There were so many thoughts I could have had at that moment, but the first joyous one was that he hadn’t slept with Shelby. She wasn’t his girlfriend, and they weren’t sleeping together.

My heart filled with stupid, radiant joy, and I answered, “That’s okay,” for more reasons than one.

“It’s not okay.” He sounded like I’d felt when I first sat down across from him at dinner. Miserable and embarrassed. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Josh, you don’t have to….”

“No, this isn’t right.” The bed shifted with the weight of him sitting up. “You’ve been nothing but nice to me, and I’m a future senator….”

I flipped over to stop him from leaving. But it was so dark, and he’d shifted position. Instead of grabbing onto his arm, my hand landed on his hip—my thumb grazing the inside of his thigh. I wasn’t touching his manhood. But I was close enough to feel its heat, to sense it below the cool fabric of his shorts.

He froze.

I froze.

And a Roberta Flack song echoed in the dark, as whispery soft as a cartoon crab urging a prince to kiss a mermaid disguised as a human.

And then, suddenly….

Suddenly, we were kissing.

Chapter Six

Set the Night to Music

Josh. Josh Grant. He was kissing me. I’d imagined this—daydreamed about it endlessly. But it was so much better than anything I could have made up in my head.

A full orchestra joined Roberta Flack’s soft voice in the back of my mind, underscoring the way his mouth took possession of mine.

He kissed me slow at first, reaching under my top to cup the too-large breasts I’d been so self-conscious about because I’d never felt they matched my otherwise spritely frame.

But I loved the way Josh touched them—loved how perfect they felt underneath his hands as his kiss burned through me and his heavy body pressed into mine.

“You taste like hot chocolate and peppermint,” he rasped against my lips.

And for some reason, the kiss grew more frantic after that. He plastered me to the bed with a passionate urgency I wouldn’t have guessed he possessed. And he drank me down like I was the water he’d been searching for in the desert of his life.

Then he shoved my pajama top up and did the same thing to my breasts.

Dear sky above….

With his rigid staff pressing into my leg, he took turns with each breast, lapping at one with urgent grunts while he caressed and tugged on the other. Both actions sent shockwaves of pleasure through me and turned my nipples into hardened pebbles. Soon I was whimpering and squirming beneath him.

There was no room for shame in the dark.

“More,” I begged. “Josh, please….”