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He hummed, lids heavy and gaze heated. “It did. Do you want to keep playing?”
“Maybe.”
Jax took a deep breath and stood again, towering over me in a way that, with any other man, it would’ve felt claustrophobic or threatening. But it didn’t because it was him.
One of his hands came up to cup my face, the tips of his fingers tangling in my hair. His thumb brushed over my cheekbone, and I closed my eyes at how good it felt.
How good and how right and how perfect. I tried to imagine waiting for any of this, waiting so that he could pass some invisible test.
There was no freaking way.
What I wanted and what I needed were finally, finally in alignment.
“Truth or dare,” I asked him, hands curling into the front of his shirt.
“Dare,” he said, an urgent sort of edge to his voice that had me narrowing my eyes.
“Yeah?”
Jax nodded, cradling my jaw with his other hand now too, the edge of his thumb tracing the line of my bottom lip as he exhaled shakily.
“So many options,” I murmured, my eyelids fluttering shut at the gentle, inciting touches. “How will I ever choose?”
Jax made a delicious humming noise from the back of his throat that lifted every tiny little hair on my arms.
“Remember what you told me that night?” he asked, eyestracking over every inch of my face like he couldn’t get enough. Like he couldn’t get enough ofme. “You stared down everything that scared you, and it was so fucking brave, Poppy. I couldn’t have done that.”
I smiled, curling my hands around his wrists. “You’re doing it now,” I reminded him.
“Then dare me again,” he said, his voice lowering to a pitch that had the hairs raising on the back of my neck because it was heavy with want. “What you wanted to do that night, angel. Do you remember?”
If I wasn’t so fucking turned on, I would’ve laughed. If I wasn’t anchored so tightly to the bliss of this entire conversation, I might have cried. But I didn’t do either. I was clear-eyed and ready. So was he.
In the feeble cage of my chest, my heart pounded.
My grip tightened on his wrists, and I held his gaze unflinchingly. “I dare you to kiss me.”
Jax dipped his head further, his nose brushing against mine for a moment, then finally, finally, his lips ghosted over mine as he spoke. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted this, angel?”
I smiled. He pressed the heat of his chest along mine, one arm wrapping tightly around my waist while he tilted my face up with his other hand, the pressure of his thumb along the line of my chin a sweet sort of prelude to this earth-shattering tipping point we’d been riding for days and weeks and months.
I cradled his jaw with one of my hands and pulled back to meet his fiery gaze, a spark of courage flaring hot in my chest. “Buddy, you’re just catching up. I’ve been waiting a lot longer than you,” I told him.
Jax’s face split into a wide, happy grin as he laughed—the straight white teeth against his stubbled jaw, the brackets around his mouth, and the faint lines around his dark, darkeyes had my heart soaring, my soul stretching into some blissful, sweet place that I’d already dreamed of.
His smile faded, replaced immediately with heat and toe-curling intent. And then finally,finally, Jax Cartwright—the man who I’d loved for as long as I knew the word—dipped his head, slanted his mouth over mine, and with a chest-rattling groan, he kissed me.
Chapter 32
Jax
One thing was exceptionally clear. Every second I spent not kissing Poppy Wilder was a monumental fucking waste of time.
Tilting my head to lick into her mouth, I felt a shiver wrack my frame when the wet heat of her tongue slid around my own. Her lips, just as soft and sweet and firm as I’d imagined, pushed and pulled against mine while we traded breaths, traded sounds of pleasure and longing. I sucked on her bottom lip, and her quiet whimper lit that feeling under my skin, the fierce drive to take more, kiss deeper, touch harder.
My hands shook where I clutched her body to mine, sliding over her back, filling my palms with the firm curves of her backside while she writhed against the thigh I had wedged between hers.
Every inch of her body was warm and soft and curved, and I could spend all night just mapping the spaces that I hadn’t spent near enough time on during her night in my bed. There were freckles along her shoulders and collarbone, each tiny dot something that should be counted and memorized, kissed and kissed and kissed.
