“Before this goes any further, we need to be clear on a few things.”

I nodded. “Okay. Name them.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you. I’ve messed up. You deserve to be angry with me.”

I heard that. Got it. “You’re right, but I’ve told a worse lie to my friends for a lot longer time. You’re not the pot and I’m not the kettle. I wish you did tell me and seriously, I do care about Mona’s and you were right, more than I thought, but it’s yours, Jax. It’s not mine. It’s never really been mine, but in a way . . . it still kind of is, because of you. It is.”

The hardness in his jaw softened. “You really mean that, because if you—”

“I mean it.” I wanted to touch him. Get naked. Show him how much I meant it. “It’s yours.”

He closed his eyes briefly and then said, “There’s just one more thing. I love you, but if you’re going to stay with me, you got to be all in. You got to be with me, Calla. When something happens, you don’t shut down. You come to me. We talk about it. Okay?”

Pressing my lips together, I nodded. “I’m all in.”

“That’s—”

“But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do dumb stuff. That I’m always going to know how to react or that I won’t need time to digest stuff,” I rushed on. “And I do a lot of dumb stuff on a regular basis. Like all the—”

“Hon,” he murmured, smiling. “I get that.”

I cracked a grin. “We’re good?”

Instead of saying we were, he showed me just how good we were. Our clothes went off in record time. Turned out he had protection in his wallet, to which I raised my brows.

“Never leave home without one,” he joked.

I shook my head. “Kiss me already.”

We were naked and on the bed, our hands and mouths greedy. He paid extra attention to the new scar and then his head was between my legs, my fingers digging into the silky strands. Right before the tension exploded in my body, he climbed up me, settling between my legs.

“I’ll be careful,” he said, nipping at my lip.

“I don’t want you to be careful.”

His mouth kicked up on one corner. “That’s one of those dumb things.”

“Shut up.” I curled my leg around his, bringing him closer.

He chuckled, but then he slid into me and there was nothing to really laugh about. It was as slow and smooth as our first time, him taking extra care and me completely forgetting about my tender side. My back arched and my hips rolled, rocked into his.

One of his hands curled around my breast, fingers working the tingling tip as he supported his weight on the arm braced beside my head. I had both legs around him now, my heels digging into his back, urging him to move faster.