I sprang up and toward him. Didn’t even stop to think about what I was doing, but I was up on my feet, and less than a second later, I was throwing my arms around Jax’s neck.

My sudden movement caught him off guard and he stumbled back a step before he steadied himself. A moment passed, and then his arms circled me, folding around my back.

“Thank you,” I said, my voice muffled against his chest—his really hard chest. “I know you said not to thank you, but thank you.”

He didn’t respond right off. Instead, one arm loosened and his hand trailed up my spine, tangling in the ends of my hair. A rush of shivers followed that hand, and those shivers spread out through my arms, to the tips of my fingers and down to my toes, and everywhere in-between, especially the in-between part.

God, his chest was really hard.

I lifted my face off said chest and then raised my lashes. Jax was staring down at me, a soft smile curved on his lips. His other hand shifted off my lower back, and smoothed its way to my hip, and great googley moogley, that felt good. So good I didn’t even take into consideration what he might’ve been able to feel through my shirt and tank top.

Tequila was fucking awesome.

His warm chocolate gaze drifted over my face as his hand tightened on my hip, which caused lots of my muscles to go squishy. “I’m glad you came home, Calla.”

My heart stopped. The freaking world stopped. “Really?” I heard myself say.

“Really,” he replied.

Okay. I didn’t care if it was the tequila making me hear things, and I didn’t care that my entire chest was turning to mush, and if that made me dumb or not, and I didn’t care that I was about to do something I’d never done before, or that the room was spinning slowly like we were on a merry-go-round.

I stretched up on my toes as I lowered my hands to his shoulders and I went for his mouth. I was going to kiss him. I’d never tried to kiss a guy before, but I was going to do it now. I was going for a home run of my lips against his wonderful lips, because he said I was safe, and that he was glad I came home, and that I was really fucking—

Jax jerked his head back. Actually his entire body jerked back, and my mouth didn’t land on his, but more or less skated off his chin and down his neck. Since my mouth was open, I got a good taste of his skin.

Wowzers, his skin tasted good.

Who knew?

He sidestepped the coffee table, putting space between us. Without him being there, I toppled forward. His hands curled around my upper arms, stopping my fall and . . . and keeping me an arm’s length away.

Confused, I stared at him. His eyes were wide again, all laziness and warmth gone from them. Uh oh. This wasn’t good.