Stay with Me (Wait for You, #3)(140)

My eyes widened.

“No time to go home.” Then he took one of my hands and started walking back toward the hotel entrance.

“Jax?”

He looked down at me, his eyes full of hunger. “No time.”

Well then. I was all aquiver.

We ended up back in the hotel, standing in front of a wide-eyed hotel clerk. “I need a room,” Jax said, smacking down his wallet. “Now.”

Maybe tomorrow I might be embarrassed, because the clerk’s eyes swept from me to Jax and then to the arm cinched tight around my waist. All the older man did was smile and nod.

We got a room.

On the first floor.

As soon as he kicked the door shut behind us, Jax was on me. His hands spread across my cheeks, tilting my head back, and he kissed me deeply. When we broke apart, I reached for his shirt, but he caught my wrists.

“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.

“So impatient.” He kissed the corner of my lip and then the other, before deepening the kiss.

And then he moved faster.

His hand left my breast and found mine and he threaded our fingers together as he thrust into me, connecting us in yet another place. He said my name into my ear and it thundered through me. Heat flowed and I was swimming in raw sensations as my chest pressed to his, so close I could feel his pounding heart.

Then he lifted his head, his gaze locking with mine, and the pressure inside me swelled. I tightened all around him.

“That’s it,” he rasped.

My soft moans rose, joining his grunts as the pace became feverish. I moved faster, grinding my hips against his. I was mindless, swept away as I cried out his name and came in tight, sensual waves, and he was right behind me, joining me as he buried his head in my shoulder.

“I think you like me,” I said, voice husky and thick, shuddering as a tremor rocked me.

Jax chuckled into my neck and then rolled us so we were both on our sides, facing each other. “You’re a dork.”

“Yeah.” I placed my hand on his cheek. “I am, but you love me.”

He curled his fingers around my wrist and brought my hand to his mouth. He kissed the palm. “I do.”

I’d kept Jax up half the night, talking and kissing, and making us both wish he’d had more condoms stashed in his wallet. We’d drifted off to sleep a few hours before dawn, and when I felt him kissing my cheek in the morning, it felt like minutes had passed instead of hours.

“It’s time to get up, sleepy head,” he said. Curling into a ball, I mumbled something about needing more sleep, but he was relentless, tugging gently on my hair. “We got plans today.”