn’t try to pose or retreat. She just let me see her.

Without armor. Without performance. Just herself.

“You keep looking at me like I’m going to disappear,” she said, voice low and laced with accusation.

I shook my head. “No. I’m looking at you like I’ll never get enough.”

I kissed the hollow of her throat, tasting salt and skin and a need still warm beneath the surface. Her hands found my hair, steady and sure, and I let my mouth drift to the swell of her breast. I glanced up as heat curved a smile to my lips.

“Let me worship you a little longer,” I murmured, voice low against her skin.

She tried not to smile. Failed. “Only a little?”

I dragged my teeth gently over one nipple, savoring the way she gasped and arched into me. “Greedy,” I teased.

Her breath caught, eyes half-lidded, voice rich with heat. “You like me that way.”

“You have no idea,” I growled as I sucked her back into my mouth, letting my hand drift along the curve of her waist, her hip, the trembling length of her thigh.

I wanted to taste her everywhere, slow and deep, until her voice was gone and the only thing left were those soft, stunned sounds that lived in the back of her throat and made me feel like a god.

I slid my hand between her legs again, pressing between her folds, not to tease this time, but to anchor her with pressure.

She whimpered, thighs parting without hesitation, her heel hooking behind my calf as if instinct alone could pull me deeper.

She was soaked. Still. Even after she’d shattered twice around me.

She couldn’t speak. She just ground herself against my palm with the kind of hunger that made it hard to breathe. I kissed her neck, let my fingers move in slow, merciless circles, and rasped against her ear, “You have no idea what you do to me.”

“Then show me,” she whispered, and whatever control I had left snapped clean.

I rolled her gently, guiding her until she was straddling my thigh, naked and flushed, her skin still slick with need.

She gasped, bracing herself against my shoulders, then rocked forward, dragging herself across me with slow, aching intent.

She wasn’t chasing pleasure blindly. She was claiming it.

Turning every movement into a vow that this time, it belonged to her.

“You’re the most dangerous thing I’ve ever touched,” I said, breath caught between reverence and awe. “Not because you’re breakable, but because you let me see how strong you are when no one else gets close.”

She moaned and buried her face in my neck, whispering one wrecked phrase against my skin.

Don’t stop. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Not when she gave me this.

My hand slid between us, fingers slipping down to find her already pulsing, already open.

I eased two fingers inside and groaned when she clenched around me.

Her cry tore through the quiet, hips jerking, and I caught her mouth with mine, drinking in every fractured sound she gave.

“Ride it,” I breathed. “Take what you need.”

She moved like she believed I could carry her through it, and I did. I gave her everything. My thigh. My hands. My mouth. My body as an altar. Because she didn’t need to be saved. She needed to be worshipped. And because she made surrender look like grace.

When the tremor passed, I stayed with her.

Still between her thighs. Still rooted in the moment that undid her.

Her breath came in soft, uneven pulls. Her legs were no longer braced or taut.

She wasn’t resisting anymore. Not me. Not herself.

She’d come apart without apology, and for the first time, she didn’t run from it.

I shifted slowly, helping her lay back against the sheets once more. Her eyes stayed open, dazed and wide, fixed on the ceiling like it might disappear under the truth she’d just let go. That surrender didn’t mean breaking; it meant being free.

“Stella.”

She looked at me slowly, like the name itself pulled her back into her body. I traced my fingers down her arm, grazed the inside of her wrist, and asked the only thing that mattered.

“Color?”

Her breath hitched, then settled. “Green,” she whispered. “Just… floaty.”

Relief cracked through my chest as I exhaled, low and reverent.

“Good girl.”

She laughed softly, raw and dazed, the sound more breath than voice. Her fingers twitched like they needed something to hold. I offered mine. She took them.

“Okay to sit up?” I asked, and she nodded. I wrapped an arm around her back and helped her shift, guiding her up slowly, holding her steady when her muscles gave out. She slumped against me without protest, her body weightless in the aftermath.

I kissed her temple. “Stay here.”

I stood, grabbed the water, cracked the seal, and knelt again in front of her. She blinked as I lifted it to her mouth.

“Sip.”

She drank slowly. Her throat moved. Her skin still radiated heat. I brushed her hair back and asked softly, “You with me?”

Another sip. Another breath. Then a whispered reply that melted through my bones.

“Yeah. Just… everything’s soft around the edges.”

I smiled. “That’s subspace. Or at least the edge of it.”

Her brow furrowed faintly. “Feels like… grief and safety had a baby. And it’s humming under my skin.”

“Yeah,” I said, voice low. “That tracks.”

I gave her another sip before setting the bottle down.

“You only tore one ring, and you never asked me to take the rope off,” I murmured, fingertips brushing the spot on her thigh where it had clung. “You could’ve. Any time.”

Her laugh came out thinner now, like something frayed. “Thought about it once. When you started talking.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “You said ‘stronger than steel,’ and it almost undid me. I don’t… I don’t think anyone’s ever called me strong without meaning it like a compliment or a burden.”

My throat tightened.

“You are,” I said, quietly. “You’re made of the kind of steel that bends just enough to survive the fire.”

She looked up at me, something open and wary and shining behind her lashes. “That’s poetic, for a guy who knows how to dislocate a shoulder with two fingers.”

I grinned. “Multifaceted.”

She rolled her eyes. But she didn’t let go of my hand.

“Come with me?” I asked, voice low, pitched to meet her gently in the quiet where she floated.

“To where?”

I nodded toward the bathroom. “To the bathroom. I’ll run some water. You need heat, hydration, and gravity. The crash is coming, and I’d rather catch you somewhere soft.”

She looked down, gaze catching on the faint red marks around her wrists, those soft, fading indentations left by rope tied with just enough tension to leave reminders. Her voice came, quiet and edged with doubt. “You’re not gonna get in with me, are you?”

“No, baby,” I said gently. “I’ll be close. But not touching, unless you ask.”

Something in her shifted then. A soft internal exhale. That promise of space, of held consent even in the gentleness after, eased something more than just muscle.

“Okay,” she whispered.

I helped her stand, one arm steady around her waist while her legs recalibrated.

She leaned into me without hesitation, her trust unspoken but total.

We moved slowly toward the bathroom, and soon steam was clouding the mirror, the air warm with lavender and quiet intention.

Everything came together quickly—heat and scent and silence arranged to hold her where words wouldn’t reach.

“I can manage from here,” she murmured when we reached the edge of the tub, one hand braced on the tile as she glanced back.

I nodded. No extra reassurance was needed. “I’ll be just outside. Call if you need me.”

She stepped in, lowering herself with a breath that cracked something open in my chest. Like her body didn’t know how to accept comfort yet, but was trying. Learning.

And me?

I sank to the floor outside the door, back against the wall, knees pulled in, listening to the soft sounds of water and the slow return of her breath.

Not because she needed me there. Not because I didn’t trust her alone.

But because I wanted to be near her. Because her stillness changed the air.

Because something about the way she softened made me want to stay.