Josh’s eyes narrowed. “How do your partners usually get you off?” His tone lacked all traces of lechery. She expected him to pull his glasses from his pocket at any moment.

Their conversation had taken an unexpected and dangerous turn toward her less than stellar track record of sexual experiences. Clara trailed her foot across the carpet in front of her and watched the fibers fold back.

“Wait a minute.” Realization must have dawned. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Josh placed an urgent hand on her arm. “Clara Wheaton, please tell me that a man has brought you to orgasm.”

Clara wished for a white flag to wave. “It’s not that some of them didn’t try,” she said, wanting to stand up for a couple of the sweet, well-meaning men she’d dated. “It just never happened, and I could tell that, after a while, they felt bad about it. It seemed more efficient and less awkward for all parties involved if I took care of things myself.”

He shook his head so vehemently, she wondered how it didn’t snap his neck. This time, when his eyes swept over her body with blatant heat, she knew he didn’t do it to embarrass her.

“What a waste.”

She didn’t know what to make of his reaction. He seemed almost angry, more bothered than she’d seen him since she moved in. Perhaps he felt sorry for her. Well, she didn’t need his pity. She gave him the withering stare she usually reserved for people who made snide remarks about her family.

“Excuse me.” She sat up as straight as possible. “I happen to bring myself to very satisfying orgasms.”

His eyes blazed at whatever image her confession conjured. “I’m sure you do. But it’s not the same. Doesn’t the thought of losing control excite you at all?”

When he continued, his voice ran like honey over her body, slow and sweet and sticky. “Don’t you ever ache for someone who doesn’t care how bad you want it? Someone who doesn’t grant you release until you’re begging for it?”

Clara clenched everything below her waist. She had to remind herself that his voice was full of promise, not because he liked her, but to prove a point. Unfortunately, that knowledge didn’t keep her from wishing he’d press his tongue against her racing pulse point.

“Haven’t you ever let someone learn your body? Let them taste every inch of you until the line between pleasure and pain blurs because it feels too good? Too much?”

Clara couldn’t stop her mind from playing back lurid images from the video she’d just seen with herself in the place of Josh’s co-star.

“Don’t you want someone who gets so. Fucking. Hard. Watching you squirm and pant and arch your back as you get close?”

Clara’s eyes fell shut. Josh had transported her to a place both splendid and wicked.

Nothing mattered except that he kept talking, kept using that voice that was more potent than any kiss she’d ever been offered.

But he didn’t. Instead, Josh snapped the invisible thread of tension hanging between them. When she opened her eyes, he’d sat back against the sofa.

“Jesus, Clara.” He ran a careless hand through his hair. “You’ve dated a bunch of lazy assholes if they let you get away with that shit. Sex isn’t about efficiency.”

“Maybe not for you,” she said under her breath.

Josh’s gaze bore through her for a moment, so deep she wondered for a ridiculous instant if he could see through not only her clothes but her skin as well, to the yawning chasm of insecurity underneath.

He got to his feet. “You know what? No.”

She followed the movement of his arms as they crossed in a show of defiance.

“No?” Clara licked her bone-dry lips.

“No,” he said again as if even more convinced of what needed to be done. “This is unacceptable.”

“It is?”

Josh shook out his neck and shoulders, like a swimmer preparing to dive before a race.

“Take off your underwear,” he said, his voice calm and deadly serious.

Clara’s eyes went heavy-lidded at the conviction in his words, but then her mind caught up with her body. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I’m going to rectify this situation,” Josh stated simply. “Right now.”

“You can’t be serious.” She tried to laugh but couldn’t in the face of his stoic determination. “This is insane.”

“Look. I don’t have delusions of grandeur, but at this point in my life, I’ve made it my singular mission to help women get off more and better. Your existence as an outlier throws off the entire curve.”

“Well, when you put it that way it sounds so sexy,” she deadpanned.

“You want sexy?”

“No!” His appeal was already potent enough to stun. She threw her arms up in front of her. “It’s just that . . . I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly the kind of girl that has casual sex.”

“You don’t say.” He waited expectantly. When she didn’t move to act as instructed, he had the audacity to wave two fingers to the side in a let’s hurry this along gesture.

Clara fidgeted with her hem. “I appreciate the sentiment. I think. But I can’t take off my underwear out here. I barely know you, and while I get that you’ve got a lot of experience in this area, it seems really unlikely that I could, well . . . you know what I mean.”

She rubbed her arms, overwhelmed by the unexpected turn the night had taken. She never should have Googled her roommate.

“What’s the big deal? There’s no non-asshole way to say this, but I get about fifty women a week asking me to do this. It’ll be totally clinical. Scout’s honor.” He saluted her with three fingers.

“Yeah. I’m going to go out on a limb and say this conversation is not sanctioned by the Boy Scouts of America.” She couldn’t help imagining the havoc he could wreak with that hand.

“If it makes you feel better, we can do it over your underwear.”

“We can?” He was volunteering to take a lot of handicaps here.

He nodded, easy smile back on. “Don’t think so much. We’ll get this pesky problem taken care of and then the next time you have sex with some Melvin you meet at the library, you’ll be prepared to demand what you deserve.”

Clara almost slipped off the couch. Something must be seriously wrong with her because she found herself considering his crazy offer. Women like her didn’t get many indecent propositions. Apparently, Clara liked them. She’d traveled across the country for a taste of love and adventure, and while this encounter might not strictly qualify as either, the idea did make her heart pound in a way her old life never had.

Think of it as a scientific experiment.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Her words trembled with the force of her fear. “What if I’m the problem?” She’d heard it before. Too controlling, too in her own head, too prudish to enjoy sex like everyone else.

Josh didn’t waver in his conviction. “If I can’t get you off with my hands,” he said, his voice soft and incredibly kind, “that’s my problem. Not yours. And if that’s the case, we’ll figure something else out. Every body is different, but none of them are wrong.”

Clara wiped her hands on her traitorous nightgown and gathered her strength.

She could do this. She could be the kind of girl who did things like this.

“Okay.” Her voice sounded far away to her own ears.

Josh’s eyes gleamed with a new kind of triumph. “You’re saying yes?”

“I’m saying yes.” Her stomach churned with mutinous nerves. “So, what should I . . . I mean, where do you want me to . . .”

For once Josh didn’t heighten her discomfort by teasing her. His eyes locked on her mouth as he crowded her on the sofa.

She could map his freckles at this range, but the constellation of dots barely registered. God, kissing him must be heaven. But when his mouth came within inches of hers, she chickened out, instinctively leaning back until her head hit the wall behind the sofa with a thunk.

His soft chuckle was almost a purr. “Don’t worry, Wheaton. I won’t forget the rules.”

With deft movements, Josh guided her into a reclined position. He approached her more like a skittish animal than a lover. His every touch careful. Controlled. A reminder that he saw this engagement as professional. Not pleasure, but his job.

He guided her knees apart, creating enough space for him to kneel between them. “You can close your eyes if you want.”

Clara gratefully accepted the opportunity to detach. Tonight might turn her into a cautionary tale, but she’d wasted enough chances to recognize a once-in-a-lifetime offer.

She slid an inch lower on the couch, letting her body open further, the tiny movement the closest she’d ever come to a deviant act.

Josh brushed his thumb across the tender skin of her upper thigh, making her shiver. “Good?”

Clara opened her mouth to respond but the words died, nervous, on her tongue.

“It’s all right,” he said in a rough voice, as if someone had taken sandpaper to his vocal cords. “You don’t have to answer.” The heat of his breath across her already hot skin was decadent torture. “I’ll learn what you like.”