Liquid fire rushed through her veins with each heartbeat. She bit her lip, torn between answering and the mortification of speaking such intimacies aloud. But the raw need in his voice stripped away her inhibitions.

“Both,” she gasped. “I’m... I’m circling, the way you would with your tongue. And I’m dipping my fingers in, getting them wet.”

Jax let out a strangled sound that sent a fresh wave of heat through her. “God, Nessie. You’re killing me.”

She could hear the strain in his breathing, the way it had gone uneven. The knowledge that he was as affected as she was made her feel feminine and powerful. “Are you touching yourself, too?”

“Since the moment you first moaned,” he admitted. “Can’t help it. The way you sound... knowing what you’re doing to yourself... Christ, I’m so hard it hurts.”

Nessie closed her eyes, imagining him sprawled on his narrow bunk, one hand wrapped around himself, stroking intime with her own movements. The image was so vivid she could almost see the muscles in his forearm flexing, the concentrated look on his face.

“Tell me,” she urged, her fingers moving faster now. “Tell me what you’re doing.”

His breath hitched. “Squeezing my cock, thinking about how tight your pussy would feel around me. How your eyes would look when I push inside you for the first time. How your back would arch when I hit that sweet spot deep inside.”

Her body spasmed around her fingers, and she lifted her hips off the mattress, chasing the sensation building deep in her core. She’d never done anything like this before, never been so vulnerable with another person. But with Jax, in the safety of darkness and distance, she felt free to be someone she’d never allowed herself to be.

“I wish it was you touching me,” she breathed, her movements becoming more urgent. “I want your hands, your mouth...”

“If I were there, I’d worship every inch of you. I’d spread your thighs apart, kiss my way up the inside of your leg. Take my time, make you wait for it. And then I’d taste you, slow and deep, until you were shaking. I’d make you come with my tongue before I ever got inside you.”

The image he painted in that low purr of a voice had her arching ruthlessly against her hand, a soft cry escaping her lips. She was close, so close, tension coiling tightly in her belly.

“That’s it,” he encouraged. “Now plunge your fingers deep. Pretend it’s my tongue.”

She did as he asked and gasped. “God, Jax...”

“Tell me how it feels.”

“I’m so wet.” Her fingers made a soft, slick sound as she worked them in and out.

“Christ, I can hear how wet you are.” His breath hissed between his teeth. “I want to taste all that sweet honey. Want to feel you come against my tongue. Want to bury myself so deep inside you that you forget where you end and I begin.” His voice was strained, desperate. “I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll still feel me next week. You’ll squirm every time you sit down. You’ll think of me inside you and get wet all over again. You’ll need to sneak away from your customers, hide in the back room, and call me so I can remind you how it feels to have something thick and hard inside you. You’ll get yourself off to my voice while those little old ladies are sitting in the dining room, sipping coffee and gossiping, not having any idea what I’m making you do to yourself a few feet away.”

Nessie’s mouth fell open at his words, her entire body flaring so hot she was half-surprised she didn’t combust on the spot. Nobody had ever talked to her like this—raw and unfiltered desire wrapped in that gravelly voice. It made her feel powerful and desired in ways she’d forgotten were possible.

“Yes,” she gasped, her fingers working faster. “I want all of that. I want you to fuck me until I can’t remember my own name.”

Jax’s groan vibrated through the phone, deep and primal. “You have no idea what hearing you say that does to me. Such a sweet mouth saying such filthy things. Do you like it dirty, sweetness?”

“Only for you,” she whispered, and meant it. She’d never been this uninhibited, this free with her desires.

He grunted into the phone, and she imagined his hand stroking himself, rough and relentless. “The sweet baker in her flirty aprons, pretending to be so innocent. But you’re not, are you? Not when you’re alone in bed, legs open, thinking about someone like me. You need it hard. You need it rough. You need to feel me splitting you open and stretching you wide.” He madea sound like he was gritting his teeth, fighting for control. “If I was there, I’d eat you out until you came on my face, and then I’d keep going. You’d be shaking, begging me to stop, but I wouldn’t. Not until you were ruined for anyone else. Only then would I fuck you.”

The coil of tension in her belly wound impossibly tighter. Her breaths came in short, sharp gasps as her fingers worked frantically now, zeroing in on her clit. The sound of his labored breathing in her ear, the knowledge that he was stroking himself hard and fast to the sound of her pleasure, took her right to the edge.

She whimpered, so close now it was almost painful. “Jax, please. I need?—”

“I know what you need,” he snarled. “You need to come for me. Right now. Get your fingers deeper, and rub your clit just the way you like it. Let yourself go. I want to hear you scream my name.”

She obeyed, hips rolling on the mattress, breath sawing from her lungs as she drove herself over the edge. Her release detonated through her, the pleasure so sharp she screamed his name into her pillow. Her body convulsed, trembling thighs clamping around her hand, her heart hammering so hard she thought it might break through her ribs. For a moment, everything else disappeared.

On the other end of the line, she heard his every inhale come rougher than the last. She heard the wet, relentless sound of his fist working his cock, heard him shudder as he groaned, “Fuck.”

She could picture him, head thrown back, muscles taut as he spurted onto his stomach.

Oh God, she wanted to see him like that.

For several moments, there was nothing but the sound of their breathing, gradually slowing, evening out. She lay boneless against her pillows, a pleasant tingle spreading through herlimbs. The air in her bedroom felt charged, electric, as if a storm had just passed through.