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Clara scoffed. “Don’t pander to me. My lack of chill is not sexy. Marissa and Naomi, women who are confident in their bodies, are sexy. I’m a PG movie about a cartoon bunny.”
Josh stood up and took her hand in his, threading their fingers together and helping her to her feet. He used their combined grip to tilt her head until she was looking at him. “No. You’re really not. Do you know how many dirty thoughts I’ve had about your overalls?”
She wrinkled her nose. “You’re kidding.” Something warm inside her blossomed until she realized he’d said your overalls, not you. He probably pictured them on Naomi’s lithe frame.
Josh ran his free hand through his hair, making the strands stand on end. “I’m not. Unfortunately. You’re like an untapped gold mine. Waiting for some guy . . . or girl . . . to come and discover you. To work out all your hidden layers, reveal the depths of depravity I know are in there somewhere.” He used their joined hands to chuck her on the chin. “You’re a challenge.”
Clara stared down at where their feet pointed at one another. The ridiculous idea to tilt her hips toward Josh’s, to close the scant inches between their bodies, rose to the forefront of her brain, but she swatted it away. He could joke about wanting her because he joked about wanting everyone. The sooner she stopped gobbling the crumbs of his attention, the better. Still, her throat grew dry and she wished she hadn’t left her water bottle inside. Clara licked her lips. “You think someday someone might accept that challenge?”
Josh pulled his full bottom lip between his teeth and closed his eyes. “Hell yeah.” His eyes snapped open. “I mean, theoretically. Most likely someone with a vast collection of loafers and money clips.”
Right. Someone the opposite of him. At this rate, Josh would try to set her up with his optometrist sometime next week.
“But listen, if you don’t wanna do this.” His voice had turned serious. “I’ll go in there right now and call the whole thing off.” Despite his lighthearted comments from a few moments ago, Josh’s eyes now held a tremendous amount of gravity. He brushed his thumb across her knuckles. He was a good man. A good friend, she reminded herself.
“No. I’m okay. Mind over matter, right?” Clara was an adult. She could handle some nudity. A handful of orgasms. That was the whole point of this crazy scheme, right? That if you pushed through the discomfort of social stigma you learned something that made your life exponentially better. Hell, maybe when Everett got back from his tour she’d have a whole roster of new moves in her repertoire. She’d blow his mind.
Josh’s shoulders visibly relaxed, though the heat hadn’t fully retreated from his eyes. “Exactly. Look, it gets easier. You get used to it. All the discomfort kinda fades after a few days. You realize we’re all human. We’ve all got bodies and nerve endings. Attraction and orgasms—” His gaze slipped to her throat and he swallowed. “—it’s just a biological response.”
“Right.” She brushed off a thread from his shoulder and let her hand linger. “It’s science.”
Josh’s muscles flexed under her fingers. “If it would help, I could start walking around the apartment naked as a desensitization tactic?”
“Yeah, no, I think that might kill me.”
“Well, if you change your mind you know where to find me.”
Clara rolled her eyes. “I’ll be fine.”
“Good.” Josh narrowed his eyes like he wanted to say more, like he was looking for a clue somewhere on her face.
Clara opened the door back to the studio. “I’ll go home and watch a ton of porn.”
The way Josh’s mouth dropped to the ground made the whole embarrassing ordeal worthwhile. She tapped her foot. “You coming?”
“I mean, I’m gonna try not to,” Josh muttered.
chapter eighteen
IT DIDN’T SURPRISE Josh that Clara had never visited a sex shop before. She entered the store with gigantic eyes, like she’d wandered into some kind of erotic snow globe in the middle of the Valley.
“It’s so quiet,” she whispered before wandering down the first aisle.
Josh grabbed a cart from the front of the store and followed her. “What were you expecting? A soundtrack of high-pitched moaning?” They had a lot of errands to run for the project and a limited amount of time to accomplish them.
“It looks very clean.”
Any minute now she’d pull out a magnifying glass.
The store had white walls and hardwood floors with neat hand-lettered signs marking each section. Like most boutiques opened in the last five years in Los Angeles, it resembled an artisanal coffee shop. Except instead of lattes, the chalkboard behind the counter listed flavors of organic lube.
“Did you base all your assumptions for this experience on a movie from the 1970s?”
Josh had tried desperately to avoid having Clara accompany him on this leg of the trip. He would have gone while she was tucked safely away at her day job, but the store manager who’d promised to cut him a deal on sex toys only worked on weekends.
Despite his best attempt to subtly grab his keys this morning while Clara lounged on the sofa, the jangle of metal worked like a cowbell and she’d come running, desperate for more driving practice. She’d already bamboozled him into granting her four trips behind the wheel of his car this week. After he picked her up from work, they’d spent the evenings traversing L.A.’s many neighborhoods, stopping for dinner in restaurants from Koreatown to Pasadena. Admittedly, the practice seemed to make a difference. Her driving had really improved since their first fateful trip. She could now merge with minimal hyperventilation.
Josh hadn’t figured out a way to say no to her doe eyes in nearly two months of living with her. So now, he’d have to spend the next hour suppressing a hard-on while Clara carefully examined objects and implements meant to inspire debauchery. He didn’t need the explicit stimuli to get him hard. These days, even watching Clara brush her teeth made all the blood rush to his groin.
