Pulling him into another kiss, I burrowed my hands into his hair while he withdrew his finger, sliding it up to apply a firm, warm pressure over my clit. My breath vanished, my mind abruptly emptied of all previous thought. And then his finger started to move. Brisk, flawless circles. Six, seven, eight was all it took, and I was shuddering under him, burying my harsh, groaning breaths into his neck as release barreled through me, light and heat soaring from my toes into my belly, spreading out until a primal, pulsating pleasure wrapped itself around me. Until I levitated off the senator’s couch. Asthe waves of sensation loosened their grip on me, I raised my head, meeting his stare, watching as he brought the finger that had been inside me to his lips and sucked it into his mouth.
“Joshua,” I said in a breathless, mindless whisper.
He was rock hard now, pressed firmly against my thigh. Taking his face with one hand, kissing him again, I reached between our bodies, desperate to touch him. But he stopped me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Gently, he brought my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss into my palm. “That was just for you. Besides, I don’t want to be here when the senator gets home.”
“Senator? What senator?”
His laughter brushed over my skin. “I should go.”
“She’ll know you were here. Sai will tell her.”
Sitting up, he pulled my legs into his lap. After slipping my shoes off one at a time, he upped the pleasure ante by rubbing my feet. “I know,” he said while I melted back into the couch. “But it’s one thing to bake cookies and read bedtime stories. It’s another thing entirely to have mutual orgasms with the babysitter in the living room.”
When he put it that way… “Can Phoebe visit your pod later? After the senator gets back.”
Releasing my feet, he pushed himself up to his, tried to smooth his shirt over his obvious erection, and replied, “Joshua would like that.”
I reached for him, pulling him back down, kissing him one last time—while I might have also palmed him through his pants. He groaned into my mouth, and I devoured the sound. When I let him go, he stared down at me, swiped his thumb over his lower lip, and said, “Yes, Phoebe shoulddefinitelyvisit Joshua later.”
18
Buzzing,smiling, and supremely satisfied, because he’d been right—Joshuawasquite good at wooing—I’d barely drifted off to sleep when thewhooshof a door sliding open had me bolting upright.
The senator released a bone-weary sigh as she entered her suite, slipping out of her heels, kicking them off next to the door. After reaching back to unzip the top few inches of her skirt’s zipper, she pulled a pin from her hair, running her fingers through her raven-black waves until they settled over her shoulders.
“Welcome home, Senator. How was your meeting?” My voice sounded wrong: tight, awkward,guilty.
With a sharp inhale, she clasped her hand over her heart. “Gods above, Sunny. You startled me.”
“I’m sorry. Long day?”
“An understatement.” She dropped her hand. “How was Sai?”
“An absolute angel,” I replied, trying my level best to sound normal, look normal,benormal. “Perfectly behaved.”
Sonia huffed a knowing laugh, sitting on the chair acrossfrom me. “He’s always on his best behavior for anyone who isn’t one of his mothers.”
“Especially once Freddie came over to make cookies for him,” I admitted in a rush, wanting it all out on the table. Well, notallof it, exactly. “Sai assured us you wouldn’t mind.”
Her attention homed in on me. “Freddie came?”
Not yet,I thought with a lopsided smile—that Sonia snatched right off my face when she raised a pointed, knowing brow at me. “I called him in for reinforcements,” I explained, cursing the heat rushing up my throat. “Sai wanted cookies, and I…can’t bake.”I can’t bake?That was the best I could do?
Sonia’s slow nod up and down saidbullshit. “I see.”
Not knowing what else to do with them as she stared me down, I folded my hands in my lap.
“You know,” she said, leaning forward. “I do like that Freddie. He’s smart. Capable. And rather handsome. Don’t you think?”
It was definitely time to leave. Sonia was as skilled as a Portisan when it came to reading minds. “I should go,” I said instead of answering. “Let you get some sleep.”
But before I stood from the couch of shame, Sonia said, “Stay, Sunny. For a moment.”
Settling back against the cushions, folding my hands back in my lap because…why not, I said, “Of course.”
