He bent down and kissed the top of a thigh, just briefly, and then rubbed his beard back and forth over it, semiaggressively, like he was making a point of it. Like he was airing a preview of coming—no pun intended—attractions.

She sat up. “I wasn’t expecting this.”

He merely grunted and opened her legs. He was on his knees in front of her, and from there he could see everything. There was nothing subtle about that view.

She laughed nervously—nerves were suddenly at risk of overtaking desire here. “Things are…not super groomed.”

He was only the second person she had done this with, was the thing. With the first, an ex, she had always taken so long to come, if she did at all, she would end up stressed that he was going to get lockjaw and all the worrying would end up derailing her.

Sawyer didn’t seem to be paying attention to her. Well, not to her face, anyway, or to the words coming out of her mouth. He was staring at her…juncture and—oh God, he was licking his lips.

She was struck dumb. Who would have thought, six months ago, when she was locked in the refrigerator at the flower shop with Sawyer kneeling at her feet on the other side of the glass, that she would end up here—but this time with nothing between them except her own fear.

Well. Desire was going to win over fear, she decided. She heaved a huge sigh and felt the tension leave her limbs. As her body grew languid, her legs fell open wider.

He hummed his approval as he looked up at her. “I don’t care about grooming. I don’t care if this is a bad idea. Honestly, right now I don’t care about anything except getting my mouth on you. But if you really don’t want to do this, of course we’re not going to do this.”

The way he spoke, gruffly but clearly, directly and without hesitation, undid all that languidness she had just achieved. She sucked in a breath and her legs came together on instinct, a vain attempt to soothe the sharp spike of need his declaration had sparked.

He must have interpreted it as her shutting things down. He rocked back on his heels and huffed a little sigh. It seemed like a disappointed sigh.

She was going to have to talk if she didn’t want this to end. It was scary, but it was also exciting, to say what she wanted. To explain what was happening in her mind. Could she speak as directly as he had? More than just the single “yes” she’d said before?

“I do want to do this.” She opened her legs. “I ache between my legs, and that wasn’t me backing off, that was just a weird, instinctive instinct to soothe the ache.”