“God, sorry.” She swatted her hand in front of her face as if she were batting her request away. “That was…weird. Forget it.” Her cheeks went all rosy. “I don’t know where that came from. It was…very personal and not at all appropriate. You totally need to tell me if I overstep any boundaries. And definitely don’t ever give me bourbon again. We artists are bad enough with the concept of personal space without alcohol in the mix.”

Grady, realizing he wanted her up in his personal space badly, tuned out her words as his gaze zeroed in on her mouth, following the constant movement as she spoke, flashes of her tongue adding fuel to the fire building in his groin. She was doing that talking-through-her-embarrassment thing again, and Grady, who’d never thought he’d find words and talking so damn addictive, considering he did them as little as possible, had to admit she had a way with both.

“…my father said it took him years to realize that an exhibition at a gallery was like watching a mass artistic fornication without the sex or nudity—”

She stopped abruptly and clapped a hand over her mouth at the same time Grady realized it had been a bad time to tune back in again, because all he could think about now was fornicating.

God…if there was ever a word that sounded like what it actually was, it had to be fornicate.

“What did you put in that bourbon?” she demanded in a husky entreaty, her hand sliding from her mouth. Her delicious-looking mouth. “You really should tell me to shut up before I run off any more at the mouth.”

A buzzing started under his skin, his blood pounded thick and slow through his veins, and he couldn’t help but think her suggestion was excellent as his gaze zeroed in on her lips.

“Joshua?” she said, her voice all low and husky.

It was the Joshua that did it. That was the tipping point. The way she said it like a…balm? He wanted to suck her up. Eat her up. Absorb her into his soul.

So he shut her up. Not with words but with one swift swoop of his mouth across the small distance separating them, his hand sliding onto her cheek, his lips slanting over hers as he overstepped about a hundred boundaries.

God…she was dizzying, his heart was racing, the air in his lungs was hot, and she tasted like bourbon and smelled like peaches and he deepened the kiss for more. Who needed fancy perfume when cobbler and hard liquor were such a lethal mix? But it wasn’t enough. His hand slid up her leg to her hip, gripping it and un-gripping it as she moaned into his mouth. He tugged, needing her closer—so much closer.

Against him, above him, under him.