Chapter Eleven
Sacred Stillness Is Tomorrow, But This Ain’t It
The hug finally breaks apart like a too-long group therapy improv exercise. Asher’s glowing. Jax claps Seb on the back like they’ve survived war. Jonah vanishes into the trees like the shadows summoned him. And I’m still reeling from the howls, from the hugging, and from the fact that this was supposed to be a fake retreat, and now my internal world feels like a cracked geode leaking light and mild horniness.
I turn to start collecting the sacred tea jars, but then I feel it.
Someone’s still there. Behind me.
I turn slowly, like I’m afraid it’ll be a wild raccoon or worse, a man I can’t emotionally handle right now.
It’s Miles. Of course it’s Miles. Standing a few steps away, arms loosely folded, looking... not sarcastic.
His sleeves are rolled up. His hair’s slightly mussed. There’s a pine needle stuck to his hip. And he’s watching me with the unsettling intensity of a man who’s either about to ask for a spreadsheet or change your life with a single sentence. “Hey,” he says.
My brain short-circuits. Miles doesn’t say “hey.” Miles says things like “statistically speaking.” Or “that’s illogical.”
“Hey,” I say back, already suspicious.
He glances toward the woods, then back at me. “You okay?”
I blink. “Me?”
He gives a dry, barely-there smile. “You’re the only one still here, looking like you might combust. Figured I’d check.”
“Wow,” I say. “That’s almost gentle.”
He shrugs. “Don’t tell anyone. I have a brand to protect.”
We stand there for a beat. The silence settles between us, not awkward, just charged. The moonlight paints soft edges on him. And suddenly, I notice a shift.
He looks looser. Less guarded. Less like the hawk circling the retreat for flaws.
More like someone who actually... landed.
“You surprised me today,” I say.
He arches a brow. “Because I didn’t flee the minute someone howled into the void?”
“Because you did the nesting,” I say. “You built that little fortress like it was an emotional escape pod.”
He glances away, then back. His voice drops, quieter now. “Didn’t think I needed it. Turns out... maybe I do.”
And then he steps closer. Just one step.
But enough. Enough that I can feel his warmth. Smell the faint trace of whatever impossibly expensive product he uses that somehow smells like cedar and well-earned condescension.
“Want to know the weird part?” he asks.
I nod. Can’t speak.
“I didn’t hate it.” His voice is too calm for how fast my heart is pounding. “Didn’t hate the crawling. Or the dirt. Or even the howling. I thought I’d feel ridiculous. But instead... I felt free.”
I blink.
Because that wasn’t a confession. That was a warning.
He’s still watching me. Eyes sharp. Voice soft. “You’re good at this,” he says. “Too good.”
I laugh, shaky. “Miles, I made half of this up while applying moon glitter.”
“And yet,” he says, taking one more step toward me, “Here I am.”
We’re inches apart now. My back is to the tea altar. My breath has officially forgotten how to function. “You think this is real?” I whisper.
His eyes drop to my mouth. Stay there a beat too long. Return to my eyes with surgical precision. “I think,” he says, “Whatever it is... it’s working.”
He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t have to.
I feel him in my skin. In my pulse. In that desperate ache of maybe he would, if I asked.
And then he leans in close enough that his mouth brushes my ear when he speaks. “I also think you should stop looking at me like I’m safe.”
I freeze.
His voice is velvet and threat and slow-burn ruin. “I’m not,” he murmurs. “And you know it.” And just like that he steps back. Cool, composed, and controlled. “Sleep well, Bliss,” he says, turning into the dark.
I stare after him, mouth open, legs wobbly, heart raging.
My clit might never recover.
I’m still vibrating with Miles’s voice in my ear, I’m not safe, as I gather up the scattered remains of my post-howl altar like I can somehow sweep my libido into a sage bundle and burn it away.
The tea jars clink as I stack them. The staff wobbles when I lean it against a tree. I mutter to myself the entire time like a woman trying to recite a protection spell she never memorized.
I just need to get to my dome. To breathe. To reset.
To put space between me and five men who are turning my spiritual wellness scam into a sensual fever dream I am not qualified to lead.
I take the side path back through the trees. The night is warm, the moonlight filtered and soft, and the domes glow like little wombs of safety. I round the corner to mine, fingers already fumbling for the zipper of my robe, and then I freeze.
Because someone is sitting on my front steps, leaning back, legs spread, and arms draped over his knees like he owns the night.
Jax.
And not the smirking, half-joking version of him. No.
This Jax is quiet. Still. Eyes locked on mine like he felt me coming. “Hey, Moon Girl.”
I stop mid-step. My pulse does a handspring. “You... waiting for someone?” I ask, voice too high, too breathy.
He stands. “Yeah,” he says. “You.”
My stomach flips. My knees threaten betrayal. “Why?”
He shrugs. Steps closer. Not rushed. Just inevitable. “Because last night, we kissed. And today... I tried to shake it off. Tried to rewild and reflect and build my dumb little moss bed like a good cub.”
He’s right in front of me now. His voice drops, heavy and warm. “But it didn’t work.”
He reaches out. Fingertips trail up my arm, slow and reverent. “Because I don’t want to be a cub.” His hand slides to my waist. “I want to be a man in your bed.”
My breath leaves me.
The robe slips off one shoulder. He notices. Doesn’t touch it. Doesn’t need to.
“Jax,” I say.
“No more fake rituals,” he says, eyes locked on mine. “No more almost. You want this?”
I nod. Too fast. Too hard.
He exhales like he’s been holding it in all day.
Then he’s kissing me. Not soft. Not tentative.
Hungry. Claiming. Heat and hands and “I’ve been waiting for this and you’ve known it.”
He backs me against the dome door, one hand braced beside my head, the other sliding up under my robe, fingers finding skin like he’s mapping territory. He groans into my mouth when he touches my thigh, and it’s so real, so raw, I almost cry.
I open for him. Let him in. Mouths colliding. Teeth clashing. Tongue and need and holy shit he tastes like fire and forgiveness.
He pulls back just enough to speak. “You stop me now,” he growls, “Or I’m not stopping.”
I don’t stop him. I open the door with shaking hands and drag him inside like I’ve summoned the storm on purpose.
And then there’s no more pretending. No more fake retreats or spiritual metaphors.
Just hands. Mouths. Heat. Need.
He slams the door behind us and presses me to it like the whole dome is holding its breath. His mouth crashes into mine, no hesitation, no warm-up. Just teeth, tongue, breath, groaning heat as his fingers tangle in my hair like he’s starving for something that only exists between my thighs.
My robe falls to the floor.
He looks down, eyes blazing, breath ragged, and lets out a sound that is pure worship wrapped in filth. “Fuck, Bliss…”
He grabs my hips and lifts me like I weigh nothing. My legs wrap around him on instinct, and he carries me, just carries me, to the bed, kissing me so hard my soul leaves my body and floats up to the chakra plane.
I land on my back, bare, legs spread, pulse pounding like a sacred drum.
He yanks off his shirt. His pants. No teasing. No slow striptease.
Just a body built for sin and confession, muscles flexing with tension as he stares down at me like he’s trying to decide if he should ruin me gently or not at all.
Then he drops to his knees at the edge of the bed, palms sliding up my thighs, and says, low, rough, sacred, “Tell me this is mine tonight.”
I choke on air. Nod. “Y-Yes. Yes, Jax.”
He doesn’t wait.
His mouth is on me in seconds, tongue sliding through heat like he’s devouring prayer. And he doesn’t start soft, he starts hungry, sucking, licking, growling into my skin as I arch off the bed like my body’s trying to escape and stay forever all at once.
I come fast, too fast, with his name punched from my lungs like it was written into the ritual. “Jax, oh, goddess, fuck.”
He doesn’t stop. Not when I shake. Not when I beg.
He just slides up my body, hot and heavy and leaking sin, every inch of him radiating tension so thick it feels like the air’s gonna snap. And when he presses his mouth to mine, it’s not a kiss. It’s a confession. It’s theft. Like he wants me to taste exactly what he just took from me.
“You ready to feel me?” he growls, voice frayed at the edges, like it costs him to hold back even a second longer. “You ready to be filled like you fucking deserve?”
“Yes,” I gasp, desperate, feral, already reaching between us like I can pull him deeper before he’s even inside me.
He groans, deep and guttural, a sound that rips straight through me and settles in the part of my brain that no longer believes in spiritual alignment but definitely believes in him. Then, finally, he thrusts into me in one smooth, brutal motion, and I swear I feel it in my ears.
“Holy shit,” I sob, clinging to his shoulders like a woman about to be launched into the astral plane. “You’re, fuck, you’re too…”
“I know,” he grits, buried deep, forehead pressed to mine. “But you’re taking it. You’re fucking perfect. So tight, so sweet.”
He rolls his hips, slow and devastating, and I swear the world tilts 3 degrees on its axis just to watch this happen.
Every movement is measured destruction, each thrust harder than the last, a rhythm that speaks in tongues, a grind of hips and sweat and sound. He holds my wrists above my head, teeth at my neck. He’s not just fucking me; he’s rewiring my soul.
My second orgasm crashes through me like divine retribution. I scream, honest-to-Gaia scream, as my whole body seizes around him, muscles clenching like I’m trying to keep him inside me forever. Like if he leaves, I’ll just ascend, tits out, into another realm entirely.
And he’s right there with me.
“Fuckfuckfuck,” he pants, hips stuttering, forehead against mine. “Take it, take it all, you feel what you do to me?”
Then he groans my name like a curse and a prayer and comes hard, spilling inside me like he’s giving me his soul, piece by shuddering piece, hips jerking with every wave.
We collapse together, bodies tangled, breath shaking, his hand cupping the back of my neck like I might disappear if he lets go.
Then he presses one kiss, soft, reverent, to my collarbone and whispers, rough and low, “Told you I wasn’t stopping.”
And I know, deep in my wrecked, rewilded soul he meant it.
We’re both still breathless, skin sticky, my legs flopped open like the universe punched me in the pelvis and then blessed the site of impact.
Jax is on his side beside me, one arm slung low across my waist, his other hand tracing lazy circles just under my breast like he’s still trying to memorize the terrain.
I stare at the ceiling of my dome. Absolutely wrecked. Absolutely happy. Absolutely thinking about pinecones and moonlight and whether my aura just climaxed.
I grin up at him, wrecked and high on orgasmic enlightenment. “Your aura just got so clear,” I whisper. And then, in the softest, most tragically honest voice, I whisper, “My third eye just high-fived my cervix.”
There’s a long silence.
Then Jax laughs. And not a smirk. Not a snort. A full, deep, ridiculous laugh that shakes the bed and makes me want to either punch him or marry him.
“Jesus, Bliss,” he says, still chuckling, “You’re something else.”
“I’m fine,” I mutter into the pillow. “This is normal. This is how spiritual leaders recover.”
He leans in, kisses the shell of my ear, still grinning. “You look like you just got exorcised and baptized at the same time.”
I try to sit up. Immediately regret it.
“My legs don’t work,” I whisper, horrified. “You broke my legs.”
“I didn’t break your legs,” he says.
“You bent them around your very large, very rewilded…”
“Shhh,” he says, laughing. “Don’t bring the retreat vibe into the afterglow.”
“I can’t even walk to the tea altar,” I moan. “I have a chakra lounge to organize tomorrow. There were going to be scarves, Jax. Sacred. Scarves.”
He rolls onto his back, hands behind his head like the smuggest post-orgasm wilderness god who’s ever existed.
“You want to go over the itinerary now?” he teases. “Make a vision board? Or maybe journal about the orgasmic realignment of your spiritual core?”
I throw a pillow at him.
He catches it. Tucks it under his head. Smiles at the ceiling.
Then, voice quieter, rougher, he says, “You really okay?”
I blink.
Because that’s not teasing. That’s tender. That’s real.
And for a second, I forget how to be funny.
I nod. “Yeah. I’m good. More than good. Just… surprised.”
“By what?” he asks.
I look at him, and say, soft and true, “That you’re not just a chaos monster in leather and bad decisions.”
He smirks. “I mean, I am.”
“But you’re also…” I wave vaguely. “This.”
He reaches for me again. Pulls me in and presses a kiss to my temple. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “You, too.”
I fall asleep tucked against his chest, legs still trembling, brain still chanting chakra lounge, chakra lounge, do not die of feelings, and the last thing I remember before I drift off is him whispering, “I’m definitely gonna journal about this.”
And the bastard means it.