“I like you, Calla,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

I changed up my next question. “But how?”

Jax blinked.

The one word change sounded pathetic even to my own ears, but I seriously didn’t get it. Half of my face was good. Half wasn’t. He hadn’t even seen the rest of me, and he was the kind of guy you wrote home about to your mom, your dad, and every single person you know. And I wasn’t sure if he’d known me long enough to even judge what kind of personality I had or—God, I couldn’t believe I was even going to think this—if I was rocking some inner beauty or not.

“What?” he said, eyes narrowing.

A different kind of heat crept into my cheeks. “I’m a realist, okay? I have been for a long time. I need to be, and you liking me—wanting to take me out on a date and do—”

“Really fun and interesting things to you,” he supplied.

I flushed. “Yeah, that.”

“Naughty things that are going to make you feel so good,” Jax continued, and his words and the way he spoke them turned me on like I’d never been before. “That’s what I want to do to you.”

“Okay,” I breathed. “I get that.”

One side of his lips kicked up. “Good.”

“But it doesn’t make sense,” I pushed on as I fisted handfuls of the blanket. “You’re hot and—”

“Well, thank you.”

I ignored that and tried desperately to ignore how his hand was almost entirely cupping my left breast. I didn’t want to think about that, because it made me think that if I weren’t covered up, he wouldn’t be doing what he was doing now. I drew in a deep breath. “I’m not hot. I’m not—”

My words ended because he dipped his head and his lips brushed mine. “We’ve had this conversation before,” he said, moving his mouth over mine. “And I’ve told you I wouldn’t kiss a girl I didn’t find attractive.”

“But you said that wasn’t a real kiss.”

“It wasn’t. This is.”

And then Jax kissed me, like really kissed me. His lips pressed against mine, moving as if he was getting himself familiar with the layout of them. My fingers unclenched from the blanket and I placed them on his chest, just below his throat, to push him off. His skin was hot and hard and rough. It felt different, but before I could really investigate that, he caught my lower lip between his teeth and nipped. I gasped at the unexpected bite and the rush of sensations erupting. He took advantage of that and deepened the kiss, slipping inside me, and I was no longer thinking about pushing him off.

The kiss . . . it was wet and deep and it wasn’t good or nice. It was great and everything the romance books claimed kisses were. Jax tasted me. There were no other words to describe that kind of kiss. Not when he slanted his head and touched his tongue to mine. Not when he flicked his tongue along the roof of my mouth, dragging up a throaty moan from deep within me.