Chapter 236 - 0236: You’ll Need Your Strength, Baby

Chapter 236: Chapter 0236: You’ll Need Your Strength, Baby

Elena’s Point Of View

He didn’t move back. He stayed exactly where he was, one arm still braced beside my head, his body still caging mine against the car, and I became suddenly, acutely aware of how close his mouth was. The morning air smelled faintly of exhaust and coffee from some nearby cart, but all I could focus on was the warmth radiating off him, the way his breath stirred the loose strands of hair at my temple. My heartbeat betrayed me, thudding loud enough that I wondered if he could hear it too, if he could sense the war happening just beneath my skin.

"Jaxx. You can move now."

"I could," he agreed, making absolutely no effort to do so. "But you’re still holding my shirt, Bambina."

I looked down. I was, my knuckles white against the dark fabric, and I snatched my fingers back like I’d touched a stove. "That was... for stability. You pushed me against a moving vehicle..."

"My car was parked."

"You pushed me against a parked vehicle. Same crime."

"It’s not a crime if you leaned into it."

"I did not lean..."

He dipped his head and I lost the sentence entirely, because his mouth landed on my bare shoulder, soft and warm and open, a slow kiss pressed right against my skin. My eyes went wide at the contact and my breath stuttered, and before I could form a single functional word, I felt his teeth... a light, deliberate bite right at the curve where my shoulder met my neck, just enough pressure to make my knees forget their entire job.

Then he soothed the spot with his tongue and sealed his mouth over it, sucking slowly, and the sound of it in the quiet morning air was obscene. Heat pulsed through me in a slow, spreading wave, my nipples hardening against the thin fabric of my dress, and I pressed my thighs together against the ache that had no business existing on a public sidewalk at nine in the morning.

Somewhere behind us, a car door closed, and I flinched at the reminder that we existed in a world with other people in it. A small, rational part of my brain screamed that this was madness, that I should step away, that dignity still existed somewhere within reach, but that part was losing, badly, to the warmth coiling low in my belly.

"Jaxx..." My voice came out a moan before I could stop it, and I clapped my mouth shut, absolutely mortified, because we were on a public street, in daylight, with his bodyguards still lingering at a respectful and clearly-not-respectful-enough distance. "What do you think you are doing?"

He didn’t detach. He latched onto that spot like a toddler who’d found his favorite thing in the world and had no intention of letting go, and every pull of his mouth sent a traitorous pulse straight between my thighs. My hands came up to his chest, meaning to push him away, but my fingers curled into the fabric instead, gripping rather than shoving, which ruined the entire gesture and, worse, told him exactly how little I meant it.

"Don’t you even dare," I warned, breathless and scandalized and fighting the shiver working its way down my spine. "I have been in that room with you for hours, since last night. I’m tired, Jaxx. Let me go."

He pulled back then, finally, his eyes dark and warm and unbearably pleased with himself, a faint red mark already blooming on my neck that I was going to have to explain to absolutely no one because I was never leaving my house again. I could already imagine the scarf I’d need, the excuses I’d have to invent, and somehow the thought didn’t horrify me as much as it should have. There was something unsettling in how quickly my outrage kept dissolving into something softer, something that felt dangerously close to want.

"Don’t you miss me, baby?" he murmured, his voice low and rough and completely unfair. "Because I miss you. Have missed you every hour I’ve been in that room watching you sleep, and the second you walked out that door, this" ...he pressed himself fractionally closer, and I felt it, hard and heavy against my hip, my breath catching all over again..."started aching. You can’t expect a man to just say goodbye after that."

"I’ve been with you for twelve straight hours," I said, my voice thinner than I wanted it to be. "You miss me from a distance of two feet?"

"Yes," he said, without a shred of shame. "It’s a medical condition. You’re responsible for it, so you’re responsible for the treatment."

"The treatment being?"

"Getting in the car. Letting me feed you breakfast. Letting me look at you for another hour while you pretend you’re not looking back."

"You’re impossible," I said. "And I told you, I’m tired, and I’m not letting my caveman morning continue. You slapped a man, threatened his ancestors, and gave me a... what is this, a hickey? At my age? In public?"

"At every age. In every public." He leaned in and pressed one more kiss to the mark, feather-light, letting his lips linger against my pulse, and I felt my heartbeat knock against his mouth, and there was no way he didn’t feel it too. "There. Now it’s thorough."

"I’m going to kill you."

"You’ve been saying that since last night and I’m still breathless and alive."

"That’s because I keep getting distracted," I muttered, and hated how true it sounded even to my own ears.

"Are you now satisfied?"

The words lingered between us, heavy and teasing and dangerous all at once, and I stared at him for a second longer than necessary, my chest still rising too fast, my pulse doing something completely unprofessional inside my throat, heat still pooling low in my belly where his mouth had wound me up and left me stranded.

The absurdity of it struck me then... a grown woman, undone on a sidewalk before nine in the morning, by a man who apparently considered restraint a myth. And yet some reckless, newly awakened part of me didn’t want him to stop being that man.

"Very," I said finally, exhaling hard. "Now take me away from here, before I become the one to actually murder you."

His grin was instant, lethal, unrepentant.

"Then I’ll gladly die," he said smoothly, stepping closer, his voice dipping just enough to be unfair, "as long as you’re the one behind the trigger."

My breath stuttered, actually stuttered, and my heart skipped... not metaphorically, not poetically, but like it genuinely forgot its job for half a second. I hated that he noticed. I hated that his eyes flicked to my mouth like he’d felt it too, like my body had just confessed something my mouth refused to admit.

His grin went soft at the edges, and he stepped back... finally, actually back, and pulled the passenger door open, holding it like the world’s most dangerous valet.

"Come on, Bambina," he said. "Car. Breakfast. Bed. In that order, and the bed is strictly for sleeping, I swear."

"You swore that last time."

"And I broke it, and you forgave me by sunrise. My track record with you is excellent."

I cleared my throat quickly, turning away just enough to breathe, to gather whatever scraps of composure still remained. "You’re impossible."

"You adore it."

"No," I shot back. "You’re to be blamed, actually. If you had come with me instead of leaning against that railing like the smug idiot which you clearly are, none of this drama would’ve happened this morning."

He laughed, full and unapologetic, his head tipping back slightly, the sound echoing faintly off the building behind us. "Come on. Don’t be such a bore, princess. That was actually fun to watch."

I spun on him. "Fun? A man almost lost his hands."

"And yet," he replied calmly, "you’re standing here perfectly intact."

I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly stuck, and then he said with that stupid grin still very much intact on his equally stupid face, "Get in the car before I change my mind."

I stared at him, this impossible man, standing there in the morning light with my fate clearly written all over his smug face, and I knew I was going to get in that car. He knew it too. The worst part was that he knew it too, and I hated him for it, and I got in anyway, my pride quietly packing its bags and leaving without me.

Some stubborn fragment of self-respect wanted to protest further, if only for the principle of it, but the rest of me had already surrendered somewhere between the shoulder kiss and the smug little speech about medical conditions.

I slid into the seat, still fuming, still very aware of him, and he handed me my purse like a peace offering, his fingers brushing mine just briefly... on purpose, the way everything he did seemed calculated down to the smallest gesture.

"I’m not talking to you during the drive," I announced, folding my arms.

"Noted," he said, and shut the door, and through the window I watched him smile to himself like a man who had never once believed me in his life, like my silence was just another promise he intended to break.

He walked around the car with infuriating ease, got in, and before I could protest, leaned over to help with my seatbelt. His knuckles grazed my waist, dragged slowly across my hip, in no way required by the mechanics of a seatbelt.

"Jaxx," I warned.

He clicked the belt into place anyway, then kissed me... quick, soft, deliberate, before pulling away and winking, as though he’d just done something entirely innocent.

"You’re unbearable," I said.

"And you’re still here."

The engine started, and we pulled away. The city blurred past the windows, sunlight flashing between buildings, but my focus kept drifting back to him, to the way his hand rested on the steering wheel, the way his jaw tightened when he concentrated, the calm after violence, the contradictions stacked on contradictions. I studied the sharp line of his profile, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, and wondered, not for the first time, how someone could look so composed after everything that had happened in the last twelve hours.

There was a strange comfort in watching him drive, in the quiet competence of his hands, as if the same fingers capable of such gentleness could just as easily break something without hesitation. That contradiction should have frightened me more than it did.

I don’t really understand what’s going on, I thought, watching him from the corner of my eye. Should I trust him? Or should I stay guarded? Because men like him didn’t just exist. They happened. They disrupted. They rewrote rules and then dared you to complain.

And yet... if he kept this behavior up, I didn’t think I could keep my guard up for too long, and that thought scared me more than Marco ever could. It scared me because some small, traitorous part of me didn’t want to fight it anymore.

Maybe, I thought, that was the most dangerous part of all... not him, but my own willingness to stop resisting.

The car dipped underground, lights dimming as we entered the parking structure, and when we finally stopped, I glanced around and recognized it immediately.

Vesper Club.

"Why are we here?"

He killed the engine. "Because I have a suite here."

I scoffed. "I know, dummy. Why did you bring me here? You should be dropping me off at my own place or something, not your suite. I’m already breathing the same air as you, that’s generous enough."

He turned to me with a crooked grin. "You say that like you’re not enjoying yourself."

"I absolutely am not."

He reached over and loosened my seatbelt, and before I could react, he pulled me straight out of my seat and onto his lap. I landed straddling him, my dress riding up my thighs, and I gasped loud as I felt him beneath me, hard and impossible to ignore through the thin fabric of my panties.

"Jaxx...!"

"I warned you," he murmured, one arm firm around my waist, the other steadying us both, his mouth finding my throat. "Limit how you do that, Bambina. Because you can’t blame me for what happens next."

My hands flew to his shoulders automatically, my legs tightening around his waist without permission from my brain, and his hand slid slowly up my bare thigh, pushing my dress higher, his fingers brushing the edge of that soaked lace.

"You’re wet," he growled against my neck, and his voice was pure sin. "Twelve hours, Bambina, and you’re still soaked for me. Tell me again how you’re absolutely not enjoying yourself."

"That’s not... that’s a biological..."

"Biological," he repeated, delighted, and rolled his hips up against me, slow and deliberate, and whatever word I’d been constructing shattered into a moan, my fingers fisting into his hair.

"Jaxx, we’re in a parking garage."

"I own the parking garage."

"That is not the point."

"Feels like the point." He rolled up again, his hands gripping my hips and dragging me against him, setting a slow rhythm that had me biting my lip bloody to keep quiet. "Nobody comes down here at this hour, princess. Just you, me, and the cameras I’m going to erase later."

"Jaxx!"

"Mm. I love it when you say my name like you’re scandalized and grinding on me at the same time. The contradiction is my favorite thing about you."

"I am not grinding..." I was absolutely grinding, my body completely ignoring my dignity, chasing the friction, my breath fogging against the cool window behind him. "Oh my God, stop being smug for five seconds."

"Make me," he said, and his thumb pressed against my clit through the lace, and my whole body jerked, a whimper escaping before I could kill it.

"Someone could walk by," I whispered, furious and breathless and undeniably, hopelessly wet.

"Then they’ll learn what happens to men who look at what’s mine," he said mildly, his thumb moving in slow, merciless circles, and I dropped my forehead against his shoulder and gave up on dignity entirely, my hips moving in time with his hand, small desperate sounds spilling out of me against his collar.

"Jaxx... please..."

"Please what, princess? Use your words. You were so good with words two minutes ago. All that mouth, gone the second I touch you."

"I hate you."

"Keep saying it while you drip on my lap, baby. It’s very convincing."

He pushed the lace aside and slid two fingers inside me, curling them slow and deep, and I sobbed against his shoulder, my nails digging into his back, my thighs shaking around him as he worked me with the same infuriating, practiced precision he did everything.

"That’s my girl," he growled. "So responsive. So honest, the second I get my hands on you. All that fire, Bambina, and it all melts right here."

"I’m... close..." I gasped, barely recognizing my own voice.

"I know," he said smugly. "I can feel it. You always get tighter right before, sweetheart. You’re clenching around my fingers like you’re trying to keep them." He curled them harder, faster, his thumb relentless on my clit. "Come for me. Right here, in my car, where you’ve been telling me all morning you can’t stand me."

And I did, my orgasm ripping through me hard and sudden, my body locking up, a broken cry muffled into his shoulder as I pulsed around his fingers, soaking his hand, my hips jerking through it while he stroked me slowly through every last aftershock, murmuring filthy praise against my hair.

"Good girl," he breathed, pulling his hand free, and I watched, dazed and mortified, as he brought his fingers to his mouth and tasted them, his eyes never leaving mine. "Perfect. Breakfast, Bambina. You’ll need your strength, baby, for what comes after it."

I slapped his chest weakly, too spent to put any real force behind it. "I hate you so much."

"Mm-hm." He grabbed my purse, shifted smoothly, and then stood with me still wrapped around him like this was the most normal thing in the world, and my dress was still hiked up my thighs and my legs were still shaking and he simply held me against him and stepped out of the car like a man carrying his groceries.

"Unbelievable," I whispered.

He locked the car with one hand and started walking toward the elevator. "Cute," he said casually, like he hadn’t just wrecked me in a parking garage. "You’re thinking you’re done with me."

I opened my mouth to argue, and he didn’t slow down.

"Newsflash, sweetheart," he added, stepping into the elevator, his eyes dark and promising as the doors slid shut, "this is only the beginning."