Page 52 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

When I looked back, she was watching, not for approval, not to be told she was beautiful. She already knew. She was measuring impact. Looking for evidence that I saw her the way she needed to be seen.

“You like what you see?” she asked, a flicker of mischief flashing through the solemn air like lightning breaking through a cloud.

I let a slow, deliberate smile pull at the corner of my mouth. “I like what I feel,” I told her, voice low, even. “The control. The trust. The tension.”

She released a breath that sounded like the first exhale after surfacing, the kind that comes when your body hasn’t yet decided if it’s drowning or breathing again. “Yeah. There’s… a lot of that.”

I stood, knees cracking faintly as I crossed to the rope rack, hand gliding over the row of conditioned coils until I found the one I wanted.

Eight millimeters of jute, softened by years of work, obedient to my grip, but never without integrity.

I turned and stopped just shy of her body, letting the space between us speak first.

“I won’t take anything from you,” I said, my tone calibrated for resonance. “You’ll give it. And I’ll make it worth every breath.”

She swallowed hard. “Okay.”

I extended my hand, not to command, not to pull, but as a clear and measured offer.

She accepted, fingers threading into mine, and I guided her to the center of the mat where the rig waited silently overhead like an altar built for this moment.

She moved exactly how I thought she would, barefoot, composed, simmering beneath the skin.

The rope in my hand remained still, but the promise of it buzzed in the air between us.

I could tell she wasn’t afraid, but every part of her was primed. Not frozen. Not defensive. Just tuned in to an anticipation so sharp it left no room for anything else.

She stood where I placed her, surrounded by a silence that wrapped around us like a living thing, and I let her feel the weight of it—the pause before contact, the stillness that stretches time and pressure alike.

Then I moved behind her, letting the first length of rope slip across my palm and trail slowly across her back, not a tie, not even a line, just sensation, the softest declaration of intent.

She flinched, just slightly, but not from fear. From the contact. From the shift of the moment, stepping forward and touching her first.

“Turn around for me,” I said, low and smooth, already anticipating how she’d move when I bound. “Let me see you.”

She obeyed, slow, deliberate, eyes locked on mine like she couldn’t afford to blink. Her mouth parted slightly, chest rising on instinct like her body was already trying to draw me in.

God, she looked sacred like this. Bra strap barely containing her, soft leggings hugging her hips, every inch of her charged with restraint.

Her nipples pressed against the fabric, her thighs trembling just enough to betray how hard she was holding herself still.

And her eyes, sharp, searching, were asking for something more.

I didn’t speak. Just stepped into her space, filling her vision without touching, letting her feel the nearness of my body like a promise. The rope lifted, grazing her collarbone before dragging in a slow, deliberate line across the top of her chest. A brush. A warning. A taste.

She shivered.

I began the takate kote with measured care, looping her upper arms, pulling across her chest in smooth, deliberate passes.

The rope cinched just beneath her breasts, and with each pull, she leaned into it like gravity had shifted.

The jute whispered against her skin while my fingers worked in rhythm, breath, wrap, pull, an equation written across her body in tension and restraint.

The first hitch locked everything into place, and the sound she made was more breath than voice, as if the rope had reached inside her and stolen the air from her lungs.

“You feel that?” I asked, my voice a murmur beside her ear. “That tightness across your chest?”

She nodded, but I wanted more.

“Use your words.”

“I feel it.” Her voice cracked like the truth cost her something to say. “Everywhere.”

“Good,” I whispered. “That’s the point.”

I moved behind her again, letting my fingers trace the line of her upper back, not to tease, but to ground. She leaned in, barely, but enough to register; an instinctive pull toward contact, toward something steady.

I adjusted the rope between her shoulder blades, refining the tension as I worked it into a diamond pattern, clean, functional, but undeniably beautiful.

A corset of stillness, precision, and restraint.

Her breath snagged at the sensation, her spine reacting before she could think.

My hand slid down the center of it, and she arched with a kind of raw, involuntary grace.

She was already unraveling, and I hadn’t even finished the structure of the tie yet.

“Breathe through it,” I murmured, cinching a loop beneath her sternum. “Let it hold you.”

“I can’t think,” she said, her voice a little wild now, breathy, unguarded. “I feel like…like everything’s louder.”

“It is louder,” I said. “Because there’s nothing left to distract you. It’s just you. This moment. Your body. My rope.”

I grazed my lips over the edge of her shoulder, didn’t kiss, just hovered. Let the heat of my mouth meet the heat of her skin. She gasped.

“You don’t belong to me,” I whispered against her skin, letting my breath stir the wisps of hair clinging to her damp neck. “Not yet.” She swallowed hard.

“But you’re mine tonight,” I said, letting the words settle like heat. “And I’m going to make you feel that with every knot.” A sound broke from her, quiet, aching, and wrecked. I stepped back, letting her tremble, letting her miss the weight of me for a beat before I dropped to my knees.

“Lift your right leg.” She moved slowly, her muscles already muddled by arousal and restraint.

I guided her calf upward, folding it against her thigh, my palm braced behind her leg to keep it steady as I wrapped the rope.

Layer after layer compressed muscle and fabric as the rope covered her leg until she was anchored in place.

A high futomomo took shape on her leg , built for pressure, exposure, tension.

Her hip adjusted forward under the pull, tipping her pelvis just enough to draw the soft curve of her belly into the light.

I looked up. Her chest rose in quick, shallow bursts. Her cheeks were flushed. Her lips, parted and slick. Her hands stayed bound behind her, useless. All she could do now was feel.

“You okay?” I asked. She nodded. I didn’t move.

“Check-in,” I said, firmer this time.

“I’m okay.” She licked her lips, voice catching. “I’m really okay.”

“Good girl.” The words slipped before I could stop them, and her exhale hit sharp, like I’d lit a fuse beneath her skin. I cinched the final knot at her ankle, locking her leg into one long, trembling line.

“You’re trembling.”

“I know,” she whispered. “It’s not bad. It’s—everything.”

I rose slowly and stepped into the space she left open for me.

The rope across her chest nearly brushed mine, and heat radiated off her in steady waves.

Her breath was shallow but controlled, and her eyes never left mine.

I reached out and traced the rope under her breasts, slow and deliberate.

The touch wasn’t about possession. It was about reverence.

Her whimper slipped free, soft and needy.

Her hips edged forward, but I could feel the restraint in her.

She was holding herself still with nothing but willpower.

That was the gift. Not the sound, not the movement, but the self-control she offered me without flinching.

“This is what restraint feels like,” I murmured, voice pitched low. “Not punishment. Intention. Purpose.”

She trembled harder, from the unbearable beauty of tension.

Her jaw had gone slack, her lips parted, every line of her vibrated with effort as she stood there on one leg.

But she didn’t break. Her gaze stayed locked on mine, full of something quiet and defiant.

Look what I’m giving you. Look how I stay.

I reached for the final coil of jute and unhooked it, slow and measured. The motion wasn’t casual. It was ceremonial. I stepped to the rig and felt the weight of her readiness settle around us.

“I’m going to suspend you now,” I said.

She nodded, breath catching, but I didn’t move until I heard her voice again.

“Do it. Lift me.” No hesitation. Just clarity.

I moved with precision, with no pause between her consent and my response.

Every pull of the rope was deliberate. Every knot, a vow.

This wasn’t about sex, not in any ordinary way.

I wasn’t chasing friction or climax. I was chasing reverence.

Structure. Control. The kind that tames chaos instead of feeding it.

I sculpted surrender with each line, weaving tension into something sacred.

And as the rope pulled tighter and her body gave, inch by inch, she began to rise, not in the air yet, but in trust. Suspended in that narrow space between intention and release.

Stella had offered me something tonight that didn’t come in bows or blush.

This wasn’t sweetness. It was raw surrender, precious not for what it gave me, but for what it cost her.

And now it was mine to hold. To earn without breaking.

Her breath had already changed by the time I clipped the carabiner to the tie-off on her back; shallow, stretched, tight with anticipation.

Not fear. Not panic. Just a body flickering between sensation and meaning.

Her left foot still touched the mat, but not for long.