Chapter 41 - 0041: Give Yourself To Me

Chapter 41: Chapter 0041: Give Yourself To Me

Elena’s Point Of View

"But I don’t know what to do," I choked out, a fresh wave of helplessness crashing over me. "I don’t know how to do it. I’m hopeless, Jaxx. I’m completely hopeless..."

Jaxx looked down at me, his dark eyes unreadable in the dim light. His thumb moved slowly to wipe a hot tear from my cheekbone, leaving a trail of fire behind, a touch so gentle it felt wrong coming from a man built like a threat.

For a moment, something almost tender flickered across his face, gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by the familiar glint of dangerous amusement.

It was enough, though, that brief flash of softness, to make me wonder how much of the man I’d once known still lived somewhere beneath all that armor, buried under years of whatever had hardened him into this.

"You’re not hopeless, Bambina," he whispered, his smirk returning - slow, wicked, and utterly relentless. "You just finally found the right man for the job."

I blinked up at him, my breath catching in my throat, my mind reeling to catch up with the sheer speed at which he was moving. "What... what do you mean by that?"

"Exactly what you heard," he murmured, his thumb lingering against my cheek, tracing the line of my jaw with a calloused roughness that made my pulse spike. "I mean I’m the answer to every dirty, desperate thought you’ve been too afraid to speak out loud tonight."

Before I could process the words, he pulled back just a fraction. The sudden loss of his body heat felt like a physical shock, an absence as sharp as the words themselves, but the look in his dark eyes pinned me right where I stood.

"But before we go down that road," he said, taking a slow step back, his tone shifting into something lower, thicker, and far more intense, "I have to ask... why are you wasting your pain on a man who clearly doesn’t deserve it? Why are you still with him? Why stay with someone like him?"

I looked away, unable to hold his gaze. The dark Persian rug beneath my shoes suddenly felt like the safest thing in the room to look at, its intricate pattern a welcome distraction from the storm building behind his eyes.

"Elena," he pressed, his voice dropping softer now, rough around the edges. "Why stay with someone who treats you like this?"

"Because it’s not that simple, okay?!" My voice cracked sharply at the end, the raw embarrassment flushing hot across my chest. "I gave him ten years of my life! My love, my youth, my body, my trust! You think I can just walk away like none of it happened? Like I can just hit a reset button and erase five years of my life?!"

Jaxx didn’t speak right away. He simply watched me, his expression unreadable, as though weighing something far heavier than my outburst warranted.

And I hated that silence. I hated the way it stretched between us, heavy and thick, forcing me to listen to the miserable echo of my own brokenness hanging in the air, filling every corner of the room until I thought I might suffocate beneath it.

"You’re crying over a man who traded you in," he said quietly, his gaze raking over my flushed face, missing nothing. "A man who didn’t even have the guts to stand up to his own mother while she threw you out the front door."

I swallowed hard, my throat feeling like it was full of glass, each breath scraping against something raw and unhealed.

"You still love him," he said, the statement quiet, almost disappointed, as though the admission cost him something too.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My mouth felt completely glued shut, betrayal and shame tangling together until neither could find its way past my lips.

He tilted his head slightly, studying the way my shoulders were trembling, the way my breathing came in ragged, uneven hitches, cataloguing every crack in my composure like it was information he intended to use. "You want your husband back... don’t you?"

My eyes snapped straight to his. What the hell was he saying?

"What?" I rasped out.

"You can’t be here drowning yourself in scotch when there’s a solution to all of this."

"A solution?" I asked, blinking through the tears blurring my vision, stepping back a fraction. "What are you even talking about?"

He didn’t answer with words. Instead, Jaxx took two long, unhurried strides, closing the remaining distance between us until he hit my space like a freight train. Before I could dart to the left, his hand slammed flat against the wall right beside my head, his heavy frame leaning into me, trapping me completely between his body and the solid wood behind me.

His scent... cedar, rain, and dark tobacco, swallowed me whole. My lungs locked up, every rational thought scattering like smoke.

"Use me," Jaxx whispered.

I froze, the air vanishing from my chest. "What?"

"You heard me, Bambina," he murmured, his other hand coming up, his fingers lightly grazing the small of my back through the thin silk, sending a wave of unwanted heat shooting straight up my spine. "You want him back, right? You want him to taste what it feels like to lose you? You want him to feel the burn of jealousy until it tears his pretty little world apart?"

"Give yourself to me."

I stared at him, my mind swirling in utter confusion, my heart hammering against my ribs so violently I thought it would break a bone. Every instinct screamed at me to run, and yet my feet stayed rooted to the floor.

"You’re insane," I breathed, my hands coming up to press flat against his chest, feeling the heavy, steady thud of his own heart beneath the unbuttoned white shirt. "Give myself to you? And why on earth would I ever do that? Why would I give myself to you?!"

"Because I’m the only one who can actually deliver what you want," he drawled, his head dipping lower until his hot breath fanned over the shell of my ear, making me shiver violently. "Give yourself to me, Elena. Let’s make him suffer. Let’s make him watch another man put his hands on what he thought he owned. Let’s ruin him."

I stared up into his dark eyes, my pulse screaming in my ears, drowning out every ounce of common sense I still possessed.

"I’m not a toy, Jaxx," I snapped, trying to summon every bit of anger left in my blood.

"And I’m not asking you to be," he said, his hand sliding slowly around my waist, his thumb hooking into the dip of my hip with practiced, terrifying ease. "I’m offering you power."

My breath hitched sharply in my throat.

"This isn’t about some silly revenge," he continued, his thumb brushing my hip in maddening, slow circles that made my knees feel terrifyingly weak. "This is about showing him that you don’t need him. That you’ve moved on. To make him feel the exact same humiliation he made you feel in front of his mother and his pregnant little cousin."

I shuddered at his words. A sickening wave of heat pooled low in my stomach, but I hated him for it. I hated that every single dirty, manipulative word coming out of his mouth made a dark, twisted kind of sense, and I hated myself even more for how badly I wanted to believe him.

"You want him begging on his knees?" Jaxx asked, his mouth brushing the sensitive skin right beneath my jawline, making my head tilt back against the wall against my own will. "Because I can help you do that, princess. I can help you take back every ounce of power you gave away to that bastard."

I closed my eyes, my head spinning out of control. Every word he whispered made me ache. Because it wasn’t just about Graham anymore... it was about everything. Everything I had lost over five long years. Everything they had stripped away from me piece by piece until I was sitting alone in a cab with a suitcase. The betrayal. The quiet cruelty. The absolute, soul-crushing humiliation. All of it rose up at once, a tidal wave I no longer had the strength to hold back.

I planted both palms firmly against his chest and pushed. Hard.

He let me step away this time, stepping back just enough to let air rush between our bodies. I stumbled back two paces, my breathing shallow, my dress wrinkled, my hands shaking uncontrollably, as though my body hadn’t yet decided whether to run toward him or away.

"And why should I trust you, Jaxx?" I asked, my voice laced with venom as I looked at him.

He leaned casually against the edge of the mahogany desk, crossing his broad arms over his chest, one dark brow arched in quiet challenge, utterly unbothered by the accusation in my tone.

"What if this is just another one of your silly, cruel games?" I added bitterly, the memories of ten years ago rising up like bile in my throat. "You think I’ve forgotten? You made my life absolute hell back then, Jaxx."

"You hated me," he said simply, not a single drop of remorse in his deep voice.

"You gave me every reason to!"

He didn’t deny it. He didn’t even look ashamed. He just smiled that slow, wicked smirk that had always spelled complete destruction, the same smirk that used to send me storming out of rooms a decade ago.

"And now look at us," he murmured, his dark eyes raking down the length of my body, lingering on the dark violet silk clinging to my hips. "Still dancing in the exact same circles."

I glared at him, my jaw tight. "So tell me, Jaxx. What exactly do you want out of this little arrangement? What’s your price?"

A slow, dangerous smile curled his lips as he looked up at me through his lashes. "Nothing you’re not already willing to give, Bambina."

I let out a bitter, dry laugh, crossing my arms over my chest to hide the frantic rise and fall of my breathing. "That sounds like a terrible idea."

He grinned wider, white teeth flashing under the dim yellow lighting. "The best ones usually are."

"You’re insane."

"Possibly," he drawled, pushing off the desk and taking one slow, deliberate step toward me. "But I’m your best shot."

I looked at him. I really looked at him, searching for some crack in the armor, some sign that this was all a cruel joke I could laugh off and walk away from.

There was something utterly terrifying in his absolute confidence, the effortless ease in his posture, the predatory way his eyes stayed pinned on me like he already knew the exact second I was going to cave. He looked like a man who owned the night, a man who wouldn’t hesitate to tear Graham’s world down brick by brick just for the fun of watching it burn. And worse, some traitorous part of me wanted to hand him the matches myself.

God help me, I hated that he was right.

He stepped closer again, so close I could feel the intense, furnace-like heat radiating off his body through my clothes. He reached out, his long fingers gently catching a stray lock of dark hair that had fallen across my cheek, slowly tucking it behind my ear, his rough knuckles brushing against my burning skin like he had every right to touch me that way.

"You want to make him pay, Elena?" he whispered, his voice dropping into a low, hypnotic register that vibrated straight down to my core. "You want to tear down that perfect little world he’s built while he treated you like you were invisible?"

My hands clenched into tight fists at my sides, my nails digging into my palms until it hurt, the small sting the only thing keeping me tethered to reality.

"Of course I do," I breathed, the words tearing out of my throat like a confession I’d been holding back for years.

"Then don’t just burn, Elena," he murmured, his thumb resting gently against the corner of my lower lip, pulling it down just enough to expose my breath. "Be the fire."