Page 90 of Jax
She was flushed, upright, with no collapse in her frame. Her wrists were wrapped in clean lines. Her shoulders were still drawn, but her face had changed—eased, softened. Like something inside her had stilled for the first time in a long while.
“You’re not tied to me,” I said, voice thicker than I liked. “You’re tethered to yourself. I’m just here to keep you steady while you hold the line.”
She didn’t blink. Just looked at me for a long, suspended second before stepping forward. Not stumbling. Not falling. Just... closing the distance. Like she wanted to get near enough that my meaning became touch instead of sound.
Her bound hands met my chest. Not forcefully, just enough pressure to feel the shape of my heartbeat under her palms. Her skin was hot. Her breath was even hotter where it ghosted against my neck.
“I don’t need saving,” she said.
“I know,” I replied, letting the rope between us shift slightly. “You never did.”
“But I do need this.”
“Then it’s yours,” I said. “All of it. Me. The rope. The quiet. The fire. The goddamn stars, if you want them.”
She studied me like she didn’t quite believe it. Then something in her eased, barely, but enough to notice. Not weakness. Just honesty surfacing through tension.
“You’re not like the others,” she said.
“No,” I told her. “I’m the one who sees you.”
She didn’t smile or pull away. Just breathed. And somehow, it felt louder than anything else in the room. Her wrists stayed at my chest, her head tilted toward my shoulder like she needed somewhere to rest but wasn’t ready to say so.
I didn’t move or guide. Just stayed with her, breath steady, matching her rhythm until her forearms softened. When her weight shifted into a lean, I stayed grounded beneath it. That kind of silence meant something. You didn’t get it for free.
When she finally spoke, it came out raw. “Do you know how hard it is to feel safe in a body that’s been in survival mode for weeks?”
I swallowed. “Yeah. I do.”
She tilted her head as if the answer surprised her. Her eyes searched mine for contradiction.
“Then how do you make it feel easy?” she asked.
I let out a breath. “It’s not easy. It’s intentional. Every second with you is a choice to stay soft when I was trained to be sharp. You’re worth that.”
She looked away, like the words were too much, and I didn’t push. I just moved with her, slow steps toward the bed, rope shifting slightly with each motion. She sat, legs close to mine, hands curled in her lap, elbows drawn in like she still needed the armor.
“Lie back for me,” I said. “Only if you want.”
She paused, not out of fear, but because letting go takes its own kind of strength. And she gave it. Slowly, she reclined, spine curving into the mattress, wrists resting gently over her stomach. Her hair spilled across the pillow like a sigh. She looked like something deliberate. Something claimed.
I knelt beside the bed and placed my hand on her knee. “I’m not going to take from you,” I said. “I’ll hold whatever you give. Whatever you need to let go of.”
She swallowed and shut her eyes for one beat. Then, she opened them again.
“What if it’s too much?”
“Then I’ll hold it longer.”
“And if I break?”
“Then I’ll remind you that you’re allowed to.”
She looked at me like she wasn’t sure whether to kiss me or cry, and I could’ve lived a thousand lives in that expression. But instead, I leaned in and kissed the side of her knee, then her thigh, then the soft crease where her hip met the edge of her lower lips. Each touch was deliberate. I wasn’t trying to provoke. I was trying to rebuild her from the bones out. She exhaled again, this time like her ribs had finally let go of something they’d held too long. When her hips lifted slightly, it wasn’t frantic or pleading. It was permission.
I didn’t reach for her like a starving man at a feast, though every part of me ached with need. Not just for the curve of her hips or the heat in her skin, but for the vulnerable defiance in her gaze. The kind of offer you don’t snatch. You earn it. Carefully. Intentionally. Like peeling open a relic you’re scared will disappear if you move too fast. So I knelt.
My knees hit the floor with the kind of weight I only felt in two places—combat and worship. She sat at the edge of the bed, legs parted, heart visible in the flutter of her throat. The paper still curled around one thigh like a fragile crown, the last remnant of what I’d peeled away. Everything else had been removed with slow hands, like old armor I refused to tear. Just one piece remained. One deliberate tether. Just enough to say,I see what you’re holding. I will not take it. I’ll wait until you offer it freely.
