Page 168 of Jax
She was safe. I was safe. The weight I’d carried for weeks had finally eased its chokehold, and gratitude lived so big in my chest that it sometimes felt like it would crack me open. But safety didn’t erase strangeness. This house had become my home, my shelter, my strange sanctuary, and yet to Violet it was just walls that weren’t hers, voices she didn’t trust yet, and rules she hadn’t learned. I watched her try, saw her stumble through the edges of belonging, and the ache of it split me in two. Half of me wanted to melt into the relief of having her here; the other half was unsettled by the distance between what this place was for me and what it might never be for her. That dichotomy pressed into every moment, making me both grateful beyond measure and disoriented by the ground shifting under my feet.
But the nights? Those belonged to him. To us.
There is a silence that only comes after surrender. Not the absence of sound, but the absence of struggle. The worldnarrowed so completely into breath and rope and him that time no longer moved in minutes. It moved in pulses. In tremors. In the hum of skin against skin and the echo of a body finally letting go.
I had cried during the scene right after Violet was rescued; ugly, shaking sobs that cracked me open in ways I couldn’t name. The rope had pulled it out of me, the trust had carved a space for it, and his presence had caught it all without question. And tonight, curled on the mat in the aftermath of Jax’s dominance, with the rig unhooked and the air gone soft, the tears returned. Not violent. Not breaking. They moved quieter, like rivers thawing, seeping through the cracks and leaving warmth in their wake. A release that didn’t hollow me out, but filled me with proof that I was no longer holding anything back.
Jax sat beside me, his posture not crouched or braced, but reverent, like a man who had been given something sacred and knew better than to move too fast. He didn’t fetch water. He didn’t rearrange the blanket. He touched me, one hand pressed steady between my shoulder blades, the other firm around my arm, and he breathed with me. No agenda. No instruction. Only closeness.
When he spoke, it was low and certain, giving truth the weight it deserved.
“You did it, wicked girl,” he murmured, lips brushing the crown of my head like a vow sealed in heat. “You gave it all to me. Now I’ve got you.”
The words sank into me like warmth returning to places that had gone cold long before he ever touched them. I couldn’t speak—my body too heavy, too full, too raw with everything we’d just shared. But my arms lifted anyway, slow and trembling, and curled around his ribs. I pressed my face to his chest, found his heartbeat steady beneath sweat-damp cotton, and held on.
He wrapped around me, arms folding close, one hand at the base of my skull, the other pressed to my spine, not anchoring so much as affirming. I wasn’t alone. I hadn’t been for some time. Maybe I never had to be again.
We stayed like that, on the warm mat, no sound but breath and memory between us. The rope was untied, but its echo clung to my skin like a reverent aftershock. When I finally lifted my head, it was slow and reluctant. I wasn’t ready for words, but they came anyway, scraped from somewhere deep, fragile from the silence that came before them.
“I don’t know what that was,” I whispered, voice rough and aching, “but I don’t ever want to do it without you.”
He didn’t answer right away. Just looked at me, thumb brushing across my cheek like he needed to feel the truth before speaking.
“You won’t,” he said, steady. “You never will.”
His forehead rested against mine, the rope between us loose now. But it had never been about the rope.
He unraveled it slowly and carefully, fingers tracing where it had pressed deepest. Not to check for harm, but to mark where meaning had lived. The lines on my skin weren’t evidence of damage. They were a language. A map not of hurt, but of return.
When the last coil dropped, I didn’t feel undone. I felt revealed.
He sat back, breath slow and full, then opened his arms. I went to him.
He lifted me without effort, one hand beneath my knees, the other warm at my spine. My head dropped to his shoulder, and I let him carry me. Not because I couldn’t walk, but because I didn’t have to do it alone.
His steps were slow and quiet. At the bathroom door, he still said nothing. His arms were sure, but never tight. He didn’t carry me like a burden. He carried me like truth.
The room was golden and warm. Shadows danced on the tile like they understood. Steam rose from the tub, thick with cedar and lavender. The water shimmered, touched with oil like silk. I hadn’t seen him prepare it, but of course he had. His care was never reactive. It was readiness. Ritual. Not because he expected me to fall, but because he wanted the softness waiting if I did.
He set me down gently, easing my feet to the warm tile, hands still at my waist. The towel he’d used after the ropes clung to my skin, damp with sweat, salt, and everything I’d let go. He unwrapped me slowly. A thumb brushed here. A kiss pressed there. A breath grazed my shoulder. He touched me like I held scripture, not one he’d written, but one I’d chosen to share.
When the towel fell, his hands stayed warm at my hips, his gaze moving slowly over me, not with hunger or awe, but something quieter and deeper.
“Every part of you,” he said, voice rough with reverence. “Every knot. Every breath you gave me. You’re fucking breathtaking.”
I couldn’t speak. My throat caught with too much feeling, and any words might’ve fractured it. So, I stepped into the bath’s waiting heat. The water climbed my calves, my thighs, my waist, and I sank with a sigh that unraveled something buried. Warmth lifted the weight from limbs still heavy with release, and when I slid beneath the surface, it felt like a baptism I hadn’t known I needed.
I let my head fall back against the porcelain, lavender and steam rising together as the world slowed. Time thickened. Silence expanded. Even the room felt still, as though holding space for everything unspoken.
The water shifted as I felt him enter, felt the quiet splash, the way his body fit behind mine like it had always belonged there. His legs bracketed mine, one arm across my ribs, the other across my knees. His chest cradled my back, breath syncing withmine until I didn’t have to search for rhythm. He brought it to me.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t move quickly. Just held me. Chin resting on my head. Lips brushing my temple like punctuation in a language that didn’t need sound. Beneath the surface, his fingers trailed my arms, the bend of a wrist, the hollow beneath my collarbone.
When he reached for the washcloth, he moved like a man continuing a ritual. He soaked it, wrung it slowly, then brought it to my skin. Long strokes moved down my back, across my chest, between my thighs, each one a quiet confirmation.You are here. You are safe. You are mine.
He didn’t skip the bruises. Didn’t avoid what still hummed beneath the surface. He touched those places with more care, slower pressure, reverent without hesitation. When he gathered my hair, his hands gentled further. He cupped water over the strands, working his fingers through the roots, like he was rinsing out what didn’t belong anymore. I let him. Let the quiet stretch. Let myself soften in his arms without asking what came next.
Eventually, I turned toward his neck, where skin met stubble, where his breath moved slow and sure. I kissed him there. Not from romance. Not from obligation. But because it was the only language I had left for thank you. For this. For being held without needing to be fixed. For being seen and still wanted.
