Jax's Little Obsession

Chapter 19

Maya’s Pov

The sound of the heavy office door slamming shut echoed through the house, but the noise didn't matter compared to the fire burning in my chest.

I threw my bag onto the floor, my hands shaking so hard I could barely stand. Jax had gone behind my back again. He’d cancelled my application for a prestigious summer internship at a local engineering firm without telling me, claiming it was "too risky" for me to be away from his protection. I didn't care about the risk. I cared about my life, my choices, and my future—all of which he was treating like items in a*****e he owned.

"How could you?" I yelled, spinning around to face him as he stepped into the room. He looked as cool and collected as ever, which only made my anger spike higher. "That internship was mine! I earned it! You don't get to decide what I do with my summer!"

Jax didn't yell back. He just watched me, his gaze dark and unreadable. "It was for your own safety, Maya. You’re becoming too exposed."

"Safety?" I laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. "You don't care about my safety. You care about control. You treat me like property, like some antique bike you keep in your garage just to look at when you’re bored. Well, I’m not your property, Jax!"

He took a slow step toward me, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous rumble. "You think I want to control you? You’re the one person I can’t control, Maya. That’s exactly why you get under my skin. Every single day, I try to predict your moves, I try to map out your path, and every single time, you do something that makes it impossible for me to keep you in a box."

I stopped pacing, my breath catching in my throat. I had never heard him speak with that kind of honesty. "Then stop!" I shouted, though my voice wasn't as steady as it had been before. "Stop trying to own me! Stop making decisions for me! Just let me breathe!"

Jax sighed, the sound ragged, and he rubbed a hand over his face. When he looked back at me, the arrogance was gone, replaced by a raw vulnerability I wasn't prepared for. "I don't know how else to do this, Maya. I wasn't raised to care about people. My family—we don't learn how to support someone. We only learn how to possess them. I don't know how to care about you without wanting to lock you away where no one else can touch you."

The words hit me like a physical weight. My anger didn't disappear, but it shifted, turning into a heavy, suffocating sadness. He was telling me that he didn't know how to love me because he’d never been taught how to be a person. He was just a product of the cold, hard world he’d grown up in.

The room went quiet. The only sound was the steady thumping of my heart. I looked at him—really looked at him—and saw the conflict in his eyes. He was fighting himself just as much as he was fighting me.

"Do you really hate me?" he asked, his voice so quiet I almost didn't hear it.

I looked down at the floor, then up at him, my eyes stinging. "Sometimes."

He took another step, closing the distance until we were barely an inch apart. I could feel the heat rolling off him. He looked down at me, searching my face as if he were looking for an answer he was terrified to find.

"And the rest of the time?" he pressed, his gaze softening into something I couldn't describe.

I couldn't answer. My throat felt like it was closing up. I wanted to tell him that the rest of the time, I was terrified of how much I needed him to be close, how much I craved the way he looked at me, how much I was starting to hate the idea of a world where he wasn't there to challenge me. I didn't say anything, but I didn't move away.

Jax watched me, giving me every single chance to walk out of the room, to tell him no, to keep the distance that had kept us safe for all these months. I didn't move.

He leaned in slowly, giving me one last chance to step back. My heart was racing so fast it felt like it was going to break my ribs. When he finally bridged that last gap, his lips touched mine, and everything inside me just stopped.

It wasn't like the movies; there were no fireworks, no earth-shattering explosions. It was brief, tentative, and terrifyingly natural. It was a kiss that felt like a question, an unspoken admission of everything we had been trying to hide.

His hand came up to the back of my neck, his fingers grazing my skin, and the world slowed down. It was a kiss born of tension, of months of fighting, of the dangerous line we’d been walking on for so long. It lasted only a few seconds before he pulled back, just far enough to see the look on my face.

I was shaken. I felt like the ground had just fallen out from under my feet. I immediately pulled away, stepping back until I hit the edge of the desk, my hands gripping the wood so hard my fingers ached.

"This changes nothing," I insisted, my voice sounding desperate, even to my own ears. "You’re still the same person. You still tried to ruin my future, and I’m still not yours."

Jax didn't look angry. He didn't look frustrated. He just looked at me, a small, knowing smile touching his lips—a smile that was confident, calm, and utterly terrifying.

"We’ll see," he said, his voice a soft promise that chilled me to the bone.

He turned and walked toward the door, leaving me alone in the sudden silence of the office. I stayed there for a long time, my fingers touching my lips, feeling the phantom warmth of his mouth still lingering there.