Page 61 of Jax
“This isn’t about pain,” I said, voice softer now. “It’s about sensation. Focus. The edge of stillness. If you want pleasure, you’ll ask. If you want to stop, you will. And I’ll hear it. Every time.”
She inhaled, then exhaled. Then looked up at me through lashes still wet at the tips and nodded her understanding.
And I gave her the words, not as an honorific, but as something sacred.
“Good girl.”
It landed like silk. She blinked—sharp, sudden—but didn’t flinch. Her lips parted slightly, her breath hitching like her body had absorbed something her mind hadn’t yet named.
I guided her to the mat, letting her knees sink into the padding as her hands rested loosely in her lap. She looked composed, almost, but I saw the beat too early in her breath, the tension still tucked in her jaw. And still, she stayed. Present. Choosing this. Choosing me, even as uncertainty hummed under the surface.
That was what made it sacred, not peace, but persistence. The choice to remain.
I circled her slowly, pulled by her like gravity. Each step deliberate. Each pass a study in control. I reached for the coil I’dset aside—soft, golden jute, conditioned until it moved like silk through flame. My hands knew its feel. Knew what it was built to carry.
I knelt behind her. When my fingers brushed the cotton stretched across her shoulders, she didn’t flinch. She exhaled. Long. Steady.
And that was all the permission I needed.
I began with the first wrap, drawing the rope over her shoulders, over her simple camisole, then around her chest in broad, framing lines that kissed just beneath her collarbones. Her body leaned forward slightly, not resisting, not submitting, just following sensation. The rope whispered across her skin, catching at soft friction points, each pass symmetrical and sure.
When I finally spoke, my voice was low. Measured.
“This is atakate kote. A box tie. Ancient design. Reliable. Structured. Elegant.”
Stella let out a breath that wasn’t quite a sigh, more like a shift. The sound of something loosening inside her chest.
I guided her arms gently behind her back. She moved with me, wrists resting in the small of her spine like they belonged there. “Chest harnesses like this work on a few levels,” I said, my voice low, more to steady than to teach. “Tactile pressure. Postural correction. Sensory containment.”
“Containment,” she repeated, distant but thoughtful.
“Only the kind you ask for.”
I wrapped her forearms into place with slow, careful tension. Each knot carried a quiet message. When I cinched the upper chest wrap, the rope pressed firm across her sternum. Her breath shallowed, not from panic but from inward focus. She was slipping beneath the surface, into that calm space between memory and sensation.
“Look at you,” I murmured, close to her ear. “Held tight and still, not because anyone took your power, but because you gave it.”
She blinked, lips parting. Her shoulders shifted like she was learning the shape of herself in real time. I stepped in to adjust the rear cinch, letting my chest brush her spine. My fingers grazed the underside of her breast. An incidental touch by design, testing depth, not dominance.
She didn’t speak. She didn’t flinch. She just breathed.
I moved lower, framing her leggings-clad hips with the next length of rope. The diagonals crossed her pelvis and then dipped between her thighs in a slow, cradling draw. Not invasive. Not vulgar. Just… intimate.
Her legs shifted. Toes curled. One knee bent. Her hips tilted forward, not in pursuit of pleasure but in permission for it.
“Jax…” Her voice came like torn silk—soft, raw, unguarded.
I stepped closer, chest to shoulder, breath brushing her ear. “This rope doesn’t take anything from you,” I whispered. “It only holds what you already own.”
Her breath hitched. One second. Two. The silence between us stretched like wire drawn taut.
“You want to be kept, don’t you?”
She didn’t speak at first. But her body answered—shoulders loosening, lips parting, her head bowing just slightly in something closer to reverence than submission.
Then finally, breathy and trembling: “Yes.”
The word landed deep, blooming beneath my ribs.
