Page 51 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

Jax

She came to my cabin door the following afternoon like she’d rehearsed it; every word spoken into a mirror, every breath measured against what this night might become.

There was no pretense in her posture, no flinch in her gaze.

Just a steady resolve, quiet and undeniable, like she already knew nothing about this would be casual.

I opened the door before she could knock.

I’d seen her through the window—barefoot on the gravel, spine drawn straight, hands curled like contact might undo her.

Her tank top clung to skin still flushed from heat, and she’d come without a jacket, as if whatever she’d finally admitted to herself had burned away every other layer.

The air hung still and dense, not peaceful, but full.

She carried that fullness in her body like it was too much for one person to hold, an emotional current that hummed straight through me.

She didn’t rush forward. Just stood there, eyes fixed on mine, like she was measuring whether I could meet her with the same openness she’d already given, and maybe hoping I would.

Her voice, when it came, was low and stripped of anything decorative. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About what a dynamic could be. And while we came to a sort of agreement the other night, I have one more ask before I can say yes fully.”

She didn’t fidget, although admitting this obviously made her nervous.

She just stood, anchored in place, like she was bracing herself against the storm she knew this could become.

Her words landed hard, but it was the weight behind them that undid me.

This wasn’t flirtation. It wasn’t a performance. It was desire, raw and deliberate.

I didn’t speak. Just tilted my head and let myself breathe. Her jaw flexed with tension. Her skin was flushed high. There was something barely restrained burning under the surface, and for once, she wasn’t hiding it. She wasn’t masking it with sarcasm or distance. She was placing it in my hands.

Her eyes flicked past me for just a second, toward the cabin’s windows where amber light stretched low across the floor. Then she looked back and held my gaze. “I can’t say yes or no for sure until I know what I’d be saying yes to.”

I didn’t blink. Couldn’t. Every nerve was tuned to her; reading the tension in her shoulders, the tight grip of her hands, the breath she held like it was armor. This wasn’t her pleading. It wasn’t surrender. It was a woman choosing, even if it might destroy her.

“I want you to show me,” she said. “I need to feel it.”

No breathless giggle. No invitation wrapped in flirtation. Just fire coiled beneath her ribs and spilling out now, slow and steady. She stood there, unflinching, and let that heat transfer into me like it was a message written in touch.

I stepped back, slow and silent, opening the door wider.

She crossed the threshold without hesitation.

Her feet moved like they belonged here, like the floor had already promised to hold her.

Her body was wound tight but not rigid, like a bow straining toward release.

She didn’t meet my eyes, but when her arm brushed mine, the contact seared. It was a warning. A promise. A plea.

I closed the door behind her. Turned the lock. The bolt clicked into place with a sound heavier than it should’ve been, less like confinement, more like ceremony.

The air shifted instantly. Denser now. Not ominous. Just true.

She turned to face me, and her voice didn’t waver. “I know I said this the other evening, but I need you to understand. I don’t want to be owned. I’m not offering surrender.”

I moved toward the corner and switched on the low amber lights; no harsh fluorescents, no looming shadows. Just warmth. Just clarity.

“You’re not asking to be broken,” I said. “You’re asking to be known.”

Her eyes jumped to mine, and something flickered there—vulnerability, maybe. Or recognition. She gave a faint nod, nothing performative. “Exactly.”

I didn’t reach for her. Not yet. She hadn’t asked for touch, not in words or movement, but her body was already speaking. Every muscle leaned forward, trying not to appear eager, but failing with every breath that hovered just short of stillness.

“If we do this, if you really want me to show you what it can be like, it won’t be a scene you can just dip your toes in,” I told her as I stepped into the center of the room.

“Once the rope is on, and especially once you’re flying on the rope rig, it stops being casual.

You don’t get to float unless you’re willing to give up the ground. ”

“I don’t want casual,” she said, her voice clipped and clear. “I want total honesty.”

I looked back. Her eyes burned. Her breath came unevenly. I wasn’t sure if she was aroused or furious with herself for wanting this much. Probably both.

“I won’t ask you to kneel. I won’t bind what you won’t offer. But if I tie you tonight, Stella…” I turned fully toward her, my voice low and deliberate. “It will mean something.”

She inhaled sharply, her stance unmoving. “That’s the fucking point.”

I studied her for a beat, watching the tension in her shoulders, the way hunger edged every inch of restraint she clung to, and felt a slow thrum build behind my ribs.

“Then let me show you what that can feel like.”

The air shifted. It wasn’t louder or darker.

Just heavier. She hadn’t come to play around.

She’d come to step into the structure of need, and test whether it could carry her weight.

Her movements were slow, each step laced with purpose as she moved through the room like a current tightening around me.

Her gaze skimmed the space; rope coils, cuffs, suspension points, each object received with something deeper than curiosity.

Not awe. Recognition. A need she’d never been allowed to name.

She lifted her hand, stopping just short of one of the heavy steel wall hooks. Her voice didn’t waver, but the air around her thickened with intent. “These are permanent.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a line drawn. A truth exposed just enough to weigh its cost. Her fingers weren’t really reaching for the hardware. They were touching the idea beneath it: fixation, intention, surrender.

I met her gaze and held it there. “Anchored through the joists. Weight tested at over six hundred pounds.”

A faint curve touched her lips. “That’s a lot of trust.”

“It has to be.”

When she turned to face me, her arms were crossed, not in fear, but in logic. I watched her posture for cues. The set of her jaw. The breath she held too long. The way she released it like a preview of the surrender she meant to offer me tonight.

“What happens once I’m up?” she asked, eyes narrowing. “Realistically. Suspension sounds… well, to be honest, it sounds dangerous.”

I crossed to the center mat and lowered myself cross-legged, elbows resting on my knees. I didn’t gesture for her to follow. That choice, like every choice tonight, would be hers alone.

“It’s a commitment,” I said. “Once you’re off the ground, we don’t stop unless there’s a red or a medical need. You’re fully supported, rigged with balance, checked constantly. But suspension still means surrender. Controlled, consensual, but real. Because there’s no floating without letting go.”

Her jaw flexed. Not with fear, but with calculation. And after a beat, she nodded.

She stepped closer, each motion slow and soundless, and lowered herself in front of me with a grace that contradicted the storm she carried inside.

I could feel it in every small breath that hitched at her throat, in the way her fingers curled into her thighs like she was grounding herself before lift.

“I want it sensual,” she said, her voice low and even. “I want to feel… kept. But not overtaken.”

I understood what she meant. There were so many ways to dominate a body. But being trusted to hold someone in midair, not just tied, but held, that was different.

That was sacred.

“Understood,” I said. “We’ll lay down the terms together. We’ll build it brick by brick.”

She nodded once.

“Clothing?” I asked.

Her jaw twitched again. “Leggings stay on. So does the bra. For now.”

“Noted.” I kept my tone steady. Non-reactive. But my mind had already flashed to the way she’d look bound in rope with nothing but that thin barrier between us. Already, my hands ached to feel the compression lines bite across her thighs.

“And I don’t think I want you to touch me sexually, at least not at first.” She added, to my surprise. “I need to know what this is like by itself before I take it any further.”

That landed somewhere behind my sternum. A sharp, clean arrow of clarity. “You’ll get nothing you don’t ask for. You have my word.”

She nodded again.

“Safeword?”

She blinked. “Stoplight system, like you taught me.”

I nodded once. “I also want to add a check-in phrase tonight. Something less final. Something I can pull from you if I see you starting to drift or disassociate.”

She hesitated.

“I’m okay,” she said finally. “If I say I’m okay, it means I mean it. Not just autopilot.”

“Good,” I murmured. “That’s good. Go ahead and strip down to your comfort level, and we can begin.”

The quiet that followed wasn’t passive. It pulsed between us, thick with unspoken things.

She glanced toward the jute, then lifted the hem of her tank top.

No dramatics. Just a slow reveal of flushed skin, breath rising beneath a plain black bra that aroused me more than it should have.

Not because of what it showed, but because of what it meant.

Deliberate exposure. Voluntary stillness.

She stood and removed her shoes and socks with the same quiet focus, stepping free without flourish. I turned away, not out of restraint, but reverence. Touch hadn’t been earned yet. That mattered.

But want has its own gravitational pull, and mine was fixed entirely on her.