He touched my hair, or I thought he had. It was so light and so brief, I wasn’t sure, and then he said, “You have to be very brave, too.”

I drew in a soft breath. “About what?”

Jax didn’t answer, and I didn’t push it, because I was afraid he would expand on that statement, and I wasn’t even sure why I was afraid. After a while, I heard his breathing deepen and I knew he was asleep, and I lay beside him, feeling the knot in my chest now. It was a long time before my thoughts settled from what he’d told me, what he’d shared and said. And from everything else I hadn’t told him.

Seventeen

Waking up the second time next to Jax James was like waking up the first time. He was most definitely a cuddler while he slept.

When I finally fell asleep, his thighs were against the back of mine, but it hadn’t been like this. His entire front was flush with my back, and not only that, one of his legs was thrust between mine, and his arm was curled around my waist. Our heads had to be sharing the same pillow because his warm breath stirred the hair along my temple and danced across my cheek.

We were spooning again.

And it felt just as good and as dumb as the last time, but a good kind of dumb. A dumb I wanted to play around in, because his body heat had created this snuggly cocoon I didn’t want to part with, but I remembered what happened last time.

Drawing in a deep breath, I started to basically throw myself away from Jax and off the bed, but that didn’t happen. The moment I moved, the arm on my waist tightened, and suddenly I was rolled onto my back.

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 breasts. 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.