Chapter 11 The Threat #2
"You're the Captain," I said, a harsh, jagged laugh bubbling from my chest. "You're the Golden Boy. The NHL draft is in two months. You think the scouts want a PR nightmare? You think the Blackhawks are going to draft a guy who blackmails his roommate into sex?"
My laughter felt like broken glass in my throat.
"You post that video, and you go down with me. Mutually assured destruction. So go ahead. Pull the trigger. Blow us both up."
I shouldered my bag, the strap biting into my skin.
"Move."
Jax didn't move.
He stood in the doorway, filling the frame, his chest heaving, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. His eyes darted from his phone to me, then back to the phone.
The calculation was happening behind his eyes, a frantic scramble of numbers and consequences. The muscles in his jaw worked, his throat bobbed. He realized I was right. The leverage, the weapon, was useless. The video held no power if I no longer cared about the fallout.
He was losing.
"You're not leaving," he said, his voice different. The command was still there, a thin thread, but the arrogance had shredded, replaced by a dark, frantic edge. A tremor ran through the words.
"I am."
I tried to push past him, my shoulder bumping against his unyielding bulk.
Jax dropped the phone. It hit the carpet with a soft thud, a hollow sound in the sudden silence.
He grabbed me.
Not my arm, not my shoulder. Both arms wrapped around my waist, a steel band. He tackled me, the sudden force sweeping my legs out from under me.
We hit the bed hard. The mattress groaned in protest, springs shrieking. My duffel bag flew from my hand, its contents spilling onto the floor – jeans, t-shirts, boxers scattered like fallen leaves.
"Get off me!" I yelled, thrashing, my limbs flailing against his weight.
"No!" His voice was ragged, desperate.
He pinned me down, a crushing weight. He was heavier, stronger, a solid wall of muscle. He straddled my hips, his thighs locking my legs to the mattress. He caught my wrists, pinning them above my head, his fingers tight, unyielding.
"You don't get to leave," he breathed, his face inches from mine, his pupils blown wide, eclipsing the blue, making his eyes almost black. He looked deranged, a wild, untamed animal. "You belong here."
"I'm not your toy anymore, Jax. The game is over." My voice was hoarse.
"It's not a game!"
He kissed me.
It wasn't like the other kisses. Not the slow, deliberate claiming for an audience. This was violent. Desperate. He mashed his mouth against mine, teeth clashing, a bruising, consuming hunger.
I turned my head sharply, breaking the contact, gasping for air.
"Stop!"
"Why?" he panted against my neck, his breath hot, ragged. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because you hate me!" I screamed, the words tearing from my throat, hot tears pricking at my eyes. "Because you treat me like trash!"
Jax froze. He pulled back, his head lifting, looking down at me. His pupils were still wide, black pools reflecting my desperate face.
"I don't hate you," he whispered, the admission raw, broken.
"You blackmail me. You humiliate me. You use me."
"I need you."
The words just sat there, thick and ugly, clogging the room.
"I need you," he repeated, the confession tearing out of him, ragged and torn. "I can't sleep unless I can hear you breathing. I can't play unless I know you're watching. If you leave... if you leave, I'll fall apart."
He released my wrists. His hands, trembling, cupped my face, his thumbs brushing away the first wet tracks of tears.
"Don't go. Please. Don't go."
I stared up at him, the unfamiliar vulnerability in his eyes a punch to the gut. This wasn't the Captain. This wasn't the bully. This was a terrified boy, his carefully constructed walls crumbling, realizing he’d pushed the only thing he cared about too far.
"Jax..." The name was a whisper.
"I'll delete it," he said frantically, his eyes darting to the phone on the floor, then back to my face. "The video. I'll delete it right now. Just stay."
His hand, still shaking, slid from my face to the hem of my t-shirt.
"Let me show you," he begged, his voice cracking. "Let me make you stay."
He ripped the shirt upward, the fabric tearing with a sharp, violent sound.
I didn't stop him. I couldn't. All the fight, the anger, the bone-deep exhaustion just bled out of me in one breath. What rushed in to fill the hole was that same gut-punching pull that had been jerking me toward him for four goddamn years.
He stripped me efficiently, desperately, his movements clumsy with urgency. He tore my jeans off, the denim scraping against my skin. He shoved my boxers down, then kicked them away.
He stood up, his own mesh shorts falling to the floor. He was already hard, painfully, brutally hard, a thick, throbbing column.
But he didn't demand. He didn't order me to turn over.
He grabbed my ankles and pulled me down the mattress, dragging my body until my ass hung precariously at the edge of the bed.
He stepped between my legs, his hips pressing against my inner thighs.
He looked at me. Eye to eye. Soul to soul. His chest heaved.
"Tell me to stop," he whispered, his voice raw, hoarse with emotion. "Tell me to stop and I will. I swear to god, Tom, tell me to stop and I'll walk away and you can leave."
I looked at him. I looked at the raw, agonizing need in his expression, the desperation etched into every line of his face.
I realized then that the power had shifted. He wasn't keeping me here with a video. He was keeping me here because I couldn't bear the thought of him falling apart without me.
"Don't stop," I breathed, the words barely audible, a ragged gasp.
Jax made a sound, a low, guttural noise like a wounded animal, a mix of relief and anguish.
He pushed inside.
No lube. Just the slick pre-cum leaking from his own tip, a burning trail against my skin. He entered me slowly, agonizingly slow, letting me feel every millimeter of the invasion. A searing stretch, a fullness that bordered on pain, then the slow, deliberate expansion.
It wasn't a conquest. It was a merger.
He buried himself to the hilt, a deep, throbbing ache. He held my gaze, his eyes still wide, searching.
"Mine," he whispered, the word a desperate plea, a fragile claim. "Please be mine."
He started to move.
It was the most intense sex we’d ever had. It wasn't about performance. It wasn't about an audience. It was primal, stripped bare. He fucked me with a rhythm that felt like a heartbeat – heavy, steady, life-sustaining.
He released my wrists, only to grab my hands, interlacing our fingers, pinning them to the mattress. Not to trap me, but to anchor himself, a lifeline in the swirling storm of emotion.
"I'm sorry," he groaned with every thrust, his voice thick with apology, with regret. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
I lifted my legs, wrapping them around his waist, pulling him deeper, desperately, needing to feel him fill every empty space. I wanted him to bruise me, to mark me in a way that had nothing to do with teeth and everything to do with depth.
"Shut up," I gasped, my voice raw. "Just fuck me, Jax."
He did. He drove into me, hitting that deep, sweet spot over and over again. The friction was unbearable. The emotion was suffocating, a heavy blanket pressing down.
Tears streamed from my eyes, hot tracks running into my ears. I didn't know when they had started, only that they wouldn't stop.
Jax leaned down, his lips brushing against my wet cheeks. He kissed them away, licking the salt from my skin while he hammered into me, relentless.
"Don't cry," he murmured against my lips, his voice choked. "I've got you. I'm not letting go."
He released my hands, sliding his arms under my back, lifting me slightly, pulling me tight against his chest. We were skin-to-skin, chest-to-chest, heart-to-heart, grinding together, a frantic, desperate dance.
I could feel him swelling inside me, a sudden, powerful expansion.
"Tom," he choked out, his voice thick, rough. "Tom, I'm gonna..."
"Do it," I sobbed, my voice breaking. "Fill me up."
He roared.
It wasn't a word. It was a sound torn from his very core, a guttural, primal claim.
He unloaded. He pulsed inside me, hot and endless, a burning wave. I felt him pour his fear, his obsession, and his apology into my gut, filling the space he’d almost lost.
I came seconds later, clutching his sweaty back, my nails digging into his skin, screaming his name into the empty apartment, the sound swallowed by the thick air.
We collapsed.
Jax fell on top of me, a heavy, crushing weight, squeezing the air from my lungs. But I didn't push him off. I held him, my arms wrapped around his broad back, my face buried in the damp skin of his neck.
We lay there for a long time, the only sounds the ragged catch of our breaths, the distant hum of the refrigerator. The sweat cooled on our skin, raising goosebumps. The smell of sex was thick, cloying in the room.
My duffel bag lay forgotten on the floor, clothes spilling out like discarded secrets. The phone remained where it had fallen, a dark, silent rectangle on the carpet.
Jax finally lifted his head. He looked at me, his eyes clear, the frantic edge gone, replaced by a deep, unwavering intensity.
"I'm deleting it," he said, his voice quiet, firm.
"Okay." My own voice was a soft whisper.
"I mean it. I don't need it."
He kissed me. Softly this time. A feather-light touch, a promise. "You're not leaving."
"No," I whispered, pressing my face into his neck. "I'm not leaving."
He rolled off me, but didn't go far, pulling me against his side, his arm a warm, heavy weight across my waist.
"The dinner," he said, staring at the ceiling, his voice rough. "Forget it. I'm not going."
"Jax, it's the team dinner."
"Fuck the team," he said, the words dismissive, final. "I'm staying here. I'm going to help you study."
I laughed, a weak, watery sound that still held a tremor of disbelief. "You don't know anything about Macroeconomics."
"I know," he said, turning his head, looking down at me, a faint, tired smile playing on his lips. "But I make good coffee. And I can keep you awake."
He reached out, his fingers finding mine, interlacing them. He squeezed.
"And if you pass..." he smirked, the old Jax flickering back to life, but softer, gentler this time. "If you get an A... maybe I'll let you wear the jersey again."
I squeezed his hand back, a silent understanding passing between us.
"Deal."
The blackmail was gone. The threat, a dead thing, lay forgotten on the carpet.
But as I lay there, naked and claimed, listening to the slow, rhythmic drip from the blender in the kitchen, I knew the real danger had just begun.
He didn't just own my body anymore. He owned my heart.
And that, I realized with a chilling certainty, was a hell of a lot harder to escape.