I shake my head and step farther into the room. My foot touches something cool and smooth: a petal. There are rose petals everywhere, leading from the door to the bed, which is sprinkled with them.

“Where did you find roses?”

He gives me a bashful smile. “I ordered the honeymoon package for the room. It came with your standard red roses, champagne, chocolate and strawberries, and something called a ‘sensual bath bomb,’ so we’re set. Whatever you want.”

A nervous laugh slips out of me. “Very smooth, Mr. Kelly.”

“Thank you, Miss Bloom. I just wanted it to be nice.”

“Nice,” I repeat.

“Well, I want it to be epic,” he says. “But I know we can’t expect ourselves to be pros, our first time, so I decided that epic was overly ambitious. So let’s start with nice.”

“Nice is nice.”

I look at him.

He looks at me.

We both blush. Neither of us moves.

“Can we kill the bagpipes?” I wrinkle my nose.

“It’s supposed to be a joke,” he explains. “I was going to wear a kilt and call you Sassenach, and that was going to make you laugh, and laughing would break the ice. But the kilt didn’t get here on time, and so I thought I needed something else Scottish, so I went with bagpipes, but then you got here and I totally forgot the point.” He fumbles with his phone, and the bagpipes cut off abruptly. He looks up at me hopefully. “You want to hear my second choice?”

“Do I?”

He touches his phone again, and the deep voice of Barry White rumbles out of the speaker on the bedside table.

I laugh.

“I’m just kidding.” He turns Barry off, too.

“Quiet is good.” I take a step in his direction, and he takes a step in mine—one step and then another, until we’re standing in front of each other at the foot of the bed.

“You really ordered a kilt?” I suppress a smile.

“I did, lassie,” he intones.

I laugh and reach up and smooth down the edge of his lapel. “The suit looks good. The gray matches your eyes. And the haircut is a nice touch.”

He tucks an errant strand behind his ear. “And let’s talk about that dress. I love the bird-of-paradise.”

“Bird-of-paradise?”

“That’s the type of flower this is.” He points to the top flower. Then he realizes he’s basically pointing at my breasts, and he drops his hand. “Anyway, I like them.”

“I’m glad it meets with your approval.”

“It’s perfect.”

Perfect seems like a dangerous word. My hands are trembling. I close my eyes for a second and try to focus, try to remember that this is no big deal, that it’s just fun with our bodies, in essence, and nothing to be frightened of. Nick isn’t scary. So I shouldn’t be scared.