Chapter 28 #2
“Don’t look too satisfied,” he warns as he moves to my wrists. “We’re just getting started.”
I don’t have time to respond before he’s undressed and climbing atop the table, settling between my thighs in a hurry. He pauses only to meet my gaze, a silent question.
“Yes,” I say on a ragged breath.
The answer is always yes.
He smirks, watching my face as he slides his hard length through my oversensitive heat. “I can’t let my toys have all the fun,” he says, gliding in an inch.
I gasp at the contrast between seconds ago—smooth and cold—and Jax’s searing heat. It splinters my mind in the sweetest way.
“Can I touch you now?” I ask, but it sounds more like a plea. I’ve played in this room enough to know that just because he released me doesn’t mean I’m free to do as I please. Not here. Not in his playroom. It’s his rules. And they’re my undoing.
“Only because you asked so nicely, butterfly.” He glides inside me.
My arms fly around his neck as I wrap my legs around his hips.
“Fuck,” he groans, thrusting into me without preamble. He’s prepped me for hours and just delivered a mind-bending orgasm. I don’t need any more foreplay. I just need him. All of him. “You’re so perfect.”
I scrape my nails along his back in the way I know he loves before dragging one hand to his jawline. I grip it enough to draw his focus, enough to position his mouth just a breath away from mine.
“Perfect for you,” I say before taking control of the kiss now that he’s lifted the rules. I claim his mouth in the way I’ve wanted to all night—just as possessive and punishing as he’s been. I nip at his bottom lip enough that he pumps into me harder, faster.
I’m completely lost in the moment with him.
The power, his and mine, swirls together.
Wind and emotion—desire racing back and forth between us like endless sways of smoke.
He doesn’t chide me for the back-and-forth, for the way the power seems to belong to both of us now, instead of one or the other.
He can’t, not when he’s claiming my body, not when our bond has fully awakened and demands satisfaction.
My skin is on fire. I can’t touch enough of him. Kiss enough of him.
He rises up, using a free hand to push my knee farther back as he pounds into me. The sounds of our sex fill the playroom, the desire flowing between us ramping up so much, I can’t tell whose is whose. There’s no differentiating from the power. And I don’t care.
This is me and him.
Consuming. Jagged. Endless.
Mates.
Matched on every level.
I feel him riding the edge through our bond and meet his thrusts with lifts of my hips. The two of us are on a collision course, ready to break.
“Jax.” I breathe his name as everything in me narrows to the way he’s making me feel—loved and cherished and taken care of in every way a person can be.
It’s scary how much I care for him and how much he cares for me.
I can feel that through the bond and power and everywhere we connect.
It’s dangerous and never-ending, and I’m drowning in it, just like he said.
I kiss him again, softer this time as we crash together over and over again.
“Jax. I . . .” I can barely speak as my pleasure builds. “I love you.” I breathe the words, unable to hold them back as I soar, my release bursting in a million sparks beneath my skin.
Jax groans, spilling inside me with his own release, dropping down to cover my body with his, his forehead pressed against mine as he catches his breath.
He draws back after a few moments, eyes softer than usual. He smooths back some of my hair, kissing me gently. “I love you, Rylee Gray.”
He rarely says my name, so I always feel it in my bones when he does. If I could melt any more for this man, I would. As it is, I’m practically a puddle beneath him.
“So fucking much.” He kisses me again, slow and lazy, like we have all the time in the world.
Power careens into me so hard I gasp.
“Goddess damn it,” I snap as the onslaught of Jax’s power steals my breath.
Jax laughs, the motion doing things to our connected bodies.
“You’re getting there,” he says.
“Not fast enough.”
Seriousness shapes his features. “You’re getting there,” he says with more conviction.
I swallow hard. “I held it longer that time.”
“You did,” he says. “Soon, you’ll be able to send it or keep it at will.”
It’s hard to picture that kind of control.
Jax smiles down at me, shifting gently off me. He disappears for a moment, then is back quickly to clean me. He helps me sit up, immediately stepping between my thighs to draw me close.
“Let’s get you taken care of,” he says. “Water first. Then food. You can eat while I attend to some business.” He scoops me up, carrying me across the playroom and through the bedroom door at the back of the room.
He perches me on the bed as he heads to the small bar cart in the corner.
I eye my sister’s art journal where I left it on the nightstand, ignoring the urge to pick it up and thumb through it again.
“What business?” I ask when he hands me a large crystal glass of water, then sets a plate of bread and fruits beside me on the bed.
“List business,” he says with a shrug.
I arch an eyebrow. “You need to say more words.”
He heads to the wardrobe near the bar cart and pulls out pieces of black clothing before sliding into them. Damn, what is it about him buttoning up his shirt that’s so sexy?
“Jax,” I warn.
He sighs, finishing the last button. “I have a contact,” he says. “He’s meeting me at a club across the city.”
“Contact for what?”
Jax eyes the untouched plate of food next to me.
I immediately grab a strawberry and bite into it.
“He might have information for us on the new enhancement strain that’s tearing through our cities.”
I almost choke on my second bite. “Really?”
Jax nods.
“And you’re just now telling me about this?”
“You have more important things to worry about,” he says. “If you haven’t noticed.”
“Nothing is more important to me than getting this list done and putting you, Axl, Kal, and Pierce on the thrones where you belong,” I argue. “You’re what Lumathyst needs. You can make real change. Nothing is more important than that—”
“You are more important than that,” he cuts over me, his tone sharp and rushed.
The grief hits me like a boulder to the chest. Not mine . . . his.
The loss is a bottomless well of fear and worry and darkness.
My loss.
Tears immediately fill my eyes.
Jax growls, raking his fingers through his blue-black hair. He takes a steadying breath, closing his eyes for a few moments.
The grief ebbs, shifting to a cool sort of contentment. It’s not my doing; it’s his. His ability to regulate himself is incredible. I wish I had that sort of control, but I suppose having the power to influence other people’s emotions taught him a lot about controlling his own.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he whispers.
I rise from the bed, grabbing a white button-down discarded over one of the chairs and quickly slipping into it before I reach him. His sentiment is appreciated, much like Kal’s when he expressed the same worry, but it’s pointless.
“You picked me, Jax. First as a potential, then as a Legend, and finally as your mate.”
“And all of those decisions . . . my decisions led you straight to your death,” he says.
I flinch at the prick of guilt that stings my chest and slide my hand over the center of his.
“You’re wrong,” I say. “I chose to sneak into the Choosing. I accepted the pin. I played the game. I fell in love with each of you. I chose you and Axl and Kal and Pierce. I took the Athanry elixir knowing the risks. Each of you told me not to. And even after it killed me . . . after all of it, I still came back to you. I made those choices. And I would do it again. I would Choose you a thousand times—”
He cups my cheek, his gaze steady on mine, covering my mouth with his seconds later. His other arm snakes around my lower back, hauling me against him in an embrace that feels otherworldly. Like if he can hold me close enough, he won’t lose me again.
I understand it. The idea of losing them sent me over the edge in an explosion of power I still think about. But there’s nothing we can do about it now. Nothing except work together to make things right.
“You’ve always let me make my own choices, so keep letting me,” I say as he draws back an inch. “Don’t let fear change that.”
The growl from his chest is low, but I smile because it means he knows I’m right.
“You have to eat first,” he says, relenting. I clap and hurry back to the bed. “And drink two more glasses of water.”
“Yes, Nightmare,” I say, already biting into the bread.