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The doctor clears his throat and brings his attention back to Jaxon. “Mr. Stratford…sir…we…I am going to remove the tube now.” He gently pulls the tube from Jaxon’s mouth as gagging noises fill the room.
Jaxon takes a few harsh breaths, the sound loud and raspy. I tighten my hold on his fingers, knowing I am almost crushing them in my tight grasp. His eyes never leave mine, despite glassing over and a tear trickling down the side of his face. I watch as he opens and closes his mouth, but no words escape his dried lips. I reach forward, wiping the tear with my thumb, my skin connecting with the thick dark stubble on his face—the one I long to press my lips against in relief.
“Mr. Stratford…sir, please do not try to speak yet. Your throat will be ragged and parched. We are going to commence some vital checks. Please, can I have your focus on me for the moment?” The doctor peeks at me from the corner of his eye. I guess my threat worked, and now the fucker is afraid.Good, he should be, my threat is not idle. I will destroy him.
Jaxon tears his gaze away from mine and peers up at the doctor, following his instructions to nod to the questions asked. I watch with a sense of relief as he understands the commands and questions that the doctor is uttering. His gaze returns to mine every few seconds as if he can’t stop reassuring himself that I am here. His mind is working at least on a fundamental level. The tightness in my chest lightens a bit, and I feel my mother place her hand in comfort at my back.
Once the doctor has completed his questioning and checks, he leaves the room, and I bring a straw with refreshing cold water to Jaxon’s parched lips. “Drink slowly, Jaxon.”
His eyes meet mine steadily as he sucks on the straw.Fuck, I have never been envious of a damn straw before, but I am now.The color is returning to his cheeks, and he’s not looking so ashen as he was. He must have an inkling of my inappropriate thoughts because the fucker winks at me as he sucks harder on the straw. Mischief temporarily appearing in those gorgeous gray eyes of his.There he is…the thought brings a streak of joy to me.
“Stella…” His voice sounds strained and raspy, as if he had been screaming and lost it. He pushes the cup away with one hand while his other reaches up tentatively to my face. His cold fingers make contact with my cheek, and a rattled breath leaves his chest.
“Safe?” He questions, his eyebrow rising and his lips forming in a stern line.
“They haven’t found him. There is security outside of the room and around the hospital. I added additional security measures to the house to keep Mrs. Pox and the staff safe, just in case.” I watch as he nods, his eyes flickering over my features. What does he see when he looks at me? Does he see a woman filled with ambition and regrets? Does he see a betrayer who repeatedly allowed Ajax to try to convince her to leave him? Who am I in Jaxon’s eyes?
It’s almost like he can sense the direction of my thoughts. His fingers reach up and touch my face, one cold finger tracing across my lips. His intense gaze meets mine, turbulent slate gray meeting arctic blue. My eyes are riveted to his sinful lips as he licks them. “Mine, Stella.” The words leave his lips not in question but in a demand. A demand for submission, acknowledgment, and obedience. For a moment, my rebellious and independent spirit balks at the demand. I belong to myself; no one fucking owns me.Are you sure about that?My mind questions quietly.
Various sensations fill my body and creep into the shadowed areas of my heart and mind. Acceptance, need, and desire. The need to be wanted and accepted the way Jaxon is demanding. The desire that his two softly spoken words accelerates inside of me, causing havoc with my very thoughts. He wants me despite hearing the traitorous words that left mine and Ajax’s mouths.
My emotions give rise to new fears. I don’t want to lose who I am to this need for Jaxon. I don’t want to just be his wife, some woman behind the powerful man. Jaxon is strong, capable, and demanding. His mere presence is able to overshadow anyone.Do I want that to happen to me?The desire that is running through my veins for him, is it enough to give up my dreams to lead my own empire? Does he mean that much to me, or is it the guilt of him being shot that is causing these emotions to rise inside of me?
All these questions run rampant through my mind while Jaxon stares up at me with an emotion I can’t read. Is it fear or hope that is crossing his expression? His fingers move towards the side of my face, cradling it in his cold embrace, and I welcome the chill they bring. His grip tightens slightly, and his eyebrows furrow. “Mine.” He declares with more strength behind the word than I would think capable of a man that just awoke from a coma.
A part of me wants to deny him. Laugh off his demand as delusional, but as his word skates across my mind, a fierce look crosses his features. My core tightens painfully at the force and ownership of the word.Yes, I am his, just as much as he is mine.Will that cause both of us to destroy each other? Time will tell, I guess.
22
Jaxon
“Control your anger, before your anger starts controlling you” Atef Ashab Uddin Sahil
FuckingHell,notagain!I try to quietly shift about in the room before Mrs. Pox and the antichrist of a personal nurse my wife hired find me once again. I am a goddamn powerful man, yet all the females in this house,my fucking house, treat me like a wayward naughty child.
Coddling me and forcing me to take medicine and eat foods that taste like a donkey’s ass. They tell me when to rise, when to exercise, when to fucking nap. And even disturbingly, when it’s bedtime, shit, I’m surprised none of them tuck me in and read me a bedtime story. Like I am not the master of this home.Ha-ha; that’s funny, you think you are still the master here!My mind laughs like a deranged hyena at me.I am, aren’t I?
It’s been three weeks since I left the hospital. A whole month since I came out of a coma that, by the doctor’s account, I should have never woken from. My demand to be released from the hospital fell on silent ears for the first couple of days. Then it was only granted by Stella and that fuck-face of a doctor, based on getting a personal nurse for round-the-clock care to help at home, like I am some sort of invalid, too weak to even wipe my own ass.Let’s be fucking clear; I still wipe my own ass.
I hope that damn doctor doesn’t think I have forgotten the way he spoke to Stella while I was in my coma. I mean to go back there and beat his miserable ass for his harsh tone and disrespect. A Stratford never forgets an insult and always pays his due. Dr. Bernard better pray for the meager time he has left before I come after him.
A shadow crosses over the window blocking the meager sunlight we are getting today. I watch as the new security guards, dressed in all-black tactical gear, patrol the perimeter of the Stratford estate. Also, something my lovely wife established without a word to me. We now have a small private army of armed guards protecting us at all hours. This place feels like a fucking prison and not a residence.
Stella neglected to inform me that the very painful and devastating bullet to my chest has not been the only incident of threatening behavior to her life. According to Fergus, who was persuaded to tell me with a few glasses of my most expensive scotch, someone left a dead headless chicken on my wife’s desk at Penticton Industries three weeks ago. Then, most recently, someone tried to attack her in the massage room of the local spa. Luckily for her, the new security detail she hired was just outside the door. The assailant managed to escape, but the poor massage therapist ended up with a knife wound to her side instead of my wife.
Once again, the fear of who is after my wife fills me with anger, worry, and helplessness. How can I protect her from whoever is daring to come after her from the inside of my estate? Stella has made it almost impossible for me to leave, using my recovery as an excuse to keep me under lock and key.
The knowledge that my ice queen of a wife is very much my keeper right now grates on my damn nerves. How dare she treat me like I’m weak! She leaves the estate daily to head to either Penticton Industries or to Stratford Industries, running our empires, while I remain here, trapped eating fucking homemade applesauce like a chump.
When she does decide to grace me with her presence at the end of the night, she treats me more like a child rather than her husband, who desires to take her over his knee and spank the shit out of her.Fuck, just the thought of my palm warm against her soft flesh has my cock hardening in my pants.It seems that lately, just the mere thought of my wife’s creamy perfection is all that is needed to have my cock weeping pearls of cum in my pants. A very unfortunate effect that I have to continuously hide from the staff so they don’t think I am some degenerate.
The fact that she is still sleeping in the master suite while I have been once again relegated to the guest suite in the opposite wing grates on my nerves and causes me endless sessions with my own fist. She won’t go anywhere near me, and she refuses to be in a room alone with me. We always seem to be chaperoned by either Mrs. Pox, the nurse from hell, or Fergus. If I didn’t know any better, I would say my little ice queen is afraid of me and uncomfortable around me.I mean to change that immediately; Stella is about to be reacquainted with my hands, mouth, and cock.
After I awoke that first day from the coma, she never again spoke to me with such affection and need as she had while I was asleep. Does she regret calling for me? Demanding I return to her and not leave her here alone? Perhaps they were moments of weakness that made her demand I return to her and not blatant affection for me?No. I refuse to believe that. She is mine, and I mean to have her at all costs.
“Mr. Stratford, you must return to your room for a nap, sir.” The shrill voice of Sebastiana, the nurse from the fucking underworld, meets my ears, causing my shoulders and hackles to rise. I turn slowly from my position at the window of the library and stare back at the behemoth of a woman entering the room. I try to give her my most haughty and frightening stare, but it seems to just bounce off her six-foot-one frame. She is one hundred percent a demon from the beyond; there is no other explanation for her lack of fear when I stare her down. I have flayed powerful men with the look I am giving her, yet she looks at me like I am a loathsome child under her care.
I would bet any money that my wife hired this particular nurse just to vex me. She is impervious to my charms; I know because I have already tried to use them on her. She ushers me around like a naughty two-year-old and not a grown man who is a billionaire and owns half the goddamn country. It seems like she always seems to know where I am at all times, despite me trying my best to avoid her. I have had enough! My pride and manhood can only take so much!One of us has to cave, and it won’t be fucking me, of that, I am sure.
