Chapter 213 - 0213: You’re Already Moaning

Chapter 213: Chapter 0213: You’re Already Moaning

Elena’s Point Of View

I lowered myself onto his lap, my thighs straddling his, the heat of his body seeping through the thin fabric of his slacks. His hands found my waist, his grip firm, possessive, sending a jolt of electricity through me. Beneath me, the hardness of his thighs grounded me even as my pulse spiraled out of control.

His chest rose and fell with each breath, steady where mine was ragged, and his gaze burned into me like a brand, stripping away every defense I thought I still had. I searched his face for some trace of hesitation, some flicker of doubt that might mirror my own, but there was nothing. Only certainty. Only that unyielding patience of a man who already knew how this would end.

I squirmed, suddenly hyper-aware of my body... of the way my bare skin pressed against his clothes, of the way my nipples hardened under his stare, of the way my breath hitched as his fingers traced the curve of my hip. Every nerve ending felt exposed, as though he’d found some hidden switch in me and flipped it without permission. I wanted to blame the wine, the heat of the club downstairs, anything other than him, but the lie wouldn’t hold even inside my own head.

What the fuck was wrong with me? How could I be this comfortable sitting here, nearly naked in his arms, like this was where I belonged?

I should have been embarrassed. I should have been furious. Instead, some traitorous part of me only wanted him to hold on tighter. A small, humiliating voice in the back of my mind whispered that I’d been waiting for this longer than I wanted to admit, maybe longer than the three weeks since I’d shown up at his door.

Jaxx’s index finger dragged along my lower lip, his touch light, teasing, his eyes dark with something that made my stomach flip. "You’re trouble, Elena," he murmured, his thumb brushing against the corner of my mouth. "But the kind of trouble I’ll never want to get rid of."

My breath caught, my fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as his other hand circled my waist, pulling me closer, his touch searing. I hated how easily my body responded, how it seemed to know him better than my mind did. It was infuriating, this betrayal of my own flesh, this refusal of my nerves to heed a single word of caution.

"You drive me fucking crazy," he continued, his finger tracing the shape of my lips. "The way you look at me. The way you move. The way you taste." His thumb pressed against my lip, his eyes darkening as I parted them slightly, my tongue darting out to wet them. "You’re addictive. And I don’t want a cure."

A whimper escaped my lips, my thighs pressing together as heat pooled between them, my body aching for more. His words were filth, his voice a dark caress, his touch maddening. I tried to control my reaction, tried to breathe, tried to think, but it was impossible. Not when he was looking at me like this.

Not when his hands were on me like this. Not when every rational thought I owned seemed to dissolve under the weight of his attention. I had spent years building walls around exactly this kind of surrender, and he was dismantling them with nothing more than his voice and the press of his palm.

"Jaxx..." I breathed, my voice trembling, my arms curling around his neck, my fingers tangling in his hair.

He smirked, that smug bastard, his gaze dropping to my lips as his thumb pressed just a little harder. "You like that, Bambina?" he murmured, his voice a purr. "You like hearing how much I want you?"

"Shut up," I whispered, but there was no conviction in it, and we both heard it.

"Ten years, Elena," he said, his voice dropping lower, rougher, his thumb dragging my bottom lip down. "Ten years I watched you walk around like you didn’t know what you were doing to me. Then three weeks ago you show up at my door at two in the morning, shaking, with rain in your hair, and you ask me..." his hand slid up into my hair, gripping a fistful, tilting my head back until I was looking straight up into his face, "...you ask me, in that little broken voice, to fuck you. Do you know what that did to me?"

"Jaxx..."

"I’ve thought about it every night since. Every night, Bambina. The sounds you made. The way you grabbed my shirt like you were drowning. The way you said my name when you came." His grip tightened in my hair, and a shiver ran through my whole body. "And then I leave for three weeks, and I come back to find you in that black dress, at my club, letting another man breathe your air."

"He wasn’t..." I swallowed, searching for footing that didn’t exist. "He wasn’t breathing my air, that’s ridiculous."

"He leaned in twice. I counted." His mouth brushed my jaw, slow, deliberate. "You smell like vanilla. He could smell it too. That’s my vanilla, Elena. I bought it because it drives me out of my mind."

My face flushed hot. "You’re crazy."

"Maybe." His eyes dropped to the dress pooled on the floor behind me, then came back to mine, and something darker moved through them. "Tell me something, Bambina. Were you also going to let that Daniel take this dress off you tonight?"

"No," I said, my voice sharper than I’d intended. "I didn’t even know the guy. We were just talking over drinks. And stop talking as if I owe you any obligation."

Jaxx nodded slowly, and there was no anger in it, no argument, only a kind of calm certainty that unsettled me more than his jealousy had. "You don’t," he said, his voice low, even. "You don’t owe me anything. But you are mine, and I hate sharing. You have to understand that." His hand slid up my back, slow, deliberate, his fingers spreading wide between my shoulder blades. "I’m not trying to hold you against your will. But we both know you want me. Isn’t that right, princess?"

He dipped his head and pressed his mouth to my neck, kissing a slow path up from my collarbone to just below my ear, and I felt every single second of it in my spine. "Because I want you, Elena," he murmured against my skin, his voice rough and low. "I want you so badly it’s been three weeks of hell. I want you in the morning, when I wake up thinking about your mouth. I want you at night, when I can’t sleep because I remember the way you sounded when I touched you. I want you in this dress. I want you out of it. I want you sitting on my lap exactly like this, making those little sounds, pretending you don’t know what you’re doing to me."

His teeth grazed my pulse point and I gasped, my fingers tightening in his hair. "I’ve wanted you for more than ten years, Bambina. Ten. And you’re telling me you don’t feel even a piece of that?"

"Jaxx..." His name came out wrecked, half plea, half surrender.

"So yes," he said, his lips curving against my throat, "you don’t owe me an obligation. But you like hearing me say how much I want you." He pulled back just far enough to look at me, his eyes dark and burning. "You like it. Your pulse is jumping under my mouth. Your thighs are clenching around me right now. Say I’m wrong."

I couldn’t. God help me, I couldn’t say a single word. The silence between us felt louder than any confession. It stretched on, thick and damning, every second of it another admission I refused to voice aloud.

My face went hot. "You’re deranged."

"And yet." His hand slid from my waist to my hip, then lower, his palm flattening against my bare thigh, warm and heavy. "Here you are. On my lap. In nothing but soaked lace. Derangement looks good on you, baby."

I bit my lip, my hips shifting restlessly against his, the friction maddening, the heat between my legs unbearable. Little sounds spilled from my mouth... whimpers, gasps, the kind of noises I couldn’t control, the kind that made my cheeks burn with embarrassment.

I wanted to disappear and, at the same time, I wanted more, and the contradiction terrified me. Some part of me, the part still clinging to pride, screamed to stop, to push him away and reclaim whatever dignity I had left. The rest of me didn’t listen.

But Jaxx?

That smug bastard’s smirk only deepened.

"What, Bambina?" he said, his voice a dark tease, his fingers tightening on my waist. "Can’t handle a little heat?"

I opened my mouth to retort, to lie, to tell him he was wrong... that he didn’t affect me, that the heat between my thighs was just the room, just the alcohol, just anything but him. But the words died on my lips, my breath hitching as his fingers tightened on my waist, his gaze dark and knowing, like he could read every lie before I spoke it.

"It... It’s just the hotness of the room," I stuttered, finally finding my voice, though it betrayed me with how thin it sounded.

Jaxx went very still. Then he laughed - a real laugh, low and dark and genuinely delighted, his chest shaking under mine. "The hotness of the room," he repeated, tasting the lie like it was the best thing he’d heard all week. "I believe you, Bambina," he murmured, his voice dripping with sarcasm, his lips curling into that infuriating smirk.

"You don’t have to be such an ass about it."

"I don’t have to be," he agreed. "But you make it so easy."

"I came up here because you threatened to kill someone, not because I wanted..."

"Because you wanted," he cut in, quiet now, and the quiet was worse than the teasing. "That’s the only reason you came up. If I’d texted you a polite invitation, you’d have typed out six reasons why it’s a bad idea, deleted them all, and gone to bed angry. Instead, I gave you a reason you couldn’t argue with. And here you are."

"You are the most arrogant man I have ever known."

"And you’re the most stubborn woman. Which is why," his hands slid up my back, his fingers tangling in my hair, "we’re going to test something. Why don’t we test that, princess? How stubborn can you be?"

I barely had time to react, barely had time to breathe, before his mouth crashed onto mine.

There was no gentleness, no warning, just hunger. His lips were firm, demanding, his teeth nipping at my lower lip before his tongue invaded, deep and possessive, stealing my breath, stealing my thoughts, stealing everything I thought I knew about control.

My brain short-circuited, my body arching into his, my fingers tightening in his hair as his hands gripped my hips, pulling me closer, his kiss consuming everything it touched.

I didn’t move at first.

I couldn’t.

Because this wasn’t just a kiss. It was a claim. A promise. A fucking brand burned straight into my skin. Every rational argument I’d been building for weeks crumbled under the weight of it, and for one terrifying moment, I didn’t even want to pick up the pieces.

His mouth moved against mine like he had all the time in the world and none of it at once... slow, filthy strokes of his tongue, then hard, then slow again, keeping me off balance, keeping me chasing. One hand stayed fisted in my hair, holding my head exactly where he wanted it, and the other slid down my spine, over the curve of my ass, gripping the flesh there, kneading it, pulling me harder against him.

I could feel everything: the fabric of his slacks against my bare thighs, the heat radiating off his chest, the hard length of him pressing up against me through his pants, and God, the things that did to me.

"And you were saying," he murmured against my mouth, not pulling away, his breath ragged now too, "about the hotness of the room?"

"Maybe," I gasped, my hips shifting on their own, chasing the friction, hating myself for it, "maybe the room is just... you..."

"Careful, Bambina," he growled, his teeth finding my jaw, my throat, the spot below my ear that made my thighs clench around him. "That almost sounded like an admission."

"It wasn’t."

"Mm. Say that again while you’re grinding on my cock like that. It’s very convincing."

I froze. I hadn’t even realized I was doing it. My face burned so hot I thought I might actually combust, and I tried to lift off his lap, but his hands clamped down on my hips, holding me exactly where I was.

"Where do you think you’re going?" he said, his voice a low rumble.

"Anywhere. Away from you."

"You had your chance to leave. You were standing by the door." He leaned in, his lips brushing my ear, his voice dropping to something dark and soft. "You walked toward me instead. In slow motion. With your hips. Now you don’t get to pretend this is happening to you, Elena. Nothing about tonight is happening to you."

Then he bit my lip.

A sharp, stinging pain sent a jolt of pleasure straight to my core. I gasped, the sound swallowed by his mouth as his tongue slid against mine, his kiss turning feral, his hands gripping my ass, his fingers digging into my flesh.

A moan tore from my throat, broken and needy, the sound vibrating against his lips.

Jaxx chuckled, the sound dark and satisfied, his lips curving against mine. "It wasn’t even up to thirty seconds, baby," he murmured, his voice a dark tease, his tongue tracing the seam of my lips. "And you’re already moaning."