Chapter 27 – JAX
JAX
“What are you...” The words die in my throat as her hands move to my waist. Her fingers tease open the tie on my scrubs, and my brain short-circuits.
“Shhh.” She grips the material, holding my gaze. “Just watch. Feel. Let me take care of you.”
She pulls the fabric down slowly, deliberately. The scrubs slide over my hips, catching briefly before continuing down my thighs to pool around my ankles. The cool basement air hits my heated skin, and I realize I’m already hard, and have been since her scent first hit me.
Conflicting emotions burn through me, making me strain back against the wall. I want her too much to keep control.
“Don’t.” The chains rattle violently as I try to pull away, but there’s nowhere to go. The stone is cold against my bare skin, rough texture scraping my shoulders through the thin shirt. “This isn’t...”
Licking her lips, she tilts her head with a wicked smile.
“Perfect?” She gazes up at me, and my brain whites out for a second. The concrete has to be hard on her knees, uncomfortable, but she settles there like she has all the time in the world. “I think it is.”
My wolf slams against my internal barriers, desperate to break free. The chains groan under the strain as every muscle in my body locks tight. Metal protests, links stretching dangerously close to failure.
I could snap them. I could be free in seconds. And the keys are right there, but I don’t need them. A few ferocious pulls from my wolf, as determined as he is, and these chains would give way.
But if I get loose, I’ll mark her. My wolf will take over completely and sink his teeth into that elegant neck before either of us can even think twice about it. The need is already overwhelming, consuming every rational thought.
“Camille, you’re playing with fire...” The words come out strangled as she looks up at me through her lashes, an angel in my hellhole of a room. The dim light catches her eyes, making them glow with intent, and I know she won’t be dissuaded.
“Maybe that’s exactly what I want to do.” Her hands slide up my thighs, starting at my knees, and move higher with deliberate slowness. “I didn’t join the enforcers because I’m someone who likes to play it safe.”
Her nails drag lightly over the sensitive skin of my inner thighs, and my hips jerk forward involuntarily. The chains pull taut with a metallic shriek.
“I don’t want a boring life, Jax.” Higher still, until her hands frame my hips, thumbs tracing the cut of muscle there. “And you’re worth taking a risk on.”
I blink at her. Nobody has ever taken a chance on me. They’ve only shielded me, let me do jobs that keep me out of trouble and won’t ignite the spark of unpredictability that lives within me.
And here’s my brave little mate, fanning the flames.
“You don’t know what you’re doing to me.” My voice is pure gravel, barely human. “My wolf wants... I want… he’ll get free.”
Shrugging, looking remarkably unconcerned, she strokes her heated palms over my taut thighs and arches her back, her breasts looking full and good enough to eat from my vantage point.
“I know exactly what I’m doing.” She leans closer, her breath ghosting over sensitive skin.
Tugging hard, reaching for her, I forget I can’t move. The sting of silver against my wrists snaps me back to reality, and the torture she’s inflicting on me.
“And I know what you want. The same thing I want.”
The first touch of her mouth short-circuits every thought. My head slams back against the stone wall, hard, but I barely feel it. All that exists is wet heat and the sweet torture of her tongue exploring, learning what makes me gasp, what makes the chains rattle.
My hands strain against the shackles, desperate to thread through her hair, to guide her, to touch her in any way.
Metal bites deeper into my already torn wrists, and I feel drips of fresh blood running down my arms, but I don’t care. The pain is nothing compared to the need clawing through me.
“Fuck.” The curse tears from my throat as she takes me deeper, confidence growing with each passing second. When she slides her hands between her thighs, releasing a breathy moan as she touches her still glistening pussy, I feel like I’m about to burst.
My wolf is going insane, throwing himself against the walls of my mind with increasing violence.
Free us, he demands, over and over, like a mantra. Touch her. Claim her. Mark what’s ours.
I fight him with everything I have, even as my body betrays me. My hips buck forward, seeking more of her perfect heat.
She doesn’t pull away, just hums her approval, showing me the pleasure she’s getting from driving me wild like this, and from her own hand.
The vibration nearly ends me right here. My hands clench into fists above the shackles, nails digging into my palms hard enough to draw more blood, as I watch her, eyelids heavy with desire.
The scent of her arousal fills the small room, and I drag in big lungfuls of it, like an addict getting his fix.
“Come closer... let me touch you.” The words come out broken and desperate. “Please. I need to...”
If this wasn’t the most fucked up erotic experience of my life, I’d be ashamed of begging like this, but I’m so lost to her, I don’t care.
She pulls back just enough to speak, her lips swollen and wet. The sight alone makes me groan, the urge to pull her to me, to kiss those lips before sliding my cock back between them, is visceral.
My desire for her burns like a fire in my veins, stoked even higher when she tuts at me.
“This isn’t about what you need.”
Her nails rake down my thigh, harder this time, leaving burning trails that my wolf wants to lean into, pain and pleasure mixing until I can’t tell them apart. It’s not quite a mark, but the signs of her presence on my skin feel like a brand. One he’ll wear proudly.
“This is about proving to you that you do have control.” She does it again to the other thigh, marking me in her own way. “At least, when it comes to me.”
I’m not so certain she’s right.
“I want to touch you.” My voice doesn’t sound human anymore, more growl than words. “Want to taste you.”
“I know,” she whispers gleefully before leaning back in, tongue tracing patterns that make me see white while she looks up at me, revelling in my reactions. “But you’re too scared right now.”
I howl in defiance, primal and possessive, but she’s right. I’m overthinking. Terrified of marking her and then losing her when the council decides I’m broken beyond repair. Of hurting her wolf if we’re parted.
“But you need to stop over-thinking everything.”
She takes me deep into her mouth again, and rational thought scatters. The reasons I thought were so important slip through my fingers, unable to focus on anything but the ecstasy of having my mate on her knees before me.
My wolf howls in my head, beyond words now, just pure need and instinct demanding we claim our mate.
My fangs lengthen without permission, the serum needed to stamp my scent into her skin already pooling in my mouth.
The urge to bite is so strong, that I taste copper as I bite my own cheek attempting to hold back from lunging forward.
“Camille.” Her name comes out as a warning growl. “I’m going to... if you don’t stop... I can’t control...”
Something snaps then, and I fall forward an inch, looming over her.
But she doesn’t stop. If anything, she doubles her efforts, one hand coming up to grip my hip, nails digging in possessively. The other reaches higher, fingers linking with mine where they’re trapped above the chains.
That simple touch, that connection while she continues her sweet torture, breaks something fundamental in me. She’s showing me what we could have, what she’s offering, if I’m just brave enough to accept it. For however long our happiness might last.
The orgasm builds at the base of my spine like a wildfire. Every muscle in my body locks tightly, fighting it, trying to hold back and maintain some semblance of control. But she knows exactly what she’s doing now, has learned my body’s responses, and she’s relentless.
Thoughts of escape are gone. I wanted to come inside her, to claim her in every way possible, but it’s too late for that.
“Let go,” she murmurs against me, the words vibrating through me. “Stop fighting it.”
The permission destroys the last of my resistance.
My release hits me like a lightning strike, ripping through me with violent intensity.
I roar her name, the sound echoing off stone walls and probably carrying up through the house above.
My whole body convulses, hips bucking helplessly, as she takes everything, gentling me through waves of pleasure so intense that it borders on pain.
She doesn’t pull away until the last aftershock fades, until I’m hanging limply in the chains, legs shaking so badly, they can barely hold me. When she finally sits back on her heels, licking her lips with a satisfied expression, I’m completely destroyed.
My wolf has gone quiet, overwhelmed and temporarily sated, but far from satisfied.
“Come to me,” I rasp out, throat raw from growling.
She stands slowly, gracefully, brushing dust from her knees.
For a moment, I think she’s actually going to step into my arms, let me hold her close as I come down, and let me feel her warm body against mine.
I’ll open the chains and carry her to my bed, taste her, and show her how much I do want her.
Instead, she simply pulls my scrubs back up, taking her time to adjust them carefully, purposefully remaining out of reach. Her hands linger on my hips, smoothing the fabric, and I lean into the touch helplessly, starved for any contact she’ll allow.
“Camille, I need to kiss you.” This is worse. The urge to pull her tight to my chest and hug her is overwhelming, crawling under my skin. It feels wrong after something as powerful as that to have any distance between us.
“No.”
The word doesn’t compute through my post-orgasm haze. “What?”
“I’m not hugging you.” She cups my face in her hands, forcing me to meet her eyes, as she slips her fingers, still slick with her juices, between my lips.
I moan, sucking them clean, but still staring at her, my brain is too fried to comprehend what’s going on here.
But then it clicks, and what I see in her beautiful eyes makes my chest tight, determination mixed with vulnerability. “You need to think about what you really want.”
“I think that’s pretty obvious,” I start. “Camille…”
“And what you’re going to do about it.”
I fall silent. That’s the part I don’t have figured out.
“More help from Zane’s team is coming tomorrow.” Her voice stays steady, but I catch the flicker of hurt in her eyes, and the slight tension in her jaw. “If I’m not wanted here, I’ll go. Take the next assignment. Move on.”
A vicious snarl flies from my lips, but she looks at me with the patience of a mother dealing with a toddler’s tantrum.
“It’s not that simple…” Does she not see that I’m trying to protect her?
“It is.” She cuts me off with a bittersweet smile. “I trust you. And I want you. All of you. But I’ve already waited for a man who didn’t want me enough before. And I won’t do it again.”
She climbs the stairs without another word.
As the door closes behind her, I slump against the chains, her scent still surrounding me, her taste still on my lips.
Jealousy floods through me at the thought of someone having her and not treasuring her, not fighting to keep her. And the thought that she’ll leave here, move to a new job, probably be pursued by other males, makes my blood bubble with rage.
The thought of another wolf touching her, marking her, making her smile the way she smiles at me, turns my vision red.
The chains groan dangerously as my wolf demands we act now, muscles bunching with the need to hunt, to eliminate any threat to what’s mine.
With one final furious lunge, the chains snap, leaving silver shackles around my wrists as the broken links fall to the ground with a loud clank.
As I stare at the chains, that realistically I could have broken at any point, a glimmer of hope lights inside me. Maybe she is right. Maybe I do have some control when it comes to her.
But that’s not going to help me with the council.
I pace, chest heaving, Dean’s words echoing in my ears.
If I want to have a future with my mate, I need to get my act together.