Page 44 of Unclench Me Softly

I don’t speak.

Because if I do, I’ll either say something deeply wise or deeply stupid and I’m not sure which would be worse. Because this is Jax Riot, the human flame emoji, the man who growled through cat-cow and made two-thirds of the dome cry-laugh.

And now he’s looking at me like I handed him something he didn’t know he needed.

He gives a lopsided almost-smile. “I just... figured you should know. You’re not full of shit. Or maybe you are. But whatever this is? It’s doing something.”

I manage a laugh, too soft. “You screamed at your inner demons in pigeon pose, Jax. That wasn’t exactly my doing.”

“Yeah, well,” he mutters, standing slowly. “Something unclenched. That’s all I’m sayin’.” He turns to go, then pauses. “You ever do that thing where... you’re scared if you let go of one thing, everything else might fall apart too?”

I nod, standing as well. “Only every day.”

He doesn’t say anything after that. Just looks at me. Long. Still. With a kind of quiet I wasn’t prepared for.

And then he steps closer. Just one small shift of weight, but I feel it like a gravitational event. My pulse skips, then slams back like it’s trying to break out of my body.

His gaze drops to my mouth.

And that is not allowed.

He’s close enough now that I can see the damp shine still clinging to his collarbone, the little scar by his eyebrow, the glint of something unreadable, but not uncaring, in his eyes. I could name this feeling, but I refuse to do it without a certified shaman and possibly a snack.

“Jax,” I start to say, except that’s all I manage before he kisses me.

And holy actual moon goddess.

It’s not wild. It’s not fast.

It’s soft. Shockingly soft.

Like he’s trying something out. Like he’s never kissed anyone quite like this. Like maybe he thinks I’ll break if he presses any harder.

(Plot twist: I will. I am. I’m already broken. Ruined. Rewritten on a spiritual level.)

His lips brush mine, a gentle sweep, and it sends every nerve ending in my body into some kind of primal seance. I can’t move. Can’t breathe. My brain is short-circuiting in twelve languages and one of them is just screaming the word “lips.”

I taste heat. And mint. And, oh god, maybe still a little eucalyptus. That shouldn’t be hot, but it is. It really, really is.

He pulls back just slightly, just enough to hover, and it’s worse, because now I feel the air between us, feel how badly I want that space closed again.

And then he kisses me for real.

His hand lifts, brushes against the side of my neck, fingers grazing my jaw like he’s reading something there, some map of all the places I didn’t think wanted to be touched.

And I kiss him back.

No hesitation. No thought. Just instinct and heat and the overwhelming, terrifying rightness of it.

Our mouths move together, slow and messy and too much and not enough. His thumb traces the curve of my cheekbone like a question he’s been dying to ask, and my brain is somewhere three feet above my body, screaming “this isn’t real, this isn’t sacred, this is literally dangerous, how is he good at this, why are you arching, oh my god.”

And I think, with all the clarity of a woman currently being spiritually yeeted off the edge of her own self-control:

I can’t breathe and I don’t want to and this kiss tastes like the beginning of a mistake I will absolutely not regret until much, much later.

And that’s when I do something very smart.

I pull away. Gasp. Step back. Almost fall over the cushion.

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