Clara ducked her head and laughed a little at that. A throaty purr that sounded like someone else but felt good in her throat. “Bra next?” She needed guidance, but she also liked the idea that announcing her progress would drive Josh wild.

Sure enough, when she met his eyes he shuddered like a man enjoying the electric chair.

“Do you want me to stop?” She feigned a tone of concern.

He gave her his most charming smile in reassurance, dimples in full effect. “Don’t you dare.”

Clara got up and turned around so that her back faced him, hoping that not having to make direct eye contact would make removing her bra, a significantly larger hurdle to her insecurity, a little easier. She bent slightly forward and reached back to unclip it, fumbling with the clasp.

“Let me help you.” As Josh deftly undid the hook, more of her reservations melted away.

He let the back of his fingers brush along her spine as he removed his hand. “If you refuse to turn around, there’s a good chance I’ll spontaneously combust.” His breathing was no longer slow and even. It sounded like he was trying to climb a flight of stairs while carrying a wheelbarrow.

Clara swiveled, forcing her body not to obey the impulse to cover herself as Josh licked his lips, staring unabashedly at her chest.

He hissed in a breath. “What I’m about to say is gonna sound like a line. But please believe me when I tell you that I’ve seen thousands of tits in my lifetime and I’ve never wanted to get my hands and my mouth and, if I’m being totally honest, my cock, on a pair as much as yours.”

Clara’s face warmed at the ridiculous praise. “No one in their right mind would ever think that was a viable line.” Still, she lowered her shoulder blades, pushing her breasts further out, and cupped one in each hand until the heavy flesh spilled over her fingers. See. This barely counts as second base. Equating adolescent baseball metaphors to levels of intimacy was oddly soothing. Josh’s talent was almost enough to make her brazen. She let her thumbs graze her nipples, feeling the rush of pleasure even that small gesture sent down through her belly to her clit. She hadn’t touched herself like this in a while, and half the time she was so embarrassed about the size of her breasts that she pretended they didn’t exist.

“Okay. So, umm . . . In my fantasy, I’m on a beach somewhere.” She glanced at him. With you. “And the sun is warming my skin.” Her eyes consumed the wide slabs of his shoulders. And you’re naked. “I’m sunbathing topless.” Josh drew his hands into fists. Because I wanted to tease you.

The attention she gave her breasts, starting slow and varying the pressure, made her want to writhe. She’d forgotten the way the pleasure could build, more complete than when she started below the belt. Clara closed her eyes and threw back her head until the long strands of her hair brushed the middle of her back.

“The knowledge that you love having your tits played with has taken at least five years off my life.” The raw lust in his voice made her melt.

Clara hadn’t accounted for Josh’s dirty talk when she agreed to this plan. How his words made everything more exciting and urgent and deliciously undignified.

She opened her eyes to find him wrestling with control. He moved until he was facing her on the couch, every inch of his long, lean form bent forward in anticipation. She let her eyes wander between his legs and pinched her nipples hard between her thumb and forefinger. The bulge in his pants was truly obscene. He seemed unaware that he’d begun to subtly rock his hips.

“You should take that out,” she said, and then immediately covered her mouth with her hand.

Josh froze. “Huh?”

Clara removed her fingers from her lips slowly. “Your . . . cock.” She wrapped her mouth around the word he’d used earlier. “You should take it out and touch yourself. If you’d like.” She ducked her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I got carried away.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Josh tore off his T-shirt, treating her to a view of his abs rippling as he raised his arms. He pulled his pants and briefs down his legs so fast she’d barely blinked before he had his hand wrapped around himself.

“Oh my God.” Her voice shook as the temperature in the room blazed. “It’s like someone gave a Caravaggio painting a gym membership.”

Josh stilled his hand around the base of his thick shaft. “Is that . . . good?”

“Yes.” It was so much more than good. The screen of her computer really hadn’t done him justice. No wonder he was mad about losing all those merchandise dollars. Women across America had probably emptied their 401(k)s for a silicone simulation of the heat Josh was packing.

“Are you going to . . .” He nodded toward her still pajama-clad thighs. “You have no idea how much I want to see you right now.”

Clara would have traded anything to get Josh to keep looking at her exactly like that, so she pushed the rest of her clothes down and off.

“Fuck. Me,” Josh said when she was bare before him. He stopped moving. In fact, she wasn’t sure he hadn’t stopped breathing. “Please touch your pussy. Please. I know I’m begging. I know it’s not macho or suave or cool. But please, Clara. I’m losing my mind.” Josh ground out the words in an aching voice.

Blind lust gave her the confidence to bring her trembling hand to her stomach, to let her fingers slowly slide between her thighs. The moment her hand made contact with her sex, she and Josh both swore.

He moved closer until each of his harsh breaths fell against her neck.

She whimpered as her hips bucked, seeking penetration. Begging for the man beside her.

Josh’s eyes grew darker, wilder, until he looked like the victim of a pheromone shipwreck.

Suddenly everything, the pressure of her hand and the pleasure she wrought, doubled. Josh worked himself in smooth strokes, swallowing every time his thumb grazed the head of his cock. He let his mouth fall open as he watched her work herself closer toward release.

Without thought or intention, Clara moaned the one word she’d forbidden herself to utter. “Josh.”

The sound of his name on her lips seemed to break him. His whole body started shaking. “Say it again,” he ground out through clenched teeth. His working forearm had pulled so tight she could count the veins. He lowered his voice to a litany. “Keep saying my name.”

She held his gaze as she inserted two fingers into her tight body, unable to find any room in her mind for shame.

Not when his breathing was as ragged as hers.

Not when she chased an orgasm that promised to ruin her.

It made perfect sense to turn Josh’s name into a mantra. Even though he wasn’t touching her, she could feel him everywhere. The heat and tightly coiled energy rolled off his body in waves.

Everything she’d ever believed about sex and her body became ancient history as she moved like a woman who had never apologized for chasing her own pleasure. Let him look. Let him see the frantic motion of her hand as she brought herself exactly what she wanted.

His presence acted like sensory deprivation, everything heightened, focused on a single point.

“Please tell me you understand how amazing you look right now.” His eyes rolled back in his head as she added another finger. He grew rougher with his strokes. “I’d do terrible things, Clara, to suffer the perfect torture of watching you fuck yourself again and again.” He didn’t touch her, but his words sank into her skin.

Clara was caught up in him. Drowning in sensation. So distracted that when she fell over the edge, she cried out in not only pleasure but surprise. Her eyes fell closed as she let the orgasm break across her body without shying away. When she blinked to find Josh watching her face, the naked longing in his eyes drew out the shudders of her body.

It wasn’t until a moment later when her body finally relaxed, when she fell back against the sofa like a limp noodle, that Josh allowed his own release, painting his stomach with the evidence of his desire. Sweat began to cool on her trembling body. Nothing had ever felt as good as the illusion Josh wove of wanting her.

The living room was quiet except for the mingling of their desperate breaths.

“That was . . .” Josh finally said. “I mean, you did . . . Your body is . . .”

“I hope the ends of those sentences are complimentary.” Clara smiled as she handed him a handful of tissues from the box on the end table, spent and happy and different from the woman she’d been an hour before.

“Yes, very,” he said as they locked eyes. The room filled with something more than attraction and unbridled lust. Josh clenched his jaw and Clara was the first to look away.

He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder. “I should probably go type up my notes. My findings, if you will.”

Clara hunted on the floor for her pajamas. “Right. Yes. You do that.” She admired his bare ass as he got up to walk away, weaving slightly.

“Oh, and Josh?”

He turned, holding his balled-up clothes in front of his waist.

“I’d say your strategy definitely worked.”

He huffed out a sound that was almost a laugh.

After Josh had locked himself back in his room, Clara cleaned up and changed into a fresh pair of pajamas. Then she picked up her discarded laptop and typed a single word into the domain search engine.