Chapter 28
Rylee
There’s no escaping the Nightmare’s playroom . . .
Not that I want to.
Gentle fleece-lined cuffs secure my wrists and ankles to the corners of a cushioned table. My body is tense and hot, tight with anticipation.
“Try again,” Jax demands in an icy tone that gives little relief to the yearning I feel in every nerve in my body.
I blow out a breath, particularly dizzy from the past .
. . how many hours is it now? Ten? Eleven?
I lost track so long ago. The lesson started off exciting enough—a touch and tease for every time I successfully controlled Jax’s power—but now?
I’m a coiled spring of need, exhausted and aching for release.
A beautiful form of torture.
Jax glides his fingers over my bare leg as he stalks around the table, my body fully on display for him. I’m at his hip height, and he looks all the more ruthless towering over my bound body. His indigo eyes catch the muted silver light in the room, and shivers burst across my oversensitive skin.
“Butterfly,” he warns, stopping at the head of the table, looking down at me from above. He traces the lines of the tattoo he gave me beneath my collarbone, lingering on the moon and stars. Sparks flicker to life with every graze of his fingertips, my entire being coiling tightly.
He draws his hand back, and I snap myself into focus.
The door I keep Jax’s power behind is open, the others straining against their locks. They want to play, too. I do my best to ignore and separate. The shadow-smoke-like essence of Jax’s power swirls around our bond, teasing and coaxing as much as my mate. As elusive and jaded as him, too.
I’ve tried forcing it to work for me, demanding it bend to my will.
That may have worked for Kal and Pierce’s gifts, but not Jax’s.
It’s like the power needs to trust me as its new owner, something I’ve learned from the others.
But I’m not sure if it ever will. I try my best not to wonder if Jax fully trusts me, too.
We’re mates, yes, but everything is still new.
Maybe his power is so much like him, I’ll have to fight to the last dregs of my energy to even marginally control it.
It certainly feels like that now.
My body is peppered with a sheen of sweat that glistens over my bare skin, both from the exertion of lassoing Jax’s power and the constant teasing and toying Jax has done with me.
“Focus,” he demands.
“I’m trying.” The words slip out before I can think better of them. I gasp, biting my lower lip as if that will somehow erase my slipup.
Jax’s lips shape into a smirk that has chills erupting everywhere.
I’m so fucked.
Silently, he moves out of my sight line. I carefully lift my head from the table to track his predatory prowl to the other side of the room, where he keeps his toys.
My heart races as he ponders the tools, taking his sweet time to select one. Finally, he plucks out a smooth glass figurine that seems to be a perfect replica of his cock, then stalks back over to me.
Everything inside me tightens as he drags the cool glass up the inside of my leg, stopping at my inner thigh.
“That’s the second time you’ve snapped at me,” he says in an even tone. He moves the smooth, rounded glass between my thighs in a too-light touch. “Looks like I’ll have to keep you here longer.”
Goddesses save me.
I don’t know how much more I can take.
Heat thrums through my veins at the way he’s teasing my slick, aching heat with the new toy. At the way his eyes lock on mine while he does it, such dominance in them.
This is the Nightmare. He can do whatever he wants to me, and I can’t stop him. It’s a thrilling feeling, especially when I’ve given myself to him entirely.
“Try,” he says, sliding that smooth, cool piece inside me just an inch. I gasp at the contact, at the way he gauges my reaction, at the intensity of it all. “Again.”
He pulls the glass out, rubbing the solid piece against my sensitive clit. I tremble, my eyes fluttering closed at the contact I’m desperate for. Instinctively, I arch my hips, seeking out more of the delicious friction.
Jax takes it away, arching an eyebrow at me.
I blow out a frustrated breath.
He smiles.
The bastard smiles.
I shake my head, my body clenching with need as I draw myself inward. Jax’s power is vibrating against our bond, delighted with Jax’s edging.
I take a deep breath. Then another one. Doing my best to drown out the need pulsing through my veins. Doing my best to shove the images of Jax finally giving me what I want out of my head.
I sharpen my mind to his power, electing to stroke that smoke-shadow essence.
Please, I beg. Play with me.
There’s a moment where I think it’ll be as before, quiet, uninterested. Without a threat—like Axl orchestrated—or being completely immersed in all of them at once, I haven’t been able to control Jax’s power at will.
But it bends, just a fraction, snaking up and coiling around my soul like a serpent’s caress. A whimper escapes me at the sensation—at the way it opens to me.
Jax’s desire is as sharp as his blades. I can taste it on my tongue, crisp and heady. Can feel it in my bones. It’s everywhere at once, his power detecting the emotion in the span of a breath.
How does he live like this? Feeling everyone’s emotions all the time? If we weren’t secluded in his playroom, I’d be bombarded with the emotions of everyone in Lust—his club in Obsidian City and home to his playroom—just like I was with thoughts while using Pierce’s power.
I don’t know how they bear it.
I latch onto that sharp desire of Jax’s, grip it with the power now flooding my entire being. It’s like being engulfed by smoke the second I have it in my control, the second I feel his emotional state become mine.
“Good,” he whispers, like he’s afraid if he speaks too loudly, he’ll ruin my focus.
I’m in too deep for that now. Drenched in the power, in the rush I get from knowing I can sway him to feel anything I want, if I merely wish it.
I could make him cry, make him laugh, make him so angry he’d break his teeth. There’s a certain exhilaration in all the possibilities and uses for this power on other people—enemies in particular. The things I’d love to make Baydel feel after all he’s done to me.
But he’s the last person I want to think of.
I want nothing but Jax.
My mate.
My Nightmare.
So instead of forcing him to feel anything, I focus harder. Where Pierce’s is a multifaceted silk web I have to weave, and Kal’s a sun-and-cloud thread, and Axl’s a compliance with the depth of water, Jax’s is a push and pull. A give and take.
And right now, I want to give him something.
He’s on the other end of our bond, just waiting for me to manage this power .
. . this river of smoke that glides between the two of us.
Gathering as much smoke as I can, I direct that river toward the other end of our mating bond.
Pump it full of offerings—my gratitude, my love, my desire.
“Fuck,” Jax gasps as the power returns to him and he’s flooded with everything I’m feeling. “That’s it, little liar. That’s it.”
He moves the smooth glass piece against my aching heat, rubbing the rounded tip over that throbbing bundle of nerves before sliding it inside me, inch by glorious inch.
Jax bends, his lips slanting over mine, swallowing my gasp of pleasure as he pumps that piece in and out of me.
“Jax.” My mind whirls, my muscles clenching.
He’s relentless, not pulling back an inch from my mouth as he fucks me with that toy.
As he unravels my very being with his tongue and lips and tools.
I’m at his mercy, unable to move much in my restraints.
I want to dig my nails into his back. Want to draw him as close as possible.
Want him covering every inch of my body.
Pleasure builds beneath my skin, a lightning storm that makes me see stars as he ups his pace.
“Fuck,” he groans against my mouth. “Your desire . . . it’s flooding me.” His kiss is bruising, sending bolts of pleasure to every fired-up nerve ending I possess. “I love it. I want to drown in it.”
“I’ll be the one drowning if you don’t let me come,” I snap.
He draws back an inch, something churning in those indigo eyes as he looks down at me. It’s gone in a blink, replaced by the unflinching dominance I’ve seen all night. He slows the pace to a torturous level, holding me on the cusp of release like he’s done for hours.
The power slips a fraction, threatening to fly back to me. I halt it with the will of my mind, drawing on my own wind power inside me to keep that smoke drifting his way.
Jax smiles. “So impressive.”
I shudder beneath him, my breathing hitching as he holds me on a knife’s edge.
“Deserves a reward.” The second he says the words, my body floods with warmth and love and desire and pleasure. The emotions hit me all at once, drenched in moonlight and stars and all things that are never-ending and all-encompassing, just like my Nightmare.
Jax pumps the toy into me, his eyes falling to where he maneuvers it. I go brazen with the sight of him watching himself fuck me with it. My entire being tries to separate from my body as he drives me closer and closer to that sweet edge.
“Jax,” I gasp as my pleasure builds. “Jax, yes. Please.”
His eyes find mine again before he kisses me with a possessiveness I wholly submit to. It’s exhilarating, the way he takes control of my body. The way he knows just how to push, touch, and tease me into madness.
Jax ups his pace, shifting so his thumb strokes over my throbbing clit with each pump—
“Jax!” I cry out against his mouth as my body trembles, my orgasm a flood of pleasure that washes over me. It peaks in a crescendo that sends me straight to the moon, letting me hover there for endless blissful moments before I slowly come back down to reality.
He kisses me softer, gently pulling out the glass before he gets to work on unbinding my ankles.