Chapter 130 - 0130: I’m Not A Good Man

Chapter 130: Chapter 0130: I’m Not A Good Man

Elena’s Point Of View

The sound of my name on his tongue made something inside me jolt, a shock that traveled straight to my bones. I stared at him, unable to move, my breath lodged in my throat like a stone I couldn’t swallow.

His eyes stayed on mine, dark and relentless, and for a moment the boutique... the mirrored walls, the racks of shimmering dresses, the faint music floating from the front room, blurred into nothing. It was just him, too close, too still, too much, and I hated how easily he could reduce the entire world to the small space between us.

I hated, too, how some traitorous part of me welcomed the narrowing, as if I’d been waiting my whole life for the world to shrink down to exactly this.

My gaze flicked downward, a nervous reflex, and landed on his mouth. My heart skipped once, hard, as if it knew a secret my mind refused to face.

No. No, Elena, get a grip on yourself.

My fingers dug into the edge of the dressing table behind me until my knuckles went white, the sharp pain a small anchor against the storm rising in my chest. I counted my own heartbeats, trying to find some rhythm to hold onto, but even that betrayed me, thundering faster the longer he watched me.

"You’re insane, Jaxx," I rasped out, the words tearing from my throat like broken glass. "Stay the hell away from me. I mean it. Step back right now before I lose what little sanity I have left."

A dark, slow smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, infuriatingly unbothered, as though my warning were nothing more than an invitation. "You think calling me insane is going to make me back off, bambina?" he asked, tilting his head as if studying something rare and captive. "You should know by now that only makes me want to get closer."

"I am not playing with you!" My chest heaved, the unzipped silk gown slipping an inch lower down my shoulder, exposing more skin to the humid air between us. I fought the urge to yank it back into place, unwilling to let him see how rattled I truly was. "You don’t get to invade my space, trap me in a fitting room, and act like you own the ground I walk on! I told you three weeks ago to get out of my life, and I meant it!"

"And yet," he murmured, his dark eyes dropping to the exposed curve of my collarbone, watching my pulse flutter wildly against my skin, "here you are, trembling under my gaze. If you really wanted me gone, Elena, you’d have screamed for Lexy the second I walked through that door."

"I didn’t scream because I don’t want a scene!" I shot back, my voice laced with venom, though the heat pouring off his body was making my head spin and my thoughts scatter like leaves in wind. "I didn’t scream because I thought you had a shred of decency left in you to turn around and leave!"

"Decency?" A low, rumbling chuckle rose from Jaxx’s chest, a sound that seemed to vibrate straight into my ribs. "We both know I traded my decency away a long time ago. Especially when it comes to you."

He stepped closer anyway, as if my words were nothing but background noise to be dismissed, and some distant, rational corner of my mind noted how he always did this... listened just enough to know exactly which words would undo me, then discarded the rest.

The air between us thinned to a thread. His scent... clean leather, spice, single-malt whiskey, something darker underneath, wrapped around me, hot and dizzying. He didn’t touch me yet, but it felt as if he had.

My knees weakened, thighs pressing together unconsciously, my body betraying me even as my mind screamed stop, screamed that this was madness, that I had a husband waiting at home, a life I’d built brick by brick, a life that suddenly felt very far away and very fragile, like something made of glass I’d been foolish enough to think was unbreakable.

He lowered his head a fraction, his voice dipping into something rougher, heavier. "But I want you to know this."

I swallowed, my lips parting before I even realized it. "Jaxx..." It came out softer than I wanted, like a warning and a plea at once, betraying far more than I intended, and I saw the flicker of satisfaction cross his face at having heard it.

His gaze flickered to my mouth before snapping back to my eyes, and something in that brief glance felt like falling. "I’m not a good man, Elena." The honesty in his tone was a knife; it cut cleaner than his arrogance ever could. "I’ll ruin you."

My breath hitched. His words should’ve chilled me. Instead, they burned, spreading heat through my veins like spilled whiskey, and I despised myself for the way my body leaned toward the very danger my mind rejected. Some small, exhausted part of me wondered when exactly I’d stopped being afraid of ruin and started craving it.

"You can’t ruin what’s already broken," I whispered, bitterness creeping into my tone despite my efforts to hold it back, the confession slipping out before I could stop it. "So don’t act like you’re doing me a favor by playing the monster in my story."

His dark eyes narrowed into pitch-black slits. "I’m not playing, Elena," he growled. "I’m warning you. If you let me in, I will burn down everything you’re trying so desperately to cling to. I’ll tear down that golden cage your husband built for you, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left but you and me."

"Graham has nothing to do with this!" I snapped, my voice shaking with a mixture of rage and overwhelming awareness of how close his chest was to mine, of how the mention of my husband’s name felt like a betrayal in this room, as though simply speaking it aloud here had already tainted something I couldn’t take back.

"Is it?" Jaxx challenged, leaning in until his jaw almost brushed mine. "Or is it about the fact that every time he touches you, you wish it was my hands on your waist instead of his?"

"Shut up," I breathed, my pulse racing out of control, my resolve cracking under the weight of a truth I refused to name. "Just shut up, Jaxx."

"I can’t promise you roses and all that." His voice dipped lower still, turning into a growl that curled around the edges of my self-control. His body moved closer, slow but unstoppable, until the space between us disappeared entirely.

The heat of him pressed into me, chest to chest, the faint tremor of his breath fanning my neck and ear, and every nerve in my body seemed to wake at once, as if I’d spent years half-asleep and hadn’t known it until this exact moment.

I pressed back against the vanity instinctively, trying to create space that no longer existed. His hand came up, fingers planting on the wooden surface beside my hip, caging me in without a single point of contact.

The mirrors behind me caught us from every angle... my flushed cheeks, his predatory stillness, the electricity vibrating between us like something visible, something alive, multiplying infinitely in the glass until I couldn’t tell anymore how many versions of this moment existed, or how many times I’d already lost this fight.

"Stop," I whispered, though my voice trembled like a leaf caught in a current it couldn’t resist. "You can’t just..."

"Can’t what?" His breath brushed my jaw now, warm and dangerous. "Can’t stand this close?"

I tried to tilt my head away, but his nearness dragged me back, some invisible pull stronger than my own will. My pulse thundered in my ears, drowning out every rational thought. "You’re... you’re crossing a line."

A low chuckle slid under my skin, settling somewhere I didn’t want to acknowledge. "You drew the line," he said. "I’m just standing at the edge." His thumb brushed the air near my waist, not touching, but close enough for heat to bloom there, a phantom caress that undid me more than any real touch could have, and I hated how badly I wanted him to close that last impossible inch.

"You’re not standing at the edge, Jaxx, you’re trampling right over it," I gasped, my hands flying up to rest against his solid leather jacket, intending to push him away, but my fingers traitorously curled into the heavy material instead, betraying the very protest leaving my lips. "You think you can just smile and make me forget how dangerous you are? How much chaos follows you everywhere?"

"I don’t care about the chaos," he whispered, his eyes locked onto mine with a fierce, terrifying intensity that made my chest ache in ways I refused to examine. "I only care about what happens inside this room right now. You’re shaking under my hands, Elena."

His voice dropped, almost tender, almost cruel in its gentleness. "Tell me to leave again. Look me in the eye and tell me you actually want me to walk out that door."