Jax tossed his leg over mine and he moved in—no, he snuggled in. When he spoke, his lips brushed the side of my neck, sending a wave of goose bumps across my flush. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Oh wow. His voice, deep and rough with sleep, and mixed with the fact his lips brushed my skin as he spoke, was a wildly alluring combination. My heart skipped, kicking up my pulse.

“I . . . I was getting up.”

“Mmm,” he murmured, sliding his hand across my stomach and up, to where it rested just below my br**sts. I bit down on my lip as a sharp sensation crowded my insides. His hand was way close and if he spread his fingers, his thumb would most definitely be getting some action. “You don’t understand the concept of sleepy time.”

My eyes were wide and fixed on the ceiling. I knew I should move his hand. I didn’t think he could feel any difference in my skin through the borrowed shirt and tank top, but a nervous energy built in my stomach, mingling with a feeling I recognized.

I’d never been laid, sexed up, or whatever. Obviously. But I was as curious as any girl who’d gone through puberty and whatnot, so I’d gotten familiar with my body more than a few times, and I knew what that edginess was zinging through my veins.

“Do you?” he asked.

“I . . .” My tongue stopped moving because that was when his hand moved just the slightest and his fingers spread. His thumb brushed against the under swell of my left breast, and I jerked in reflex. I don’t know if it had to do with the scarring or not, but my left breast was waaay sensitive.

His hand was still after that. Waiting. Instinct told me Jax knew exactly what his thumb had brushed against and now he was waiting to see how I responded. Or maybe he was copping a sleepy feel without realizing.

Jax’s lips brushed a surprisingly hot spot just below my ear, and the air went right out of my lungs. Wow. Okay. He was probably not copping a sleepy feel and knew exactly what he was doing.

I needed to remove his hand.

I needed to get the hell out of this bed.

But I didn’t move.

And whatever answer he was waiting for, he must’ve gotten it. His thumb drifted along the swell of my breast, and my throat dried. Holy hotness, what were we doing?

“Forget about sleepy time,” he said, moving his lips against the skin of my throat again. “I think I like the fact you don’t understand it.”

“You do?”

That thumb went up about half an inch, and I bit down on my lower lip. “Yeah. I like you waking up.”

I had no idea what to say to that, and my lashes were slowly, but surely, lowering, even as my heart was picking up its beat and warmth was invading my body, easing out the tautness in my muscles at the same time it was building a different type of tension.

“You know what’s going on here.” His statement caused my eyes to open wide once more. There was a beat. “Please tell me you understand what’s going down here.”

“Yes,” I whispered, and then I said, “No.”

“Yes and no?” His voice had gotten deeper, rougher. Tingles danced from the tips of my br**sts down to my belly and lower, much lower. “Care to explain?”

“Why?” It was all I could say.

Those lips skated along the side of my throat. “Why what?”

I was having trouble forming thoughts. I’d never been touched like this before, and it was barely a touch, but he had my senses spinning. “Why is this going down?”

“Because I want to.” His thumb glided again.

That wasn’t an answer. “But why?”

“I’ve already told you.” He pressed his lips against my pulse, causing me to gasp, and then he lifted his head, resting his weight on the arm next to my side. He stared down at me, his look intense. “It’s the same reason behind why I’m taking you out to dinner tomorrow night.”

My eyes were locked on his and my heart was pounding like it was stuck in a steel drum. That damn thumb of his was on the move again, evoking another wave of tingles.

“I like you, Calla,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

I changed up my next question. “But how?”

Jax blinked.

The one word change sounded pathetic even to my own ears, but I seriously didn’t get it. Half of my face was good. Half wasn’t. He hadn’t even seen the rest of me, and he was the kind of guy you wrote home about to your mom, your dad, and every single person you know. And I wasn’t sure if he’d known me long enough to even judge what kind of personality I had or—God, I couldn’t believe I was even going to think this—if I was rocking some inner beauty or not.

“What?” he said, eyes narrowing.

A different kind of heat crept into my cheeks. “I’m a realist, okay? I have been for a long time. I need to be, and you liking me—wanting to take me out on a date and do—”

“Really fun and interesting things to you,” he supplied.

I flushed. “Yeah, that.”

“Naughty things that are going to make you feel so good,” Jax continued, and his words and the way he spoke them turned me on like I’d never been before. “That’s what I want to do to you.”

“Okay,” I breathed. “I get that.”

One side of his lips kicked up. “Good.”

“But it doesn’t make sense,” I pushed on as I fisted handfuls of the blanket. “You’re hot and—”

“Well, thank you.”

I ignored that and tried desperately to ignore how his hand was almost entirely cupping my left breast. I didn’t want to think about that, because it made me think that if I weren’t covered up, he wouldn’t be doing what he was doing now. I drew in a deep breath. “I’m not hot. I’m not—”

My words ended because he dipped his head and his lips brushed mine. “We’ve had this conversation before,” he said, moving his mouth over mine. “And I’ve told you I wouldn’t kiss a girl I didn’t find attractive.”

“But you said that wasn’t a real kiss.”

“It wasn’t. This is.”

And then Jax kissed me, like really kissed me. His lips pressed against mine, moving as if he was getting himself familiar with the layout of them. My fingers unclenched from the blanket and I placed them on his chest, just below his throat, to push him off. His skin was hot and hard and rough. It felt different, but before I could really investigate that, he caught my lower lip between his teeth and nipped. I gasped at the unexpected bite and the rush of sensations erupting. He took advantage of that and deepened the kiss, slipping inside me, and I was no longer thinking about pushing him off.

The kiss . . . it was wet and deep and it wasn’t good or nice. It was great and everything the romance books claimed kisses were. Jax tasted me. There were no other words to describe that kind of kiss. Not when he slanted his head and touched his tongue to mine. Not when he flicked his tongue along the roof of my mouth, dragging up a throaty moan from deep within me.

Jax pulled back to say, “I like that sound. Fuck. I love that sound.”

My eyes stayed closed as my lips tingled. “I . . . I didn’t know you could be kissed like that.”

“Hell,” he groaned.

He kissed me again, and it was just as great as the one before, but this . . . this kiss turned into something more. The hand that had almost been cupping my breast was now seriously cupping my breast, and my body moved on its own. My back arched, and I made that sound again, and he seemed to really like it again, because there was a rich, decadent growl that rumbled through him. Then his fingers moved on my breast, and that damn, skilled thumb of his found the tip of my breast with unnerving accuracy. My head thrust back into the pillow, and his mouth followed me, nipping and kissing as his thumb smoothed over the hardened peak.

His lower body shifted under the covers, settling over mine. Using his thigh, he eased my legs apart and slipped in-between them. I gasped into his mouth as a sharp dart of pleasure pounded through me, centering into one spot.

My brain closed down. I wasn’t thinking about anything, and I did it. I kissed him back. I slid one hand off his upper chest, around to the nape of his neck. My fingers tangled in his hair. I chased after him, wanting to taste him, and I did. He let me take as much as he took, and he let me learn the layout of his lips and mouth. My h*ps moved on their own accord, pressing against his thigh out of primal instinct.

“God, you’re sweet.” He shifted slightly, lifting himself to give enough room to do a slow slide of his hand down my stomach. “You know what I want? I want to see you get sweeter.”

Sweeter? I was breathing heavy, panting really. My lips felt swollen; so did my br**sts. The tension between my legs left me swimming.

“Have you come before?” he asked as his hand reached the hem of my shirt, which was twisted around my hips.

My eyes popped open. What was he doing? I couldn’t let him get his hand under the top. Panic bit into the pleasure as I reached down with my other hand and grabbed his wrist.

His eyes were open, and they were the color of dark chocolate. They made me shiver and want whatever naughty things he was talking about. “Have you come before?” he asked again.

Heat bled into my face and I stuttered out an answer. “Y-Yes. Kinda.”

“Kinda?” He tugged on his arm, and with him being so much stronger than me, I couldn’t stop him. His fingers were below the hem, but not under it. “Meaning no one has ever made you come? No one but yourself?”

Oh my God, I could not believe he was asking me this—that this conversation was even happening. My heart was pounding too fast and I ached; my body literally ached.

His lashes lowered until his gaze turned hooded. “Yeah, I’m going to be the first to give you one.”

Holy hot shivers, he did not just say that. “Jax—”

An instant later, his mouth was on mine again, and he got his hand farther down, way below the hem of my shirt. The back of his knuckles brushed the inside of my thigh, and my back almost came off the bed. His hand was moving up, the slight touch against my inner thigh shocking me. I tried to close my legs, but all I ended up doing was squeezing his legs with mine.

“I’m going to touch you,” he said against my mouth, and my stomach coiled tight. Other parts of my body coiled tight, and I wondered if it was possible for a guy to make you come with just words. “That’s all I’m going to do, okay?”

That’s all? Before I could question that, he was kissing me again, and the back of his hand brushed over me—the center of me. This time my back did come off the bed, and he made a deep sound of approval. My fingers tightened in his hair and my other hand clenched his wrist. Then the tips of his fingers skated across my panties, and I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

“Calla, babe . . .” He kissed the corner of my lips. “Let me touch you.”

I couldn’t. There was no way. Letting him touch me was dumb.

“Let me,” he said, and his voice was like silk over my skin.

My heart stuttered, and my hand around his wrist loosened and then slipped up his forearm, to his flexed bicep.

I was so dumb.

“That’s my girl.”

My girl? Parts of me trilled at the sound of that, and then my blood really was singing, because his fingers had made a couple more passes, an idle circle over my panties that got closer and closer until I moved my hips, and he was touching the bundle of nerves, pressing down with two fingers. Rolling. Pressing. Rolling.

“Oh God,” I gasped against his mouth.

I felt his lips curve into a smile, and the kiss turned wilder as my h*ps moved against his hand. “That’s it,” he urged, working something like magic with his fingers. “Let me see you get sweeter.”

My head thrust back and his mouth skated over my cheek as I cried out. I might’ve said his name. I wasn’t sure. I was too focused on how the coil deep in the center of me unleashed, whipping out through my system in tight, intense shocks.

I could feel him watching me as the waves of pleasure eased off and my neck straightened. Part of me felt like I should be embarrassed. This was the first time I’d experienced anything like this with someone. As the pleasant haze of release turned my muscles to goo, I didn’t know what to do other than just lie there. I did let go of his hair and my hand slipped to his neck.

“Sweeter than I imagined,” he murmured, kissing the side of my neck. Then he rolled off, easing onto his side, and his hand slowly slid out from between my legs, stopping on my pelvis. “You still alive?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t feel my legs.”

He chuckled. “Just think. That’s really nothing compared to what it’ll be like when I’m in you.”

My eyes popped open and I was staring at the ceiling. His words shocked me, and then I thought about the fact that I had most definitely gotten off, but he hadn’t, and I looked toward him, about to point that out in what would probably be the most awkward thing ever, but all I could do was stare at him.