It had to be in the middle of the night or way early in the morning, but it was still dark beyond the window. The light on the nightstand was on and the blankets had been drawn off me and the shirt of his I’d worn to bed—the very one I had stolen days earlier—was pushed up around my waist. The band of my undies was inched down my hips, far enough that there was nothing between his mouth and me.

“Morning,” I gasped, and before I could say another word, he swept up over me and kissed me so softly, so tenderly, that a fuzzy little ball formed in my throat. He lifted his head, kissed me again, but this time on the tip of my nose, and then he was moving back down me.

Hooking his fingers under the band of my panties, he tugged them down until they were off and lying somewhere in the great unknown. From between my thighs, he peered up at me through thick lashes. “You promise to behave?”

“Me? You’re asking if I promise to behave?”

He sucked his full bottom lip between his teeth and then he said, “You need to stay still, baby. I don’t want you messing with your stitches.” His gaze dipped to the intimate part of me and then he licked his lips. Holy granola bar, I almost came right there. “I should be waiting until you’re a hundred percent, but I’m hungry for you and I couldn’t wait.”

Tight shivers rolled over me.

He looked up again. “You going to stay still?”

I really couldn’t make any promises, but I nodded. His eyes held mine for a moment longer, and then he stretched up and placed a kiss just above my belly button, on the scarred skin.

That didn’t even faze me.

Panting, I watched him trail that mouth around my navel until his tongue flicked out, circled, and then slipped in. I gasped again as he continued on, kissing and licking like he was seeking to taste every curve and swell. He took his time on my stomach and by the time he reached the area between my thighs, my head fell back on the pillow.

He touched me first, a soft sweep of his finger and I willed my body to stay still, but there was a slight jerk of my hips that did nothing to my stomach. His finger moved again, circling and then slipping in.

I moaned as I clenched the sheet underneath, but he wasn’t done as he slowly moved in and out. My breathing quickened when I felt his mouth against my inner thigh, then his tongue. He was slow—so damn slow that every caress of his lips and flick of his tongue claimed me.

A strangled sound escaped me when his tongue dipped in, replacing his finger, and my hips kicked once more. Before I met Jax, I never thought I’d be into something like that. It just seemed too foreign to me, so intimate, but good God, I’d been wrong. This was amazing. Maybe it was because it was Jax. Maybe all men had a tongue that was literally a mass weapon of assured seduction. Either way, he drew out every gasp, every throaty moan and broken whimper until I was beyond making sounds and breathing in general.