Her lower lip trembled a little. Just a little, but it was enough to make his cock swell hard and fast with the thought of them wrapped around him. Goose bumps covered her arms and thighs.
She inhaled and Jax realized he was staring. “Do you hate it?”
His mouth was dry. So dry. So he didn’t bother to use words to answer her. He didn’t have a damn one anyway.
Instead, he slid off the edge of the air mattress and nudged her knees open.
Em parted her thighs without hesitation, inviting him between them. Jax spread them, reminding himself to take it slow whether his blood was boiling or not.
He kissed her then, slow and long, until she sighed a fluttery sort of noise in her throat and her fingers began to pull impatiently at the waist of his sweater. She pulled it up and over his head, and threw it on the floor. The cool air of the guesthouse hit his skin at the same time Em’s flesh did, hot and cold all at once.
She pulled back when his sweater was off, her eyes skimming his chest before she put her palms on his pecs, squeezing the muscle, dragging her fingers through the hair between them.
Her eyes were wide, shiny, but she met Jax’s gaze with a directness he hadn’t expected—one that kept catching him off guard. “You have a great chest.”
He slipped his hands under her ass and pulled her to him until her thighs went around his waist. “You have a great everything. Mysteriously sexy, totally obvious gets my vote.”
Em’s smile was shy for a quick moment. Her eyes flitted away then came back to meet his, bolder now.
His cock rubbed with painful pressure against his jeans when she tilted her hips up, settling into him, adjusting her body to his. Right there he wanted to devour her—right in the second where she fit him, where all their body parts just seemed to line up—to work, he wanted to tear the scrap of flimsy right off her, flatten her on the mattress and be inside her.
Drive into her until they came and save the exploration for round two. But that was the caveman in him talking. The primal reaction he was having would scare her.
It scared him.
Then there was the tiny piece of material between her legs, covering the sweetest part of Em. He’d caught a quick glimpse of it, dark hair pressed against the blue of the silky triangle, and it made his mouth water.
Her fingernails scraped over his nipple, hardening it, making his pulse rage. Jax clenched his teeth, wrapping his hands around her wrists. “This—” he fingered the strap on her nightgown “—has to go. Now.”
Her lips met his for a brief kiss before she lifted her arms up, forcing her tight nipples to press against the material. Jax skimmed his hands over her hips, taking the nightgown with him.
Shy Em’s hands went to her belly, pressing her elbows into it while bold Em disappeared. She visibly sucked in her stomach, and he hated it.
“Don’t do that.” He placed his palms on the backs of her hands, nipping at her lips. He didn’t want her to hide what she perceived were her flaws. They were what made up all the parts of Em.
And he wanted to see her.
*
Where was confident Em now? Where had all her “whatever” attitude run off to? “I have a small roll. Okay, maybe small is a generous word. But it’s a roll.” It was a roll, and it was an ugly roll at that—one that wouldn’t go away no matter how many crunches she did. Leftover scar tissue from the removal of her appendix. After she’d had Gareth, the weight she’d gained had formed a hideous lumpy roll just beneath her incision.
Jax smoothed her hands away until they were at her sides and her ugly roll was revealed. He bent his dark head and kissed the flesh, setting off that warm, shooting vibration in her belly.
But it didn’t make her forget the roll. It was that ugly. She bracketed his head with her hands, forcing him to look up at her. “It doesn’t help that you’re fit as a fiddle, you know.” And he was. Hard, ripply-fit. “That was a catty accusation, by the way. Not just an observation.”
Jax chuckled and laid his head on her breast, flicking his tongue over her tight nipple. “We’ll see how perfect I am when you see my toes. They’re a total turnoff. In fact, I think we should just leave my shoes on while we do this so you don’t run out of here screaming.”
He muttered those words before he cupped her breasts, bringing them together to circle her nipples with his tongue. She gasped and laughed at the same time.
Had she and Clifton ever laughed during sex?
But this time she really did forget about her rolls and her cellulite and comparing her sparse sexual experiences to this one because Jax was kissing her everywhere, along her arms, across her shoulders, at her rib cage, creating delicious tendrils of heat along her skin.
His mouth was hot on her flesh, his teeth nipping at her skin before soothing it with his tongue. When he circled her belly button, her stomach muscles tightened and her head fell forward.