Page 56 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

I traced slow circles over the small of her back beneath the edge of her bra, not a map, but a memory. Her skin was damp with sweat and salt and the scent of rope. Her hair spread like a wild halo across my collarbone. She smelled like the scene we’d survived. Like mine.

“You did so fucking good,” I whispered, and the hum that followed vibrated through my chest. She was surfacing in pieces, and I didn’t ask for more than she could give.

I just held her. Let her find herself within the silence.

Her fingers shifted across my ribs. A quiet claim.

I dipped my head, lips brushing her temple.

“I’ve never seen anyone fight gravity with that much fire,” I murmured. “And still make it look like grace.”

She inhaled, shallow and featherlight. Her fingers resumed their path across my stomach, dragging heat in their wake.

“You make it easy,” she said softly, the words raw enough to cut. A softness she wasn’t used to giving.

“Easy isn’t the point.”

It came out sharper than I meant, but I didn’t take it back. She flinched, barely, but I felt it. A subtle hitch in her breath. A shift in the weight she pressed into me. She heard it. Not just the words. The intention behind them.

She looked up, blinking slowly, eyes open but unreadable.

“No?”

“I don’t want easy from you,” I said, hand sliding along her spine.

“I want real. The version of you that doesn’t coat her trauma in charm, or shrink herself to make anyone else comfortable.

” My thumb skimmed the base of her neck, that spot where tension always lived.

“You’ve put on a really brave face for everyone here, considering what you went through.

The mask is pretty airtight most of the time.

That’s not weakness; it’s survival. But it’s the loneliest kind I’ve ever known. ”

She blinked again, slow and deliberate, then tucked her face into my chest like the ceiling had started asking questions.

I didn’t rush her. Just let the silence open wide, tracing her spine in steady rhythm.

Her body shifted gradually, not from fatigue, but from something deeper. A soft return to wanting.

“I’ve had people hold me,” she whispered. “But no one’s ever made me feel held . Not like this.”

The words landed, quiet and lethal. My hand stilled. I closed my eyes, swallowing hard. Most people think being held is about touch. But it’s not. It’s about being seen, and not flinched away from.

“Then I suppose I’m doing something right,” I said, kissing the top of her head.

She shifted again, fingers sliding higher across my chest, curling slightly like she didn’t know if she was allowed to want this much.

“I like this,” she said, so softly it ached.

“What part?”

“All of it,” she murmured. “Being warm. Being still. Being… allowed to be like this.”

I tilted her chin gently, coaxing her eyes back to mine. No pretense. Just soft, and stormy, and hers.

“You don’t need permission to rest.”

She laughed, cracked and aching. “Maybe not. But I needed a reason.”

“And am I that reason?” I asked, not to test her, but because I needed the truth.

Her gaze didn’t waver. Then, slow, deliberate, she nodded.

I kissed her brow. That sacred, overlooked place above the eyes.

The one that still believed no one would stay.

She melted again. This time softer. Freer.

Less armored. My hands reached for the blanket, wrapping it tighter around us like I could preserve this moment.

Her breath slowed. Her body went boneless. .

“I’ve got you,” I whispered. “However long you’ll let me.”

The way her thumb brushed beneath my ribs told me the answer wasn’t if.

It was when. The blanket had slipped from her shoulder, but she didn’t fix it.

She stayed curled into me, cheek to my chest, arm resting across my ribs, fingers tracing soft spirals, tiny, unspoken languages written in touch and tempo.

Some time later she inhaled again, slower this time, with just enough shift for me to feel it. A subtle pivot in her energy. Neurons catching the next gear. Her fingers tapped twice against my side, not idle, not unsure, then she said, “I’ve been thinking.”

I stayed quiet, letting the words rise when they were ready. She lifted her head, eyes meeting mine. Still calm. Still clear. But edged with something deeper. Purpose.

“I’m ready,” she said. Her voice was quiet, but the impact wasn’t. “To say yes,” she added.

My breath caught. She didn’t offer it as a pronouncement or a question. She delivered it like a conclusion. A decision already made.

Still, I didn’t rush.

“Say it like you mean it,” I told her, voice low. Not a command, but an opening.

She sat up slowly, the blanket pooling in her lap. “I want a dynamic with you, Jax. I want your hands. Your knots. Your rules. I want to be the wicked girl you ruin slowly, methodically, until I forget what it felt like to brace for impact.”

I didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just let the words spool through the air, curling heat up my spine.

“I want you to push me. To teach me how to feel again. Let me fall apart without apology. Just… stay. Whatever happens. Stay.”

There was no name for what moved through me. Just data. Steady voice. Dilated pupils. Shallow, sure breath. She wasn’t wavering. She was already in it. Not submitting to me, but to her own choice.

So I met her where she was. Not with vows or heat. With precision.

“You’re not offering me something I haven’t earned yet,” I said. “This isn’t submission for its own sake. It’s the calculus of trust. And I’ll treat it like something sacred.”

She exhaled like she’d been holding her breath since the first knot. I touched the back of her neck, with no force. Just grounding.

“I won’t always be soft,” I told her. “That’s not my baseline. Structure is. Knowing when to press. When to pause. When to command. That’s how I love.”

Her eyes fluttered closed for a beat, like she was saving the words somewhere she’d never forget.

“I’ll press every edge you offer me,” I said. “But I’ll never weaponize your wiring. That’s not dominance. That’s cowardice. And I don’t flinch.”

She leaned in, forehead resting against mine, her breath brushing my mouth. “Good,” she murmured. “Because I’m not built to break.”

The sound that left me wasn’t a laugh, not really. More vibration than joy, low in my chest, something she could feel under her palms. “Then I’ll call you wicked girl until it’s etched into your nervous system so deep, even your silence remembers it.”

She smiled at that, barely, but her eyes gleamed, not with humor, but something older. Elemental.

“And I’ll ruin you sweetly,” she said, “until you thank me for it.”

Something shifted. Not lust. Not tension. Something quieter and stronger, like the beginning of an equation we’d solve, one variable at a time. And I was ready to run every number.

She laid back down and curled up against me, her back to my chest, asking to be held without saying a word. I obliged without hesitation, curling around her and enveloping her in my warmth. She gave a deep, contented sigh, and closed her eyes.

Then came the quiet. Not the kind that follows surrender, but something more brittle.

The kind that curls behind your eyes like smoke from a fire you thought you’d put out.

Her body stayed warm, marked, steady against mine, but inside, something edged away.

Not far. Just enough to register. Just enough to ache.

She hadn’t spoken since curling into my side.

No teasing. No smirking. No soft sounds of hunger.

And slowly I felt her body tense up a few percentage points, muscles coiling like she was preparing to go into fight or flight.

I wasn’t exactly worried, but concern did paint creases across my forehead as I tried to parse out what caused the shift.

I didn’t ask right away. Just let my hand move along the curve of her spine, not to seduce, but to read. Like easing tension from a muscle before a tie. Like grounding a trauma patient and hoping they won’t flinch. Like reverence, if I believed in God. And if that patient were divine.

When I finally spoke, I kept my voice low, quiet enough not to startle. “Talk to me, wicked girl. You’re thinking so loud it’s shaking the air.”

She didn’t flinch. But her fingers twitched, and her breath caught, not in fear or arousal, but something else.

“I need to tell you something,” she said, her voice quieter now, stripped of all armor. “But I’m afraid that when I do, it will change everything. That it will put someone, and everyone, in danger.”

I breathed in. Slow. Feeling a coil of worry knot in my gut. But I cultivated patience and kept my tone calm.

“You let me suspend you in midair. You’ve told me things without speaking, let me touch your hunger and your heart in the same breath. You really think a few words could scare me now?”

Her laugh cracked faintly, but it was real.

“I’ve told you a lot about me,” she said, shifting just enough to brace on her elbow. The blanket slipped from her shoulder, and I didn’t fix it. Didn’t move. Let her own the moment, however it came.

“But not everything.”

I didn’t chase it. Just held my gaze steady. “I never asked for everything. I asked for honesty. When you’re ready.”

She nodded once, sharply, like bracing for impact.

“I have a sister.”

The words dropped heavy. Not casual. Not ordinary. They ripped out of her like a confession under pressure, leaving silence ringing in their wake.

My pulse kicked hard. It wasn’t the fact itself; it was the way her voice carried it. “Okay,” I said carefully. “Why does that sound like a confession?”

Her throat bobbed. “Her name is Violet. She’s younger.

Two years. The steady one. Lists, schedules, the kind of person who makes sure the world doesn’t tilt while I’m off welding or blowing things up.

She kept the studio running when I was chaos.

” Her breath shuddered out. “She’s the reason it worked at all. ”