Page 114 of Stay with Me

Jax ran his hands along the inside of my legs. As he reached my knees, he eased them apart. Air caught in my throat, and instinct demanded that I close my legs, but his thick lashes lifted, and heated eyes locked on to mine.

“Don’t close them, baby.” His voice was deep and rumbled through me.

I didn’t close them.

When he pushed a little farther, I could feel the cool air rushing over me. Warmth crept into my cheeks, turning to a flush that spread down my throat and over my chest. My heart pounded as he dipped his head, kissing me softly as his hands continued up over the top of my thighs. He snagged the hem of my dress the higher his hands traveled. I bit down on my lip as the skirt of my dress ended up tucked around my hips and waist. My hands tightened around the edge of the counter.

“Beautiful,” he murmured.

Oh my God. I had no idea what to do or say. I was completely exposed. Like wide open, and his eyes were focused on the lady parts in such an intense way. While I knew that what he was—what we were—about to do wasn’t anything abnormal, it was completely awe inspiring and new to me.

Then his hands started moving again, over the inside of my thighs, starting at my knees and slowly, torturously making their way up. “You really are beautiful, Calla. Don’t ever doubt that. Hell, there’s no way you could doubt that.”

My heart grew about five times too big for my chest. My skin tingled with heightened senses as he drew back from me.

“Trust me?” he asked.

Oh goodness, now my heart was about ten times too big. “Yes.”

A lopsided grin appeared and then his hands were on my hips. He dragged me across the counter—a counter I’d never look the same at again—until I felt like I would slide right off.

He didn’t touch me or fool around. One moment he was grinning at me, and the next, his lower body bent and his mouth was on me. I jerked at the intimate kiss and heat flooded my veins.

What he did was wet and hot and crushing in ways that blew my mind. Jax knew what he was doing. The way he moved his mouth over me, the way he worked his tongue in teasing tastes, building me up until my head kicked back against the cabinets and my hips rose clear off the counter, meeting the strokes of his tongue. The sensations pounding through me were raw and primal and beautiful.

He was doing what I asked. I wasn’t thinking about all those terrible things. Nope. My brain had checked out and my body was rocking. I was panting and these tiny noises I didn’t even know I was capable of were coming out of me. And then he was going deep, stronger and faster. I thought my fingers would break off from how hard I was clenching the counter.

“Jax,” I breathed.

My body was coiling tight as my eyes opened. I couldn’t keep them shut anymore. I wanted to see every moment of this. My chin dipped and all I could see was the top of his bronze head between my thighs.

I took a breath. It went nowhere.

The sight of him pushed me over the edge.

I cried out, and he growled against me. Release poured through me, and I was lost as every bone liquefied and the whirl of sensations pulsed and throbbed throughout me.

Jax stayed with me until my spine curved and my breath slowed, then he lifted his body, pressing his mouth to my neck. “I love the sounds you made, honey. Better yet, when you said my name like you did ... ? Yeah, I really loved that.”

My cheek lowered, resting against his. “That ... that was amazing.”

“You’re amazing.”

Those two words were so simple and sweet that it broke through something deep and muddy in me. It was like the sun breaking through after a month of nothing but dreary rain. But it was more than those two words.

Lifting my head, I let go of the counter and placed my hands on his shoulders. I pushed him back, and he went, only because he seemed caught off guard. I slipped off the counter, feeling my dress settle around my thighs.

It was so much more than those three words.

It was the weeks spent getting to know him. It was the things I shared with him and he shared with me. It was the fact that he saw me, all of me, and beyond the skin, and he knew what existed on me and inside me, and not just the physical.

“Calla?” He tilted his head to the side as he said my name softly.

God, his lips were glistening withme,and that was like taking a hit to the chest in the best way. Getting involved with anyone right now with everything so up in the air and just plain crazy wasn’t smart. It was dumb.

But it was the right kind of dumb.

As I stared into brown eyes that melted me from the inside out, I tossed my Three F’s out of the window as I reached up, caught the edges of the shrug I wore, and slipped it off my shoulders and down my arms. I let it fall to the floor.