Page 76 of Cuffed By Your Love
She blinked. “All the time.”
I kissed her forehead. “Good. ’Cause I’m feeling everything right now.”
I guided her to the couch, sitting down with her curled into my side like we’d been practicing this pose for years. I needed her close. I needed the way her heartbeat steadied mine.
“I stopped by Mama’s,” I said, my voice barely above a hush. “Asked her if it was fair to be happy again. If I was being selfish for wanting to love somebody like I haven’t already had something real before.”
Jonay’s hand slid up my chest, right over my heart. “And what did she say?”
“She told me love isn’t a reward; it’s a gift. Said I been due some joy.”
She smiled at that, but I was still working up the nerve to say what I needed to say.
I pulled in a breath that felt equal parts confession and hallelujah, heavy with truth yet holy in its release. “Jonay,… baby,… I don’t know what the future gon’ look like. I have seen too much. Buried too much. But when I see you, I see peace. I see fight. I see a woman who walked through fire and still has enough grace left to soothe a man who forgot what soft felt like.”
Her eyes glossed over, tears sitting in her pretty brown eyes but not falling, and she didn’t say a word, just let me keepspilling like she knew my heart needed to empty itself right into her hands.
“I don’t want to be out here wondering what if. I don’t want to hold back or play it safe ’cause I’m scared. I want you. All of you. Your laugh. Your hood side. Your quiet grief and your loud joy. And I know you got your own scars, your own reasons to keep a wall up, but, baby…”
I reached in my back pocket and pulled out my handcuffs, real steel and real weight, then placed them on the coffee table between us like I was setting down a truth too deep to ever snatch back.
“I’m not trying to be cuffed to nobody else but you, Deputy Gorgeous.”
She let out this soft little gasp, hand lifting to cover her mouth, but it wasn’t the sound that got me. It was her eyes, eyes that saidfinally. Eyes that whisperedme too. Eyes that wrapped around me like a promise, sayingyou’re safe here.
“Elias,” she whispered.
“Nah, let me get this out, ma,” I murmured, sliding her onto my lap until we were chest to chest, soul pressing upon soul. “This ain’t no lust phase. Not no rebound fairytale you jot down in a notebook and leave to collect dust. This right here is real. Bone deep. Forever real, type shit. And I’m ten toes planted in it, you feel me?”
She nodded, tears spilling down, but she was smiling too—the smile that only came when you felt seen, claimed, and wanted all at the same damn time.
“I feel you.” She breathed, pressing her forehead to mine. “I feel you so deep it scares me.”
“Good,” I murmured before kissing her slow like I had all night to prove it. “’Cause yeah, I’m scared too, but I ain’t going nowhere. I’m posted right here. Cuffed up, locked in, and crazy over you, my love.”
And in that moment, the weight of the past didn’t matter. The ghosts, the grief, and the guilt all faded into the background. All that existed was her in my arms, our breath in sync, and the way her name felt like redemption on my tongue.
The bedroom light was low, gold spilling over shadows like God Himself was trying to set the mood. Her locs poured across the pillows, wild and perfect, a halo for a woman who didn’t even know she was the prayer I’d been mumbling in my sleep for years. My prayer. My answer. My problem I’d never want to fix.
She was stretched out in one of my old tees, thighs bare, skin lit like she’d been washed in moonlight and draped in favor. I sat on the edge of the bed, breath deep but heavy, chest tight like my ribs were holding back a storm, heart swollen with too much of her, but my hands? Steady, always steady for her. Not ’cause this was new—we’d crossed that line before—but because this wasn’t about getting her. This was about keeping her, claiming her in a way that made it clear there was no break-up, no falling back, no “let’s be friends.” The claim where she could put her body in my hands and know I’d guard it like it was carved in holy text… then take her apart so slow and so wild that the walls might start catching the Holy Ghost on our behalf.
She looked at me, her tongue dragging slow across her bottom lip like she knew she was playing Russian roulette with my restraint.
“Say the word, and I’ll behave,” I told her, my voice low, leaning in as my hands slid up her thighs slow enough to make the air feel thick.
Her breath caught, her voice barely a whisper. “What if I don’t want you to?”
That was it. The match on the fuse. I pulled the cuffs from my back pocket, the steel cold and gleaming like prophecy.
“You ready to be cuffed by a real one? I’m not talking about no ‘just for a while’ type shit, not talking short-term, not talking ‘til we get bored.’ I’m talking ‘ain’t-no-gettin’-rid-of-me’ energy. You disappear, I’ll find you. You run, I’ll chase you down. You are mine in every timeline, in every life, and I’m making sure the universe never forgets it.”
“Yes.”
“You sure?” I asked, my voice low and jagged, every word landing with the weight of a promise carved in stone. “’Cause there is no turning back. I’ve had you before, but this, this is where I own you in the places nobody else even knew existed. I build with you. I guard you. I worship you. I wreck anything that even thinks about harming you. If I cuff you tonight, that’s it. You’re my forever. You ready to be loved and devoured in the same breath, Deputy Gorgeous?”
Her eyes widened, but not with fear. Nah, it was something deeper. She nodded, her cheeks flushing, her thighs parting like she’d already decided her soul could live here with mine.
She let it slip, a soft, shaky, “Yes.”
