Page 48 of Unclench Me Softly

“Yes,” I say.

“For real?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Damn,” he says. “Kinky.”

I glare at him.

He shrugs and walks away.

I stand there for a moment longer, surrounded by boxes of thoughtful, coordinated primal support gear from a man who spent yesterday moaning during pigeon pose and is somehow now trying to protect my knees from spiritual abrasion.

I am not okay.

I have five men to feed, a ceremony to run, and no plan for what to do if one of them hands me another act of unsolicited kindness. I can deal with fists and ego and rage.

But this?

This is emotional kneepads.

And I don’t have the armor for that.

An hour later, the men arrive one by one like it’s a primal breakfast sermon and I’m the emotionally compromised high priestess of cinnamon-glazed surrender.

They’re all wearing the kneepads.

All of them.

Asher looks delighted. Like he’s been waiting his entire life for a moment where group-coordinated knee protection was not only appropriate, but emotionally supportive.

Seb says nothing, of course, but he gives me a tiny nod like he sees the gesture and is secretly touched in his haunted lumberjack way.

Miles appears entirely unbothered, but I clock the way he adjusted his straps just right, like he read a manual on “elegant kneeling.”

Jonah’s? Already dusty. He probably tested them before breakfast like it was part of a military op. I try not to think about what it would be like to have that man crawl toward me on purpose. I fail.

And Jax is somehow both sulky and smug about it. He lounges against a bench like this is all hilarious to him, but his kneepads are on. He didn’t say no. He’s here. And that alone is enough to make my stomach do something profoundly unprofessional.

I take a breath, smile like I’ve got my life together, and gesture toward the long table set up beneath the willow tree.

“Welcome to our pre-Rewild nourishment ritual,” I say, voice steady, hands trembling slightly from either nerves or repressed lust, it’s hard to say. “Everything served here today is intentionally selected to support your transition into your inner cub.”

Asher nods, immediately reverent.

Jax smirks.

Miles raises an eyebrow. “What, exactly, are we eating?”

I gesture gracefully toward the spread: a collection of toaster pastries, semi-sliced bananas, chia seed pudding I did not make, and a pile of herbal tea bags arranged in a loose spiral that might be art or just poor time management.

“Each item has been curated to align with primal simplicity,” I lie. “These pastries represent duality, the wild and the sweet, the processed and the pure. The frosting is symbolic of our external masks. The filling? Our gooey inner truth.”

Jonah coughs lightly, covering what might be a laugh. I ignore it.

“The bananas are, obviously, a nod to our ancestral roots. And the tea,” I say, lifting a mug, “Was selected through guided intuition and pantry desperation.”

Jax is openly grinning now. “So we’re eating Pop-Tarts and vibes.”

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