Page 90 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

Stella

I was unraveling, breath by breath, sob by sob.

Each thrust dragged more to the surface.

The rope kept me anchored, but it couldn’t hold what was splintering inside; grief edged sharp, need running slick, and every suppressed feeling rising all at once.

Pain and pleasure didn’t live on opposite ends anymore.

They were fused, braided through the hollow of my body and the break in my voice, stripping me down to my very core.

My hips rocked helplessly against his hand, the motion tightening the binds until I could feel myself fraying at the seams. I surged forward, torn between fleeing and folding deeper, trapped in the ache of being touched where I’d most feared being seen.

What if I fell too far? What if something inside shattered beyond repair? What if this wild, wrecked version of me was too much for him to hold? I wasn’t afraid of the pain itself. I was afraid of being left inside it.

The words I’d spoken hung between us like something too fragile to bear weight.

If I let go… I don’t know if I’ll come back.

Jax didn’t rush in with comfort. He didn’t flinch at the fear in my voice, or the truth It exposed. He stayed exactly where he was, breathing with me, his fingers steady, his grip unshaken.

“You will come back to me, Stella,” he said, voice low and sure. “You will, because I’ll be there in the dark with you. Every step. Every second. Every storm.”

His thumb moved over my clit, not to tease, but to tether, a lifeline in motion.

“I’ll hold the thread, Stella. I’ll follow you wherever you fall, and when it’s time to come back, I’ll carry you if I have to.”

Something broke loose in me then, not violently, but gently.

Like the unlocking of a door that I hadn’t realized I’d sealed.

I hadn’t known how long I’d been guarding it with my entire body.

How exhausting it was to pretend I didn’t want anyone behind it.

I’d worn silence like armor. Stillness like survival.

But now it was giving way, not because I was fragile, but because I was ready.

His promise wasn’t a rescue. It wasn’t a vow to fix me. It was an invitation to fall apart and still be wanted. To be undone and not left behind.

Because healing doesn’t always come in quiet. Sometimes it begins here, in the eye of the storm, with your body shaking, breath catching, and a man’s hand anchoring you like it’s the only truth that matters.

You don’t have to come back alone.

That was the vow.

And I believed him.

“That’s it, baby. That’s it. You’re so fucking perfect like this. So wrecked and beautiful and mine .”

And so, I decided to trust him. My eyes fluttered shut, and I gave myself over to the pleasure, the pain, and the push towards surrender. I still didn’t know what the break would look like, but I could feel it pressing in, asking to be set free.

Jax’s fingers drove deeper inside me, coaxing my orgasm closer to the surface with every insistent thrust. His thumb continued torturing my clit, and my entire body shuddered as he dragged a guttural moan from deep within my chest. The release that was building felt so big, so overwhelming, I wasn’t sure I could handle it.

Suddenly, it was right there, seconds from breaking, and it felt like I was standing on a beach watching a tsunami crest a hundred feet over my head, preparing to obliterate me.

I was sure of two things in that moment.

First, that I might not survive this. Second, I was too far gone to stop it.

My mind and my body reacted before my mind could even catch up, and I began writhing uncontrollably in my bonds as the orgasm hit.

“Oh no, no, I can’t, Jax, no no no… fuck !

” I screamed, feral and incomprehensible, as the largest orgasm of my life slammed through my body, burning my mind away into nothingness and plunging me into depths I didn’t know existed.

A ragged sob tore out of my chest, then another, and before I had even begun forming rational thoughts again, I was crying uncontrollably.

It was like a well had been uncapped in my heart, and every emotion I had kept bottled up came spraying out all at once.

The fear, the stress, the terror, the grief, and even the relief all came out and mixed together and confronted me.

I cried until there were no tears left, until I was just a quivering, fragile bundle of nerves in Jax’s arms.

“That was perfect, baby.” Jax whispered in my ear after some time had passed. I couldn’t be sure how long. “You were amazing. I’m so fucking proud of you. So proud. You’re safe now. I’m here. You’re not alone.”

He kept whispering soft words of encouragement, putting me back together piece by broken piece as the rope held the shape of me steady.

The sobs returned, quieter now, slower. The sharp edge of grief had dulled, replaced by something softer, still aching, but alive.

Yet part of me still waited for it to end, for the warmth to break, for the silence to fracture into distance.

I’d never trusted comfort to stay. I didn’t know how to exhale without bracing for the ground to disappear.

Even here, wrapped in his arms, I flinched at the ghost of being dropped. Left. Forgotten.

He gathered me into his lap, rope still tight around my limbs, and rocked me gently as the aftershocks rippled through me, his voice low against my cheek. “I’ve got you. You gave me everything. I’m not letting go.” And I believed him.

Jax unraveled me without a word. His movements were reverent, not because I was breakable, but because I had endured.

Because he had seen me come undone beneath his hands, and still reach for him through the wreckage.

His fingers found every knot with care, undoing them not to erase what had happened, but to bless it.

Each loop was a benediction. A release made with the same love he used to bind me.

The rope slipped away one line at a time, and still, his gaze never left me.

When the last coil slid from my skin and curled at our feet, he caught me like I was sacred.

And maybe I was. Maybe I’d gone up in flames, and this was what remained, the shape of a woman who was loved in the middle of her unraveling.

He carried me in silence, breath steady against my temple, chest rising with the rhythm of a man who had chosen me again and again.

Not for strength. Not for fire. But for who I was when I couldn’t hold it together.

The bathroom door opened, and he lowered me onto the edge of the tub with the care of someone who knew I might fall apart again if he moved too quickly.

Once he knew I was not going to topple over, he set about lighting candles and turning on the water to fill the tub.

Steam began billowing around me, carrying the fragrance of the bath bomb he tossed into the near-scalding water.

And then he sank to his knees. Jax, always choosing to bow when it mattered most. His fingers brushed mine, the question so soft it barely needed words. “Can I undress you?”

The nod came without hesitation, but it felt like more than permission.

It felt like surrender, like the last of my armor falling quietly to the floor between us.

My body responded before my mind could panic, though the fear still crept in, tight in my chest, clawing at my ribs.

The memory of other eyes, other hands. The kind that tied me to chairs and took my life from me.

I felt the echo of those ghosts for half a second…

until Jax touched me like I was art, not aftermath.

He peeled the fabric from my body slowly, as if each piece held a weight he was honoring.

My shirt. My bra. The lace clinging damp between my thighs.

He didn’t look away. He took me in completely: every rope mark, every pressure bruise, every shiver in my skin.

His gaze was ocean-deep and fire-warm, the kind of stillness that follows a storm but leaves the air reverent and alive.

“You are…” His voice faltered, his throat working around the words.

“Fucking breathtaking. Not just like this. But because of this. Because you let me see all of it.”

He didn’t touch me then. He helped me into the water first.

The heat curled around my sore limbs like a balm for overstimulated nerves. I sank into it with a gasp that wasn’t quite pain, wasn’t quite relief, just something whole and overwhelming. I curled into the warmth, let my head fall back, and allowed the ache in my bones to dissolve into stillness.

Jax moved as though time didn’t apply to him.

He rolled up his sleeves, dipped a cloth into the bath, and began to bathe me, but what he did wasn’t washing.

It was devotion. His hands moved with the knowledge of a man who had witnessed every place I’d broken, and touched each one with grace.

He moved the cloth across my body as if revealing something sacred he had made in the dark, and was now bringing fully into the light.

His thumb grazed the hollow of my throat, trailed lower, sweeping over the curve of my breast, every motion slow and sure.

When he reached the places most tender, where the rope had bitten into my arms, where faint marks still mapped the story of what I had carried, he bent to press his mouth against them.

No ceremony. No sound. Just lips on skin, reverent and raw.

And I cried again, though not as before.

These weren’t screams but softer tears, washed free of fear.

“I want you in here with me,” I whispered, reaching through the steam.

He didn’t pause. He stood and stripped, baring skin marked with memory and strength, his body a map of survival, and the softness he’d reclaimed inside it. When he stepped into the tub, the water rose like it welcomed him.