Chapter 129 - 0129: I Expect You To Fight Me

Chapter 129: Chapter 0129: I Expect You To Fight Me

Elena’s Point Of View

"...What?"

I blinked hard at him, certain I’d lost my mind or misheard him entirely. The two words had left his mouth so impossibly, so completely alien to who he was, that my brain refused to wrap around them.

This was Jaxx. The man who ruled through sheer authority, who never backed down, who commanded entire roomfuls of dangerous men with a single glance. He didn’t apologize. Not to his enemies, not to his allies, and certainly not to me.

Apologies were a currency he’d never learned to spend, a weakness he’d spent his whole life training himself against, armoring himself so thoroughly that I’d almost forgotten he was capable of doubt at all.

My lips parted again, my voice scraping out in disbelief. "What... did you just say?"

He didn’t look away. His eyes... sharp, dark, infuriatingly steady, locked on mine, unflinching and dead serious. He took a single, deliberate step closer, erasing the last fragile pocket of air I’d been clinging to, until his chest nearly touched mine.

I could feel the heat radiating off him, could see the faint tension coiled in his shoulders, as though even he wasn’t entirely sure what he was about to unleash.

There was something almost vulnerable in the way he held himself, a rare crack in the armor I’d never once seen him lower, not even in our most intimate moments.

"I said I’m sorry, Elena." His tone was quiet, rough around the edges, stripped of his usual arrogance. "I shouldn’t have said what I did to you that day. I shouldn’t have made you feel like a prize, or a possession to be claimed. That wasn’t what you deserved."

His jaw tightened, his voice dipping lower, rough with an intensity that sent shivers straight to my core. "Though... make no mistake. I want you to be mine. I want every single inch of you, body and soul. But not if it means breaking you to get there."

My chest tightened violently, my breath catching in my raw throat. For a long, painful moment, I couldn’t find words. My mind reeled in chaos, grasping for something solid and finding nothing.

This wasn’t Jaxx. This couldn’t be Jaxx. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t soften, not for anyone. He was a force of nature, a hurricane that tore through lives and left ruin in his wake, and yet here he stood, looking almost human, almost breakable, almost like someone I could trust with the pieces of myself I’d sworn never to hand over again.

Finally, when I found my voice, it came out sharp, trembling more from disbelief than anger. "Are you sick, Jaxx?" My brows shot up, my lips twisting into a defensive grimace, a poor shield against the confusion churning inside me.

"Because the man standing in front of me can’t be you. The Jaxx I know doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t admit wrong." I shook my head, almost laughing at the absurdity of it all. "He doesn’t talk like this."

For the first time, a faint, genuine smile tugged at the corner of his mouth... not the usual smirk, sharp and cocky, but something smaller, quieter, almost self-deprecating, the kind of smile that made him look, disarmingly, like a man rather than a monolith.

He let out a low chuckle, dragging a hand through his hair in a restless sweep, as though even his own composure had started to fray at the edges.

"I’m surprised at myself too," he admitted, his voice rough, like a confession forced out of him against his will. "I haven’t slept properly in three weeks, Elena. Every time I close my eyes, I see your face when you walked out on me. I see the way you looked at me like I was no better than Graham."

Something flickered behind his eyes at the mention of that name, a shadow of old shame he couldn’t quite mask, and for a moment I almost pitied him... almost.

"You weren’t any better than him!" I shot back, the old hurt rearing its head again, hot and immediate, refusing to be buried. "You were trying to control me! You thought that because I let you touch me, because I let you into my world, that gave you the right to dictate my life!"

"I know," Jaxx said softly, stepping even closer, his presence overwhelming every sense I possessed. "I fucked up, Elena. I panicked because I saw you slipping through my fingers, and my first instinct was to grab on tighter, to force you to stay. But you..."

He paused, his dark eyes narrowing slightly, studying me as if I were a puzzle he hadn’t yet solved. His voice dropped, intimate, carrying a weight that pressed into me like a physical force. "You, Elena, bring out sides of me I didn’t even know existed."

Heat shot through me... confusing, terrifying, wildly unwanted, curling low in my stomach despite every instinct screaming at me to resist it. My hands clenched at my sides, desperate for any shred of control, any anchor to keep from drifting toward him entirely.

I hated this. I hated how easily his words seeped under my skin, past every fortress and wall I’d spent years building to protect myself, walls I’d thought were finally strong enough to keep him out for good.

"Don’t," I whispered, shaking my head, fighting the shameful tremor threading through my voice. "Don’t say things like that. Not to me. Don’t play with my head when I’m already drowning."

"Why not?" His gaze sharpened, pinning me to the spot with an intensity that felt almost physical. "Because it makes you feel? Because it makes you question what you really want? Or is it because deep down, you know it’s true?"

"Stop." My voice cracked, louder now, sharper, edged with panic. I took another desperate step back, but the wall of full-length mirrors behind me left nowhere left to run. My spine hit the cool glass, and his reflection surrounded me, his dark eyes multiplied in every mirror, until the small fitting room shrank down to nothing but him and me, an infinite hall of Jaxx closing in from every direction, inescapable no matter which way I turned.

"I don’t know what game you’re playing, Jaxx," I spat, gripping the edge of the vanity table beside me, trying to ground myself against the rising current between us. "But I’m not interested. I’m not one of your toys. I’m not one of those women you can charm into forgetting themselves with a few pretty, fake words."

He studied me, silent for a long, heavy moment, his expression unreadable, though something dark and searching moved behind his gaze. The air in the room pulsed with a thick, unbearable tension, every second stretching until I felt my heart might burst from my chest.

Then, slowly, he stepped closer. Not fast, not forceful.. deliberate. Each movement of his large, dangerous body was calculated, like a predator giving prey the tantalizing illusion of choice, savoring the tension as much as the pursuit itself.

"Games," he murmured, tilting his head, his dark gaze dropping to where my chest rose and fell in rapid breaths against the unzipped silk gown. "Is that what you think this is?"

"What else could it be?" I shot back, my heart thundering so loud in my ears it drowned out the ambient noise outside the room. "You show up out of nowhere, lock the door, bribe or distract Lexy just to trap me, say the most impossible things, and expect me to just..."

I cut myself off, clenching my teeth until my jaw ached, fighting the tremble threatening to betray me further.

"Expect you to just... what?" he pressed, closing the last tiny inches of space between us. His scent wrapped around me again, intoxicating, smoky, dangerous, filling my lungs until every rational thought dissolved into the simple, terrifying fact of his nearness.

"Expect me to believe you." My whisper cracked, thin as spun glass. "Expect me to... to fall."

For a moment, neither of us spoke. The silence between us pulsed, alive and heavy, suffocating with everything unsaid, everything dark and desperate clawing beneath the surface. His hand twitched at his side, his long fingers flexing as though he desperately wanted to reach out, to wrap around my waist and pull me flush against his hard body, but he held himself back by a thread, as if some last fragment of restraint were the only thing keeping this moment from combusting entirely.

Finally, he leaned in, his lips dangerously close to mine, his breath brushing warm against my mouth, his voice a low, rough murmur tangling effortlessly with my frantic pulse.

"You’re wrong, Elena."

My eyes widened, my breath caught, trapped in my raw throat.

He tilted his head slightly, his eyes burning into me with an intensity that stripped away every defense, each word etched with raw, terrifying conviction.

"I don’t expect you to fall." His voice stayed steady, each syllable deliberate and heavy with promise. "I expect you to fight me. I expect you to resist. Because that’s who you are." His gaze softened, just barely, the dark void of his eyes filling with a strange, fierce reverence, something almost like awe. "And that’s what makes you impossible to forget."

I swallowed hard, fighting the wild storm rising inside my chest, unable to tear my eyes from his. I was trapped, utterly mesmerized, caught in his web no matter how hard I tried to pull away, and some traitorous part of me wondered if I even wanted to escape anymore, if escape had ever truly been the point.

Then, softer, almost reverent, he added, "You’re a mystery I’m still trying to unravel, Elena."