“I don’t have a single hinge left,” he admitted with a reserved grin. “But I think this could work, Sunny. Please, say yes.”
Carefully, I ran my fingers through his hair. I didn’t knowif fingers had the capacity to feel relief, but considering how long mine had ached to touch his soft, thick strands, they practically sighed.
“Sunny still thinks it’s”—terrifying, risky, destined to end in heartache—“absurd.” I huffed a laugh as my brain, apparently pushed over the edge of some bottomless cliff, plummeted into the void. “But Phoebe thinks it’s one of the best ideas she’s ever heard.”
Wordlessly, but with a deep, easy sigh, he pulled me in, holding me as close as he’d held me before. Only this time, the thought of trying to get away never crossed my mind.
Leaning over him, I buried my nose in his hair, breathing in his linen scent, and something else, vanilla and lavender. Once again, mouth-wateringly edible. And then, with our plan firmly in place and any lingering uncertainty scampering back into whatever dismal cave it had emerged from, I hiked up my dress, climbed into his lap, and started unbuttoning the top button of his ridiculous jammies.
“Sunny.” His fingers closed around my hips.
“It’s Phoebe now,” I said, slipping another button free. “Remember?”
Reaching for me, he stilled my hands. “Stop.”
“Stop?” I frowned. “Why?”
“I, um…” Color rushed into his cheeks. “Joshua, I mean, would like a chance…to?—”
“Yes?” I encouraged, high on need, short on patience.
He took a deep, steadying breath. “He would like a chance to…wooPhoebe.”
While my eyelids grew heavy with desire, or maybe exhaustion—it was impossible to tell at this point—I brushed my thumb over his lower lip, and said, “That ship has sailed. No wooing required, promise.”
Grasping my hand to kiss the tip of my thumb with an achingly sweet tenderness that melted my skin, he said, “Joshua disagrees.” Abruptly, he stood from the bed, taking me with him, and set me on my feet. “Therefore, respectfully, I will need to ask you to leave.”
The disappointment tumbling through me must have been noticeable, based on the way he raised his hands and said, “I don’t think you’ll have any regrets. Not to toot his own horn, but Joshua is pretty good at wooing.”
I scoffed. “Did you just say, ‘toot his horn’? Are you actually eighty? And how highly skilled?”
While his smile skewed into an impossibly charming smirk I felt suddenly compelled to kiss right off his face, he said, “You’ll just have to wait to find out.”
Had I ever wanted another being as badly as I wanted him right now? I had, I realized. Him, months ago in that elevator, tasting those chocolate-covered cherries on his tongue. He thought I needed to wait. I thought I’d waited long enough. Time to play hardball.
Pushing up to my tiptoes, I brought my mouth close enough to his that we shared the same breath. “How long?”
His resolved wavered, teetering like a glass about to fall and shatter. “Not long,” he ground out, staring at my lips, his hands sliding up my arms.
If I was a betting woman, I’d put everything I owned or ever would own on winning this kiss. Let me point to his darkening eyes, his fingers closing around my arms, his tongue slipping out to wet his lips. I had it. It was mine. Take a bow.
But a second before our lips met, he stepped back, spun me around, and ushered me briskly toward the door. “But tonight,” he said, all business, no play, “Joshua needs hisbeauty rest. He has sonnets to compose. Or dirty limericks at the very least.”
I wanted to object, tried to, but he had me out in the hallway in a blink, waving with a tight “good night,” before he retreated back into his pod and slid his door shut.
My head swimming, heart pounding, mouth smiling so wide it hurt a little, I stood outside his door, waiting. I couldn’t seem to leave. I didn’t want to leave. I wasnot going to leave. Not without something. I only had to knock once, and his door slid open.
“Yes?”
Of course my brain would choose this precise moment to succumb to the turmoil of the day and blank out. “Um, well,” I said, stalling. “Oh, how do you think they did that trick? The one with the goat?”
He stepped toward me, just close enough to slide the strap of my dress back up my shoulder and not an inch closer. But when he did, I angled my head away from his fingers, elongating the slope of my neck.Phoebe knows a thing or two about wooing too, Joshua.
With an audible swallow, he lowered his hand and said, “No clue. Let’s ask them later. Good night, or good day, I suppose,” he stammered before backpedaling into his pod and closing his door again.
Damn. Bet lost. No kiss.
Carrying a mountain of sexual frustration but a helium-light heart, I turned and started walking toward my pod. I wasn’t two steps away, however, when his door whooshed open again, and he emerged, muttering “fuck it” before grabbing my wrist, pulling me back inside, taking me into his arms, and kissing me.
