Jesse didn't speak much this morning ...
He just sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his temples, knuckles bruised, chest still rising and falling like a man who hadn't fully come down from the storm.
"I shouldn't have hit him," he muttered.
I sat behind him, wrapped my arms around his waist.
"You protected me," I whispered. "That's nothing to be ashamed of."
---
He turned, eyes still dark, but clearer than I'd seen in weeks.
"Still. The moment I touched him, I saw it in your face."
"What?"
"The version of me I used to be."
I reached up. Ran my fingers along his jaw.
"Then look at me now," I said. "Do I look scared?"
His throat bobbed.
"No."
"You didn't lose control, Jesse. You claimed it."
---
The legal fallout started quietly. Evan mentioned something about Reid talking to a lawyer.
But Jesse just nodded.
"He wants to feel like he still matters. I'm not giving him that satisfaction."
He opened the shop on time.
Took on new clients.
Let me sit in the office during lunch with my laptop and coffee and legs draped across his thigh like we were just… normal.
But under all of that—
I saw it.
The question simmering behind his eyes.
Not "Do you still love me?"
But…
"Will you stay when it gets hard again?"
---
So I answered it.
The way I knew how.
That night, I took him apart with my mouth.
With my words.
With my hands wrapped around his wrists and my body pushing him deeper into the mattress than he'd ever let himself go.
When he came, trembling beneath me, I whispered:
"I'm not your fix."
He nodded, panting.
"I'm not your second chance."
Another nod.
"I'm your future."
---
And when I kissed his pulse and let my fingers trace the newest bruises down his ribs, he finally said it—
Not as a Dom. Not as a broken man.
But as Jesse.
"I want to build a life with you."
---
The collar came off that night.
But only because he asked me something bigger.
"Would you wear something else for me?" he murmured against my skin.
I looked up.
He reached into the drawer.
Pulled out a ring—black band, simple, leather-threaded with silver steel.
Not a wedding ring.
Not yet.
But a promise.
And I said yes.
Before he even had to ask and then he said by the way "seems I've got some explanations to give to someone" .