Page 95 of Jax
She didn’t respond immediately. Didn’t have to. Her eyes softened, something old exhaling inside her. Then her fingers shifted again, higher on my thigh now, brushing near the bendof my hip. It wasn’t sexual. Not exactly. But not devoid of sexuality, either. She was letting her body speak where her voice couldn’t yet, and I stayed grounded, unmoving, giving her the freedom to find her pace. That was the point. Be the lighthouse. Let her be the tide.
She didn’t need to prove anything. She just needed space to exist. My hand stayed steady on her chest, keeping us both grounded in something that felt sacred. She didn’t retreat. Didn’t freeze. She breathed into it, let herself be in it, and that more than anything was what undid me. The permission she gave herself to soften in a moment that could have made her close off. I’d seen that recoil before, how even gentleness could frighten someone conditioned to brace for pain. But not her. Not now. Stella let herself feel me. Let me hold a sliver of her, and even if it was small, it was real.
“What we did tonight… I liked it,” she whispered, the words nearly lost in the hush. “Even the parts that scared me.”
Her voice wasn’t just soft. It was cautious. I didn’t rush to soothe it. I let her sit under the weight of her own words. Then I met them gently. “Especially those parts. Because the fear means it was important. And you didn’t run.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It breathed. Thick and living, stretching between us not to be filled, but honored. Her hand moved again, brushing my chest in slow, steady passes that didn’t seek attention.
“It felt like…” She paused, eyes searching. “Like giving myself permission to feel again. And not feel guilty for it.”
My throat tightened.
She wasn’t talking about tonight. Not really. She was talking about everything that came before it—the kidnapping, being brought here to a house full of strangers, trying to figure out how to retain her sense of self when everything about her life had been upended.
And now she was here, beneath my hands, lit from within by something incandescent and whole. Choosing tofeelanyway.
“Exactly,” I murmured, letting my thumb move again, just a small stroke across the smooth plane of her side. “You didn’t fail when you froze before. You protected yourself. That’s survival. But tonight?” I looked into her eyes, steady and certain. “You stayed. Youchose.”
A flicker of something passed through her. Hope, maybe. Or grief. They lived side by side, didn’t they? Especially in people who carried too much.
Her hand shifted slightly on my chest, sliding up toward my collarbone, fingers skimming the base of my throat. She didn’t pull me closer. Didn’t initiate anything. Just… felt me there. Her touch was like a statement:you are real, and I am real, and this moment counts.
“I still don’t know what this is,” she said softly, her voice brushing against vulnerability. “Between us.”
I could feel her breath on my jaw, warm and uncertain, and for a moment I imagined what lesser men might do here. How easy it would be to soothe her with platitudes, wrap this up in romance and promises and pretty words she hadn’t asked for.
But that wasn’t what she needed.
She needed space todefineher experience, not to be swept into mine.
“We don’t have to define it tonight,” I said, careful not to tip the balance of the quiet between us. “Not if that feels too big.”
But her mouth quirked at the corner, a shadow of a smile. “I want to definesomething.”
Not everything. Not evenus.
Just… something.
My breath caught at that. It wasn’t a declaration. It was a dare. One that came with trembling grace and raw, honest hope.
And suddenly, it felt less like she was trying to label this… and more like she was offering to build a place where it could live.
She was already halfway curled toward me, bare skin brushing against mine in a hundred quiet declarations. Her breathing had slowed from the ragged edge it rode earlier, but tension still hummed under the surface—quiet, coiled, waiting.
So I adjusted slowly, slipping under the comforter and turning onto my side until we were fully face-to-face beneath the warmth of the blankets. My hand moved instinctively to her hip. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t move. She just stayed, her gaze fixed on mine like I might hold the answer to a question.
“Then perhaps we can begin to define what a dynamic might look like between us.” I said softly, “One of the great things about kink is that a dynamic can look like whatever it needs to, based on the people involved. For example, to me, dynamic isn’t about control. It’s about structure.”
Her brows pulled together. “Structure?”
I nodded once. “Think of it like scaffolding. A framework that holds steady when everything else in your world shakes loose.”
Her eyes searched mine, unblinking, a little wary, but open. “So… no rules?”
“Rules are part of it, or at least they usually are.” I said, thumb moving in slow, soothing circles along her hipbone. “But not always in the way most people think. Not like punishment and reward. Structure means choice. Boundaries thatyoudefine. Things that help you feel grounded, not boxed in.”
She swallowed, her throat bobbing. Her knee shifted under the sheet, brushing against my thigh. Not a conscious touch, but it made my pulse throb anyway.
