Chapter 90 - 0091: Take His Hand Off You

Chapter 90: Chapter 0091: Take His Hand Off You

I bit the inside of my cheek until the sharp, metallic taste of blood anchored me to the chair. My lips curved again... slow, forced, devastatingly delicate, as Graham’s gaze flicked up to mine, his full attention tightening around me like a velvet noose.

Did he see? Could he actually see straight through the polished veneer I’ve spent years building?

"He’ll never know you came just from hearing me breathe," Jaxx’s voice purred in my ear, low and filthy, transmitted through the microscopic earpiece buried deep in my canal.

I nearly choked on the air I swallowed, my chest expanding too fast against the tight boning of my silk gown.

Around us, crystal glasses clinked, silver cutlery scraped rhythmically against fine porcelain, and the warm, booming sound of a board member’s toast rippled toward the far end of the banquet hall.

I sat frozen, hands trembling violently beneath the cascading tablecloth, while across the crowded room, Jaxx lifted his tumbler of scotch toward me. His smirk was carved deep, wicked, and entirely without mercy.

I pressed my thighs together under the table, desperate, burning, praying to every god I didn’t believe in that no one noticed the sudden, erratic hitch in my breathing.

"Don’t you dare break eye contact with me across the room, Elena," he commanded softly. The roughness in his tone was like a physical hand gripping the back of my neck. "Look at me. Keep those gorgeous eyes right where they belong."

My gaze locked on his. My body obeyed before my mind could even muster the will to resist. His stare held me captive across the sea of tailored suits and evening gowns, merciless, utterly consuming. It felt like heavy iron shackles dragging me under, and I was drowning in the heat of it.

"Why are you doing this, Jaxx?" I forced the thought into a barely audible whisper, my lips barely moving as I pretended to dab my mouth with a linen napkin. "I’m in public. I’m at an event with the entire executive board. What the hell is wrong with you?"

A dark, low chuckle reverberated through the earpiece, so intimate it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

"What’s wrong with me?" he echoed, his voice dropping an octave, dripping with dangerous, honeyed malice. "Nothing’s wrong with me, Bambina. I’m just watching you play high-society princess while your skin is practically screaming for my hands. Look at you, sitting next to Graham like you actually belong to that soft, pathetic excuse for a man. How long do you think you can keep up that refined little persona when all you really want right now... what you’re practically bleeding for, is me bending you over that antique table in the foyer and giving you the absolute best fuck of your entire life?"

A gasp caught in the back of my throat, raw and burning. The sheer audacity of it sliced right through my control.

"You’re out of your mind," I breathed out, my knuckles turning white as I clenched the napkin under the table. "He’s sitting right next to me."

"Let him sit there," Jaxx rasped, the sound of his deep breath rasping over the line as if he were standing directly behind my chair, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. "Let him talk about quarterly margins while I describe exactly how I’m going to ruin you later. You think he knows how to handle a woman like you? He touches you like you’re glass. I touch you like you’re mine. How long can you pretend you don’t want my fingers tearing that delicate lace off your hips?"

The burst of applause at the end of the toast jolted me, startling me into clapping a fraction too late, a little too fast, exactly like a puppet dancing on invisible, cruel strings. Graham’s eyes sharpened instantly, narrowing across the small gap between our seats as he studied the flush creeping up my throat.

"Elena..." His voice carried a thread of genuine concern, leaning in so his shoulder brushed mine. "Are you sick? You’re completely flushed."

Sick? I was fevered. Blazing. Shaking from the inside out. I was burning alive while the man controlling the fire sat thirty feet away, sipping his drink.

"I’m fine," I muttered, the lie trembling out of my mouth like a confession. I folded my hands together tightly on my lap to hide the visible tremor in my fingers. "Just... the room is a bit warm. Too many people."

Graham’s hand rested on my knee, a gentle, protective weight that should have grounded me. Instead, it sent a wave of sheer panic straight to my core.

Across the room, Jaxx’s smirk widened, his dark eyes tracking Graham’s hand with absolute, lethal confidence. He didn’t look unhinged, he looked like a predator who already knew the outcome of the hunt. He raised his glass again in that mocking, quiet salute.

"Take his hand off you," Jaxx murmured, his voice velvety, dark, and utterly unyielding. "Move it, Elena."

Rage churned violently with suffocating want in my chest. I wanted to stand up, to scream, to shatter his glass right out of his hand and rip that arrogant expression off his face. Instead, when Graham turned his head to address the CFO seated to his left, I dropped my chin slightly, letting my dark hair veil my profile.

"I’m going to fucking kill you, Jaxx," I whispered under my breath, the words laced with poison.

The bastard just groaned softly into my ear... a low, decadent, filthy sound that stroke heat straight down my spine and pooled heavy between my thighs.

"Your pussy says otherwise," he whispered back, cruel and possessive. "Look at your face, Bambina. You’re practically glowing with it. You hate that I own you like this, but your body knows the truth."

My lips parted on a sharp, unbidden inhale. His words slid inside me like a polished blade, twisting, opening up every hidden layer of desperate need I’d tried so hard to bury. And God, I hated him because he was entirely, undeniably right.

The dull ache between my legs pulsed stronger, insistent, like a second heartbeat demanding to be answered.

"She’s begging, baby," he rasped, the texture of his voice thick with unholy hunger. "Look at how tight you’re holding those legs together. She’s starved for me."

My legs clenched tighter together automatically, a helpless reflex. I shifted subtly in my seat, the silk of my dress rustling softly against my skin.

"Slide your hand down," Jaxx ordered softly, his tone dropping into something terrifyingly intimate. "Under the table. Let your fingers brush the edge of your hem. Just graze it. Let me see you tremble."

My hand drifted lower beneath the heavy velvet tablecloth, fingertips grazing the smooth fabric over my knee, shaking so badly I could barely keep them steady. My chest rose and fell far too fast, the stiff lace of my bodice pressing painfully against my racing heart.

Around me, the board members carried on with their polite, rehearsed laughter, clinking forks against dessert plates, conducting multi-million dollar deals disguised as mundane small talk. They saw their composure-personified executive smiling faintly, nodding in vague agreement. They didn’t see the absolute ruin burning alive beneath the surface.

"You need to be touched like this," Jaxx whispered, every syllable heavy with an intoxicating, arrogant authority. "Worshiped. Devoured. Broken into a thousand pieces and rebuilt with my tongue pressed deep between your thighs until you can’t even remember your own name."

A soft, strangled whimper slipped past my teeth... too quiet for Graham to hear over the din of the room, swallowed instantly by the ambient hum of music and laughter. But Jaxx heard it. I knew the exact second it hit his ear because his eyes darkened to pure abyss across the room, holding me captive as if I were already naked beneath him, pinned to his mattress, begging for mercy.

I dug my manicured nails into the linen napkin in my lap, crumpling it into a tight ball, every single muscle in my body straining as I tried to keep the mask from slipping entirely off my face.

"You want that, don’t you?" His tone dripped with supreme, infuriating certainty. "You want me to get down on my knees right here, crawl under that polished table, and suck the heartbreak right out of you until you’re crying?"

"Oh God..."

The words tore free before I could stop them, a desperate whisper I desperately tried to disguise as a quiet cough into my crystal water goblet. Graham glanced at me again, suspicion flickering far more clearly in his eyes this time, his brow furrowing as he reached for my hand.

"Elena, seriously, your hand is freezing. Are you sure you don’t need to step outside for some air?"

No one else noticed. Thank God, no one else was paying attention. To the rest of the room, I was still Elena, the unshakable, cold-hearted force at the head of the empire. But across the room, Jaxx devoured me with those dark, dangerous eyes, seeing straight through every single polished layer I tried so desperately to hide behind.

"Tell him you’re fine," Jaxx purred, his voice a low, wicked promise in my ear. "Tell him you just need a moment. And then walk toward the private lounge down the hall. Because if you don’t, I’m going to keep talking like this until you part those legs right in front of him."