Clara gaped at him from her chair. “Uh . . . are you kidding?”
“I’m not kidding.” He bent down and blew out the candle so he wouldn’t have to meet her eyes. “But I’ve got zero interest in being your consolation prize. If you wanna wait for Everett to come back, we can forget this conversation happened, okay?” As elation faded, his insides turned black.
“So this is what it feels like,” Clara said, so quiet he almost didn’t catch it. “It’s like someone shook a soda can and opened it inside my chest.”
Josh winced. “Any chance that’s pleasant?” It sounded painful, but something in her eyes made him hope.
She massaged below her clavicle, giving him a weak smile. “It’s amazing.”
He knelt down in front of her, slowly bringing his hands up to cradle her face. “How amazing, exactly? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Clara rubbed her cheek against his palm. “Let’s just say when I imagine the most incredible moment of my life, I’m usually wearing a better outfit.”
Josh ran his thumb across her jawline, mapping the topography of her face. As he drew their mouths closer together he watched her eyelashes flutter closed. “If you’d like, I’m prepared to help you out of these pajamas.”
He captured her startled laugh with his lips, sighing as the first taste of her fell across his tongue. The scent of her floral shampoo, so familiarly tantalizing, surrounded him, bringing back lust-loaded memories of her—wet, naked, and wanting. Impossibly, holding Clara was better than he’d imagined. His whole body came to life under the press of her luscious kiss. At the risk of scaring her with the intensity of his craving for more, he tried to school himself into gentleness. He demanded that his body go slow. Tonight, Josh wanted to show her he was capable of more than she thought.
Clara’s fingers threaded through his long curls and he shivered as she ran her nails against his scalp. Kisses were the hardest thing to fake on set. Josh had spent hours practicing how to tilt his head and move his mouth so that it looked like he cared. There was nothing performative about the urgency that powered this moment. The intensity of his desire mingled with joy walloped him over the head. Josh caught her bottom lip between his teeth, nipping the tender skin until she gasped.
Naomi was right. He was insane to gamble so much. Too bad he didn’t care anymore. Drugged on Clara’s softness, on the sweet sting of her bite as she delivered payback, Josh surrendered. How could anything that felt this good be bad? He pulled Clara to her feet. He wanted access to more of her. All of her.
As their mouths grew more frantic, kissing Clara no longer felt like a choice at all. Touching her, wanting her, felt as crucial as oxygen.
She ran her fingertips below the waistband of his jeans, making his stomach muscles clench. Why was he surprised she wanted the grand finale to this thing that had built up between them?
Josh caught her wrists in his hands. “Slow down. I’m trying to savor you.” You only got one chance with a girl like this, and he didn’t intend to waste it on instant gratification.
Clara let out a tiny whimper, and the sound shot straight to his dick. Relenting, he slipped one of his legs between hers. She seized the opportunity to rock against his thigh. If his cock had been halfway hard before, it could hammer nails now. When she lowered her mouth to his neck and applied pressure, he rolled his hips helplessly. With her body, Clara urged him toward the back door.
“You know, those cardigans of yours are deceptive. I’m not sure you’re a nice girl after all.” He ran featherlight kisses down her jaw and across her collarbone as his back smacked into the side of the house. “I can’t believe this is actually happening.”
Josh trailed his knuckles against the hot stripe of abdomen above Clara’s shorts. His legendary control threatened to dissolve. He meant to kiss her so long and so well that her legs buckled, but already he was the one leaning against the wall for support. Clara hooked her leg up and around his waist, pressing herself against him shamelessly until he swore.
If only he knew whether she wanted Josh Darling or Josh Conners. The panic racing from his head to his body, making him shake, didn’t come from stage fright. Something worse, something bigger made him lock his knees.
Over the last two years, he’d drained sex of any emotional component. Not only in his performances, but with Naomi as well. She didn’t allow feelings to mix with her fellatio.
As he ran his fingers through Clara’s hair, Josh wasn’t just savoring. He was stalling. Fear had coupled with the desire singing in his veins.
He could fuck with the best of them, but this wasn’t about fucking. Taking his clothes off tonight would test his ability to open not just his pants but his heart for Clara.
He brushed his hands gently up her sides to rest on her shoulders, ignoring her breasts so obviously that she let out a frustrated groan and pounded her fists against his chest in protest.
“I’m savored, I promise,” she told him tartly, reaching for his zipper.
“Jesus.” He hissed as he felt her hot little hands through his jeans. “You’re perfect. Did you know that?”
He molded his hands to her breasts, giving them each exactly what they wanted. Josh sucked in a deep, ragged breath. “Fuck.”
Clara arched into his touch. “Josh?”
He maintained his position but made eye contact with her. The white noise from the street thundered in his ears.
“We’re about to have sex, aren’t we?” She chewed her bottom lip.
He laughed, bringing his forehead to rest against hers. “Yes, Wheaton.” He pressed a tiny kiss between her brows. “We’re about to have sex.” The idea of not living up to her expectations terrified him, but as he took in her flushed cheeks and her lush mouth, he knew he had no choice. He’d give Clara everything he had, even if it killed him.
chapter twenty-seven
ARE YOU COMFORTABLE leaving the lights on?” Josh lingered by the doorway with his hair mussed from her fingers and his lips swollen from her mouth.
Clara’s heart rattled against her rib cage. “Yes.” In for a penny, in for a pound. She might have done a lot of crazy things in the last few months, but this one definitely took the cake.
Josh rewarded her answer with eyes that promised to watch as she came apart underneath him.
But still, Clara froze. She knew herself, knew that she’d never managed to separate sex from love before. And with Josh, the stakes were so much higher. She already liked him as a person, respected him as a professional, hell, she even knew they could successfully cohabit. Falling for him would be laughably easy, so sleeping with him should have presented an impossible risk. Except for one truth. Loving Josh went against every expectation she’d ever known. Every dream her family had ever set for her. Every future she’d ever imagined.