Chapter 322 - 0322: Take Your Time, Princess

Chapter 322: Chapter 0322: Take Your Time, Princess

Elena’s Point Of View

His thumbs traced small circles on my hips, a gentle counterpoint to the fierce possession threading through his voice. "I just wanted you entirely to myself. It became less about hurting Graham... and more about making you mine. Completely mine. Body, heart, and soul."

I sat there, frozen like a statue in a high-end museum, staring at him with my mouth slightly open. I literally couldn’t believe my ears. My brain, already fried from three days of hiding from my company and surviving on nothing but air and anxiety, was throwing a complete system error. The words he’d just spoken didn’t compute with the man I knew.

Was he sick? Had he caught some weird tropical virus during his three weeks of vanishing into thin air? Did the notorious, stone-cold Jaxx Moretti just use the words heart and soul in a sentence that didn’t involve a business contract or a threat? Something had clearly shifted in him, and I didn’t know whether to celebrate or run for the hills.

I lifted my hands, my palms slapping slightly against his cheeks, forcing his face up so I could inspect his eyes for signs of fever or delirium. His skin was warm beneath my fingers, far too steady, far too real. "Jaxx," I said, my voice cracking with a mix of pure shock and hysterical amusement. "Are you okay? Seriously. Do you have a concussion? Did someone drop a brick on your head while you were out playing shadow king?"

He let out a low, gravelly sound, his hands tightening on my waist as that familiar, insufferable smirk crawled right back onto his lips. The expression was so quintessentially him that for a moment, I almost relaxed. Almost. There was still something different simmering beneath the surface, something softer that I couldn’t quite name yet.

"Do I look sick to you, princess?"

"Yes!" I yelled, my eyes sweeping over his dark hair, which was messy in a way that usually cost three hundred dollars at a salon but today looked like he’d actually been running through a hedge backwards.

My fingers were still pressed against his face, feeling the warmth of his skin, the slight stubble along his jaw. "You look completely unhinged! You’re talking like a character in one of those cheap paperbacks my assistant leaves in the breakroom. Who are you and what have you done with the arrogant jerk who usually communicates in grunts and cryptic threats?"

He pulled me even closer to his body, the heavy linen of his shirt scraping against the bare skin of my shoulders as I straddled his thighs. The sheer heat radiating off him was making the freezing, sixty-two-degree air conditioning completely useless. I could feel every breath he took, every subtle shift of muscle beneath his clothes. I swallowed hard, my heart doing a weird, spastic little tap-dance against my ribs.

"I didn’t mean it like that," I muttered, my face feeling suddenly hot. The words came out softer than I’d intended, almost apologetic.

"Then what do you mean, princess?" Jaxx teased, his dark eyes glittering with that dangerous, playful light that always made me want to either kiss him or punch him in the jaw. Maybe both. "I just laid my heart open for you, didn’t I? The least you could do is give me a round of applause. A little recognition for my emotional development."

I let out a loud, breathless chuckle and brought my hand down, smacking the top of his head with a solid thwack. "Shut up, you absolute idiot. You don’t get a medal for basic human communication after ghosting me for twenty-one days." The number felt significant on my tongue... I’d counted every single one of them, marked them off in my head like a prisoner scratching lines into a cell wall.

But even as the words left my mouth, the lingering knot of frustration in my chest finally loosened. The exhaustion that had been weighing down my limbs for a week transformed into a heavy, comfortable warmth that spread through my entire body.

Before my brain could talk me out of it, I slid my arms down from his head and wrapped them tightly around his neck, burying my face into the crook of his shoulder. The scent of him... cedarwood, rain, and that faint metallic tang of the bar downstairs flooded my senses, grounding me instantly.

This was real. He was real. He was here. All the anger I’d been nursing for three weeks seemed to dissolve into something quieter, something that felt dangerously close to relief.

"I’m just glad you’re here," I whispered against his collarbone, hating how vulnerable I sounded but too tired to care anymore. My fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt, clinging to him like he might disappear again if I let go. "Don’t ever hide anything from me again. If you have some weird, convoluted family drama or you’re planning on disappearing to fight a small war, you tell me. You don’t just leave me staring at my phone like a loser, wondering if you’re alive or dead or just done with me."

Jaxx’s large arms came around my back, his palms wide and solid against my spine, crushing me against his chest so hard I could feel the steady, rhythmic thud of his heartbeat. The sound was oddly reassuring, proof that beneath all the bravado and mystery, he was just as human as I was. He shook his head, his rough jaw rubbing against my hair.

"Never. Not again in this lifetime, Bambina. I’ll be honest with you. Even when the truth makes me look like a villain."

I pulled back just far enough to look at him, my eyebrows knitting together as his words settled in my ears. The sheer gravity of his expression, mixed with the weirdly intense way he was holding my waist, made my stomach do another nervous flip.

There was something in his eyes I’d never seen before... a kind of raw sincerity that made my breath catch, as though he’d finally let a wall crumble that he’d spent years reinforcing.

"Why does this sound suspiciously like a proposal, Jaxx?" I asked, my voice rising to a comically high octave. My pulse thundered in my ears.

His smirk widened, turning into something completely wicked. "Who knows."

My heart gave a violent, panicked squeeze. "Stop saying nonsense!" I shrieked, my face turning a vibrant shade of scarlet. Heat crawled up my neck and flooded my cheeks. "You can’t just throw out lines like that after a month of silence! My blood pressure cannot handle you today."

"Then let’s lower it," he murmured, his voice dropping to that low, dangerous register that always made my knees weak.

Before I could process the shift in his tone, Jaxx closed the tiny distance between us and kissed me again. It wasn’t the slow, conversational kiss from before; it was sudden, deep, and heavy with a kind of raw impatience that left me completely breathless. His mouth moved against mine with purpose, claiming and demanding in equal measure. His hands shifted from my lower back down to my hips, fingers gripping with barely restrained intensity, and with one fluid, terrifyingly powerful twist of his torso, he flipped us over.

I gasped into his mouth as the world spun. A heartbeat later, my back hit the soft, thick mattress, the dark gray duvet bunching up around my shoulders. Jaxx hovered over me now, his massive frame completely blocking out the dim light of the bedroom, his knees settling on either side of my hips.

My legs, having nowhere else to go, remained wrapped tightly around his waist, my sneakers dangling off the edge of his thighs. The sudden shift from vertical to horizontal left me breathless, though I couldn’t entirely blame the movement for that.

"What do you think you’re doing, pervert?" The words tumbled out the second his lips left mine, my hands coming up to press against his broad shoulders to keep him from crushing me entirely.

"I want to have a proper look at you." Jaxx’s voice dropped into a low, smoky register that vibrated right through my ribcage. He propped his forearms on either side of my head, leaning down until his nose nearly brushed mine. His eyes were dark, intense, and completely unhurried as they scanned every inch of my face, lingering on details I’d never considered worth noticing.

The intensity of his gaze made my skin flush hot. "It’s been over three weeks since I last saw this face. I’m making up for lost time."

Three weeks that had felt like three months. Three weeks of deliberately avoiding him, of throwing myself into work until exhaustion became my only companion. Three weeks of pretending I didn’t miss this... miss him. I’d lied to myself so often during those endless nights that I’d almost started believing it.

"Well?" I snapped, trying to sound authoritative despite being trapped beneath two hundred pounds of determined male in nothing but my underwear. "Are you satisfied now?"

He shook his head slowly, a strand of dark hair falling over his forehead. "No. I can never be satisfied when it comes to you, Elena. You should know that by now." He paused, his gaze dropping to my mouth before rising back to my eyes, his expression shifting into something more calculated, more deliberate. Something that made my stomach flip. "So... what do you say to moving back in with me?"

I blinked, my brain stuttering. "Moving back in? Jaxx, we..."

"Not here." He interrupted quickly, his thumbs brushing against my temples, smoothing back my frizzy hair with a tenderness that didn’t match his imposing size. The gentle touch sent shivers down my arms. "I don’t want us staying in this suite anymore. This place smells like old business and bad memories. I want to take you to my personal house. The one outside the city. Just us."

The sheer weight of the suggestion hit me like a physical blow. A personal house? A place completely disconnected from the war he’d been fighting his whole life? The vulnerability in his voice, barely perceptible beneath his usual confidence, made something crack open inside my chest. For a man who guarded every piece of himself like a fortress, the offer felt like he was handing me a key I hadn’t even known existed.

"I... I would have to think about that." I stuttered, my hands dropping from his shoulders to grip the front of his shirt, the fabric bunching between my fingers. "That’s a huge step, Jaxx. I have a company to run, I have Heather and Dave breathing down my neck, I have an entire life that doesn’t involve hiding out in a secret mansion with a rogue billionaire."

Even as I said it, part of me wondered what it would be like... waking up somewhere quiet, somewhere that belonged only to him. No board meetings, no hostile family members, no photographers lurking around corners. Just... peace. The idea settled over me like a warm blanket, tempting in a way I wasn’t ready to admit out loud.

Jaxx nodded, entirely unfazed by my hesitation. He leaned down, his lips brushing against the sensitive skin right below my jawline, making me give a tiny, embarrassing shiver that I felt him smile against.

"Take your time, princess," he murmured against my skin, his deep voice sending a wave of heat straight down my spine. His breath was warm, his words deliberate. "Think about it all you want. But don’t keep me waiting too long. Otherwise... I won’t care what you have to say, and I’ll just come to your office, pick you up myself, and carry you there."

The threat... or was it a promise? should have annoyed me. Instead, it made my pulse race faster, my fingers tightening in his shirt as I fought the smile threatening to break across my face. Somewhere beneath the exhaustion and the lingering hurt of three weeks without him, a small, reckless part of me had already started packing bags I hadn’t agreed to pack.