Losing Control : His Madness, His Cure Chapter 9

Jax moves like smoke and gasoline...fast and impossible to contain. He walks back toward our table with that same predatory gait, like he’s hunting something. Or someone. His eyes don’t leave mine, even when he gets close enough that his presence cuts the air into sharp slices.

He looms beside me and Shawn, and suddenly, the air feels heavy. Too still. Too quiet.

Shawn finally picks up on it. His hand, one that was on my thigh just a second ago, slips away like he’s been burned.

I can’t blame him.

Jax grabs the almost-empty bottle of whiskey sitting on the edge of the table, and in one fluid, terrifying motion, he smashes it against the table's edge. The sound is sharp and jagged, glass flying across the floor like shrapnel.

“Yo...what the hell?!” Shawn jerks back with a startled noise, eyes wide. “Are you good, man?”

Jax doesn’t answer. He just repeats the words in a low, gravel-slick voice, mocking. “‘Am I good?’”

Then he turns to look at me, and I feel it..like he’s inside my fucking bloodstream.

His gaze is dark and hot. My pulse stutters.

He holds the broken bottle like it’s an extension of his hand. All dangerous edges and intent.

Then he calmly picks up another bottle, this one still full, and holds Shawn’s stare.

“You’ve got until this bottle runs dry,” he says, voice deceptively soft, “to get the fuck out of my sight… or I make a glass-and-jugular cocktail and let you decorate the floor in blood and bourbon.”

Shawn blinks. He’s frozen, unsure if it’s a joke or not.

It’s not.

I know it in my bones.

I should say something. I should do something. But I sit there, paralyzed and breathless and absolutely fucking insane.....because I’m half-hard and I have no idea why.

Is it the whiskey? The chaos?

Him?

Shawn finally turns to me, panicked. “Xan, what the fuck is wrong with your friend?”

My head turns slowly. I look at Shawn for a long second before I say, quietly but firmly, “Go.”

He blinks again, mouth open like he wants to say something, but I’m not having it.

“I said go, Shawn.”

There’s nothing kind in my voice. Nothing patient, I kinda feel bad.

He stands, reluctantly. His eyes move to Jax, who’s now holding the second bottle upside down, alcohol spilling to the floor in slow, steady glugs. It pools beneath his boots like a sacrament.

Jax and I lock eyes.

There’s no air in my lungs.

He narrows his gaze and says to Shawn without looking at him, “You heard him. Unless you wanna whisper more of your porno wishlist in his ear… in which case, I’ll slit your throat and pour the rest of this bottle into the hole. ”

Shawn doesn’t wait after that.

He bolts.

I’m left sitting there, blinking, barely breathing, while Jax just stands in front of me like he owns the damn room. Like he owns me.

And maybe he does.

Because I’m not only scared.

I’m also turned on.

And I think that’s the most fucked-up part of all. He sets the bottle he was just pouring back on the table with a soft clink, then he steps closer.

Too close.

I don’t move, until I do. My eyes drop to the busted bottle still in his hand, jagged edges catching the light. I exhale sharply, leaning back just a bit when he raises it...slow, until the edge hovers over my neck. Not touching. Not yet.

“ The fuck are you doing?” My voice doesn’t even sound like mine. Too calm for how fast my heart’s going.

I lift my eyes to his. Bad move.

Because those eyes are locked on me like he can read every damn thought in my head. I blink, throat flexing under the tension, and my tongue betrays me, sweeping over my lower lip like I’m inviting this.

I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.

Actually, no....I do.

It’s the way he looks at me. Like I’m already undone. Like he wants me unspooled and wrecked and panting. Like he’d know exactly how to make that happen.

“I’m curious,” he murmurs, the jagged edge of glass gliding lightly against the side of my throat. My pulse hammers. I can feel it. The line between fear and something else completely blurred to hell. One wrong move and I’ll be bleeding.

And I still don’t pull away.

He tilts his head, eyes flicking down then back up. “ Were you gonna think about me later, when you were fucking your little plaything?”

“What’s it to you?” I manage, trying to ignore the fact that my dick just twitched at the words coming from his mouth.

He chuckles. “You wanna hear my thoughts, Xander?”

No!

Yes.

God, yes.

“I don’t think you would’ve,” he goes on, voice thick with venom and heat, “because I don’t think you were ever gonna fuck that twinked-up, wannabe power bottom. Pretty sure he had his hand on your dick, and it didn’t even flinch.”

I clench my jaw. My fists. My everything.

“But now he's out of the room,” he adds, tilting his head just a little as the bottle lowers to my collarbone, “and that doesn’t seem to be a problem anymore, does it?”

My body betrays me. Again. And I hate it.

Hate the heat crawling up my neck, the way I want to shove his hand off and pull him closer in the same breath. I’m sitting low enough that from here, I’m nearly eye-level with his hard-on, evidence of his own sick thrill.

It’s all too much. The tension. The alcohol still messing with my head. The way my skin’s buzzing.

I snap.

I shove the bottle away from my neck, sharper than I mean to. It hits the floor, skidding somewhere out of sight.

I push myself up, but before I can even stand straight, he grabs me.

A single hand around my throat.

Tight and possessive.

“Sit the fuck down.”

I glare at him. “I’m not some dog you can command.”

His mouth quirks...amused and merciless.

He leans in, breath ghosting over my cheek, his voice dropping like thunder in my ear.

“No, you’re worse. You like being pushed. You get off on it. You’re a goddamn powder keg begging to be lit.” His hand flexes slightly on my throat. “So I’ll say it one more time…”

His lips graze mine without kissing.

“…Down, boy.”

And fuck me, I nearly do.

“Nothing’s ever gonna happen between us again,” I say. “You can live off that kiss from earlier, because it’s the last thing you’re getting.”

My voice sounds solid, but inside I’m unraveling. Fucking liar. I don’t even believe myself. Not with my heart hammering like this. Not with the burn in my gut every time he so much as looks at me.