Chapter 604: Pick It Up, Mrs. Shaw

Alex did not let her frantic rambling continue.

?Reaching up, his long fingers cupped the side of her neck, his thumb sliding up to press firmly against the trembling swell of her lower lip. The quiet, unyielding weight of his touch physically cut off her apologies mid-breath, forcing her chaotic panic to a sudden halt.

?"Hush, Naomi," Alex murmured, his thumb slowly tracing the line of her mouth as his dark eyes held hers captive. "Apologies don’t suit you."

?Naomi froze, her chest heaving against his ribs as his absolute calm washed over her like cold water.

?With a faint, mocking smile curving his lips, Alex lifted his other hand into the dim light between them. Loosening his curled fingers, he revealed a mangled, high-caliber tungsten slug resting in his open palm, still radiating a faint trace of heat.

Naomi’s breath hitched in her throat as she stared at the twisted metal.

Before she could speak, Alex pinched the heavy slug between his thumb and forefinger. With a casual flick of pressure, his fingers closed. The dense, reinforced alloy groaned under terrifying force, flattening and twisting like soft clay before he let the crushed piece of metal drop to the carpet with a dull click.

A cold shock rippled down Naomi’s spine.

?That was no ordinary bullet. It was specialized ammunition crafted exclusively to kill cultivators... designed with brutal purpose to punch straight through reinforced flesh and shatter hardened bone like fragile glass. Even with her Peak Enhanced physique, a round like that would have torn clean through her body, leaving nothing behind but a hollow ruin.

Yet Alex had caught the round with his bare hand, stopped its kinetic payload cold, and crushed it between two fingers as if it were a toy.

The gulf between them was not a mere difference in rank. It was an unfathomable abyss.

Slowly, Naomi looked up from the ruined bullet to the calm, untouchable dark of his eyes.

Her throat felt completely dry. Staring at the crushed alloy in his palm, the sheer absurdity of what he had just done shattered every boundary of power she had ever known.

"God..." The word escaped her lips in a shaken, breathless whisper, her gaze darting between his unblemished chest and his completely relaxed posture. "How... how strong are you?"

Alex didn’t even shift. His lips merely curved into a lazy, razor-sharp smirk, his dark eyes gleaming with quiet disdain for the entire ambush.

"Strong enough to deal with every little minion your husband prepared for my welcome," he replied smoothly, his tone as casual as if he were discussing minor pests.

A sharp chill rippled through Naomi’s chest, chasing away the last remnants of her confusion. Hearing that effortless arrogance, the pieces fell together with terrifying clarity.

"So you knew..." she whispered, the realization finally settling deep into her bones, heavy and overwhelming. Her voice barely carried across the quiet space between them. "You knew the entire time."

"What do you think?" Alex countered smoothly, his lips curving into a lazy smirk.

In that quiet moment, every scattered thought in her mind snapped into place.

All the erratic warnings she had thrown at him flashed behind her eyes... the sudden, desperate kiss against the mirrored glass, her white-knuckled grip on his wrist, and her broken pleas begging him not to step past the threshold.

He hadn’t questioned a single thing. He had looked down at her wild eyes and trembling hands without the slightest hint of suspicion or alarm, brushing off her terror as if it were nothing more than timid hesitation.

He hadn’t been oblivious to the danger. He had simply strolled straight into the crosshairs with an amused smile, fully aware of the rifle waiting in the dark.

"Since when?" Naomi whispered, the words barely slipping past her parted lips. Her chest tightened with a dizzying blend of awe and total surrender. "Since... the elevator?"

Alex let out a quiet chuckle that vibrated warmly against her frame. Instead of answering immediately, his hands slid down to her waist.

With effortless ease, he shifted her weight and pulled her down firmly onto his lap.

Naomi gasped softly as her knees straddled his thighs, her hips pressed flush against his hard frame. She instinctively placed her hands on his broad shoulders to steady herself, her cheeks flushing bright red under his intense gaze.

Alex leaned in close, his lips brushing the sensitive curve just beneath her ear as his voice dropped to a low, velvet purr.

"Since the very first time we met, Mrs. Shaw," he murmured, his breath hot against her skin. "When you were sitting exactly like this on my lap, while your pathetic husband could only stand in the doorway and watch."

The words struck Naomi with the force of a physical blow.

A searing wave of heat rushed to her face, burning away what little composure she had left. It wasn’t just desire; it was raw, suffocating shame.

All this time, she had truly believed she was the one in control. She had thought she was leading him into a web, using her charms and subtle deceit to distract him from securing the Central Corridor.

To realize that from the very first second, she had been an open book... her pride, her calculations, and her seduction laid bare beneath his gaze... shattered her self-esteem to pieces.

"What... what are you?" she breathed, her voice trembling in genuine shock. She looked into his dark, amused eyes as if seeing an unfathomable phantom. "That’s impossible. Karl and I came up with that approach on the spot. Nobody else knew. There was no leak... you couldn’t have known."

"Did you honestly believe your little performance was that convincing?" Alex teased softly, his lips curving into a lazy, razor-sharp smirk. "I have to admit, it was thoroughly entertaining. Watching you try so desperately to persuade me that the seller was an eccentric recluse... a corrupt womanizer who would never agree to meet prospective buyers in person... all while clenching your thighs and fighting back your breathless little moans right here in my lap."

Naomi buried her face against the crook of his neck, her cheeks burning like fire as the humiliating memory rushed back in vivid detail. She remembered the sheer terror of Karl standing just beyond the threshold, completely blind to the fact that his wife was squirming in another man’s arms, her dignity dissolving with every stroke of his fingers.

Before her racing pulse could settle, Alex’s large hand moved.

His fingers clamped firmly onto the bare curve of her lower thigh, pushing beneath the tailored hem of her skirt. Slow and unhurried, his palm glided upward, dragging the silk aside and tracing the burning heat of her inner thigh until his fingers slipped beneath delicate lace to press against her slick, shivering core.

?Naomi arched with a sharp gasp, her nails digging frantically into his shoulders.

?BZZT. BZZT.

A violent, rhythmic vibration suddenly interrupted the intimate silence, buzzing urgently from the hidden inner pocket of her blazer pressed flat between their chests.

?Naomi flinched in panic, her thighs snapping shut on instinct... only to trap Alex’s hand firmly against her wet heat.

?Alex didn’t retreat. His dark eyes gleamed with wicked amusement as his thumb delivered a slow, deliberate stroke of pressure right against her entrance, wringing a broken whimper from her throat.

?"That will be Karl, dying for his good news. Pick it up, Mrs. Shaw... and let’s see if you can convince him of my death while trembling under my hand."