by M. Robinson
“Okay,” I answered, biting back the rest of my thoughts.
A smile played on his lips as he regarded me with a mix of wariness and amusement in his eyes. “But I liked the way you came right aboard. Like, my dumb dream was something that could come true.”
“It should come true,” I insisted because there was only so much damming my teeth could do when it came to words. “It’s a great dream. You’d help a lot of people if you made it come true. Including yourself.”
Josh set down his fork beside his empty plate. “I’d help a lot more people as a Senator. I should stick to the plan.”
Before I could answer, he rose from the table. “I changed my mind about the music. Why don’t you pick something out while I wash the dishes?”
I went over to the albums he’d stacked on the floor and took a seat.
“Okay, we’ve got Rob Zombie, Roberta Flack, Robyn, Rod Stewart, The Ronettes, Linda Ronstadt, Diana Ross, Roxette. If you like rap, there’s a Roddy Rich and a couple of Rick Ross albums in the stack my mom gave me to bring over. And if country’s your thing, there’s a ton of Randy Travis in one of the other crates—and even a Ratt metal album if I remember right.”
Josh looked over at me from the sink. “Any music acts that don’t start with R?”
I was embarrassed to have to admit, “My mom only listens to acts whose names start with R—first, last, or band name. Doesn’t matter as long as it starts with R.”
“Really? I never knew that about Marian.”
“Not my birth mother—my other mom, Marian’s sister. She formally adopted me when I was a baby. She’s a writer—you might have heard of her pen name…Clara Quinn.”
Josh’s eyes widened. “Your mom is Clara Quinn? I never read her, but my bunkmate Bobkowski loved all her stuff—especially that one series of hers—the one with the fairies.”
“Fae,” I corrected with a grin. As many issues as I had with Mom on a career level, I loved that she had so many fans who adored her work from all walks of life.
“This cabin was a gift to her from my father for agreeing to take on my birth mother’s visitation rights,” I told Josh. “You can tell your bunkmate that you got stuck spending the night in the same cabin where she wrote that fae series.”
“He’d lose his mind, then demand I bring him here, too,” Josh answered with a chuckle. He shook his head. “Your father gave her a cabin as a thank you. That’s the perfect gift for a writer.”
“My father’s good at gifts,” I admitted, even though he wasn’t a subject I liked to talk about.
“Are you two close?” Josh was washing dishes, his eyes focused on the task at hand. But I could feel his curiosity the same as a gaze.
“Not really. He’s.…busy. He had majority custody of me because—well, you’ve met Marian. But his sister and her wife mostly raised me until I reached adulthood. I only used to come here for the summers and winter holidays, and I spent the rest of the time with them.”
“That must have been hard being raised by your aunts instead of your parents.”
I bristled. “You don’t have to feel sorry for me. I was much better off with them than my birth parents.”
“Wasn’t feeling sorry for you,” Josh answered. He placed the last dish on the drying rack and turned to face me. “I was just thinking out loud that it must have been hard for you growing up. You figured out you were better off, but it still must have been hard getting there.”
I struggled with his words, then admitted. “You’re right. As accepting as I am about my childhood now, there were lots of tears alone in my bedroom. Lots of wondering why neither of my birth parents seemed to want me in their lives.”
Josh went quiet and still in that way of his. Return of the Ice Block.
And I realized out loud, “I’ve said too much. I’m sorry for going on and on like that.”
“That’s exactly how I felt about my parents,” he said, his voice low and quiet. “My mom with all the drinking that eventually led to her death. My dad was always too busy with his career. My brother and me were mostly left to our housekeeper to raise. I did the best I could to be there for Sawyer, but it wasn’t enough.”
“It was,” I assured him. “My sister and Sawyer are a happy ending none of us expected. You did good, Josh—or as my mom would immediately edit me to say, well.”
Josh chuckled but then sobered to ask. “Is it always like this with your clients? Do you always go this deep?”
I tell him the truth because I’m stunned myself. “It’s never like this. I never go this deep on a first conversation. Or talk about myself.”
Josh nodded. “Good. I’m glad I’m not in this alone. I feel like I could tell you anything. It’s like…..I’ve heard it’s good to talk to people. But I’ve never believed it before now.”
His words hit my chest like a warm pillow…and made me realize I’d been asking questions all my adult life without talking—really talking at all.
Without letting myself think too much about it, I put on the second record of Robyn’s two-part Body Talk album. Then I went over to the stove to heat up the kettle.
“I’m going to make some hot chocolate,” I announced. “Do you want a hot chocolate?”
No answer. I didn’t realize my mistake until Robyn started singing “Call Your Girlfriend” in her one-of-a-kind Swedish lilt.
Hot chocolate. How many times had I urged him to drink a cup in my Christmas cards?
I turned around and found Josh staring at me. Hard.
All I could do was stand there and hope he didn’t realize….
But after what felt like a century or two of stare-down, he simply said, “Yes, I’ll take a hot chocolate.”
So that was what we did for the rest of the night—drank hot chocolate with the candy canes I’d brought, listened to “R” albums, and told each other the stories of our lives.
Some of our stories were sad, and some made us explode with laughter. A few of mine came dangerously close to revealing who my father was.
At one point, we’d listened to both sides of both the records in Body Talk. So, Josh put on a Roberta Flack album because he vaguely remembered she was one of the singers his mother liked. But eventually, both sides of that album got played, too, and it was still snowing outside.
Cue the return of total awkwardness when we realized Josh would be spending the night.
I rushed through my pre-bedtime routine and came out of the bathroom dressed in a set of red and green fleece pajamas. Then I jumped into bed, hoping that would make the situation a little less awkward while I waited for Josh to come out of the bathroom.
But no…
Roberta Flack filled the silence, waxing poetic inside my head about the first time she ever saw her lover’s face. She extolled the virtues of setting the night to music and insisted that she’d found her oasis here in—
Josh came out of the bathroom, and the Roberta Flack record scratched. He wore nothing but a pair of loose boxers, which put his glorious warrior’s body on full display.
A storm of raw desire rose inside me without warning, swelling my breast, and making the place between my legs ache.
Thankfully Josh flipped the one light switch by the door, casting the cabin in pitch black before he could see my reaction to seeing him half-naked.
“Is it okay if I get in the bed with you? I can sleep on the floor, if not….”
A gentlemanly offer. But there was only one blanket, and as nervous as I was, I couldn’t let him suffer on the cold, hard floor.
“It’s okay. I don’t mind sharing. It’s a big bed.”
Well, I thought it was a big bed. It immediately shrank when Josh climbed into it beside me. He was so huge, his shoulder bumped against mine, sending shivers through my body.
“Sorry,” he said again. “I can sleep on my side….”
Good idea, I thought as he began to turn over. And I decided to do the same.
I turned to the right to face the outside of th
e bed. But instead of turning to the left to face the other way, he shifted in the same direction as me.
And his body scraped against mine again. But this time, the hard thing pushing against me wasn’t his shoulder. It was something else, something unexpectedly hard…and located below his waist.
“Jesus…Sorry,” he said, immediately scooting his hips away. “It’s been a while.”
There were so many thoughts I could have had at that moment, but the first joyous one was that he hadn’t slept with Shelby. She wasn’t his girlfriend, and they weren’t sleeping together.
My heart filled with stupid, radiant joy, and I answered, “That’s okay,” for more reasons than one.
“It’s not okay.” He sounded like I’d felt when I first sat down across from him at dinner. Miserable and embarrassed. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Josh, you don’t have to….”
“No, this isn’t right.” The bed shifted with the weight of him sitting up. “You’ve been nothing but nice to me, and I’m a future senator….”
I flipped over to stop him from leaving. But it was so dark, and he’d shifted position. Instead of grabbing onto his arm, my hand landed on his hip—my thumb grazing the inside of his thigh. I wasn’t touching his manhood. But I was close enough to feel its heat, to sense it below the cool fabric of his shorts.
He froze.
I froze.
And a Roberta Flack song echoed in the dark, as whispery soft as a cartoon crab urging a prince to kiss a mermaid disguised as a human.
And then, suddenly….
Suddenly, we were kissing.
Chapter Six
Set the Night to Music
Josh. Josh Grant. He was kissing me. I’d imagined this—daydreamed about it endlessly. But it was so much better than anything I could have made up in my head.
A full orchestra joined Roberta Flack’s soft voice in the back of my mind, underscoring the way his mouth took possession of mine.
He kissed me slow at first, reaching under my top to cup the too-large breasts I’d been so self-conscious about because I’d never felt they matched my otherwise spritely frame.
But I loved the way Josh touched them—loved how perfect they felt underneath his hands as his kiss burned through me and his heavy body pressed into mine.
“You taste like hot chocolate and peppermint,” he rasped against my lips.
And for some reason, the kiss grew more frantic after that. He plastered me to the bed with a passionate urgency I wouldn’t have guessed he possessed. And he drank me down like I was the water he’d been searching for in the desert of his life.
Then he shoved my pajama top up and did the same thing to my breasts.
Dear sky above….
With his rigid staff pressing into my leg, he took turns with each breast, lapping at one with urgent grunts while he caressed and tugged on the other. Both actions sent shockwaves of pleasure through me and turned my nipples into hardened pebbles. Soon I was whimpering and squirming beneath him.
There was no room for shame in the dark.
“More,” I begged. “Josh, please….”
I didn’t have to ask twice. He released my breast and used his hands to divest me of my pajama bottoms and panties.
Freed of restraints, my legs fell open as his name fell out of my mouth on another wanton beg. “Josh…”
“Yes, I need inside you….” He sounded just as frantic as me as he settled between my legs—only to groan when he remembered out loud. “Condom…”
“I’m on birth control, and I’m clean,” I assured him. “But I know it’s hard for you to trust, so….”
He stilled above me, and his voice vibrated in the dark. “It is hard for me to trust—other people. But with you, Neisha….it’s easy. I’m clean, too.”
Not Ms. Winters. Neisha. He’d said my name….and told me he trusted me.
All the flower storms. All the fluttering fairy wings. All the feelings I’d been trying to suppress for years—they exploded inside of me.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I trust you too.”
We’d talked so much that evening, but the time for talking was done.
He thrust into me, and the exquisiteness of taking his length in one deep stroke washed over me like a balm.
I didn’t understand before…how much I’d been aching. How much I’d needed to be with Josh. Just like this.
Josh. Josh Grant. He was inside of me. He’d finally come home.
He rode me like he kissed me. Slow at first, then increasingly urgent, until I started coming with a helpless cry.
“Neisha…” he whispered as he shoved into me one last time…deep. As deep as he could go. So deep it felt like he was touching my soul as he spilled inside of me.
Afterward, there wasn’t any more awkward shifting in the bed.
We both turned to the right, and he wrapped his arms around me from behind. Then we wordlessly fell asleep. Truly happy and beyond satisfied.
* * *
I had the most amazing dream that night. Josh delivered a speech to a shocked crowd. In it, he finally spoke the truth of who he really was. He told his constituents that he’d been a good soldier for most of his life. Now it was time to follow his own path, make his own dreams come true.
The speech was so glorious. I woke up with tears of pride stinging my eyes. But then I realized…
I wasn’t in a crowd of people watching the soon-to-be-former Congressman Joshua Greenlee Grant speak.
I was all alone in a cold bed. Sunshine streamed down on me, and birds tweeted a happy morning song outside. All the snow that had caked the window above the bed last night had already melted.
If it had ever been there at all….
I sat up, wondering if everything that had happened with Josh the previous day had been yet another one of my ridiculous fantasy dreams—the most explicit one yet.
Then I froze.
Josh. Josh Grant.
He was fully dressed and seated at the table, reading something written on several sheets of A5 paper.
But that couldn’t be. Josh had knocked on the door before I could write a word yesterday.
As if sensing my confusion, Josh glanced up at me and started reading aloud, his voice cold as an icicle.
“…You have honored me with the privilege of serving you for two years, but this is where my political road must end. Today, I’m here to announce that I will not be seeking re-election. Nor will I run for Senate. I’ve been a good soldier for too long. It is time for me to walk my own path.”
Oh my gosh. Those words…they’re the same ones he’d said last night in my dream. Tell me I didn’t….
Josh broke off reciting the speech to growl, “You put it all in there. Every single private thing I told you. It’s in there.”
It is hard for me to trust—other people. But with you, Neisha….it’s easy.
The memory of his emotional words rose like bile in my throat. “Josh, I can only imagine how betrayed you feel. Let me explain…”
“You think I feel betrayed?” He slammed the A5 papers down on the table and stood up. “This goes beyond betrayal. You used me. Used what I said. For what? Some speech? Did you want to laugh behind my back and tell all your cronies on your side of the aisle about how you convinced me not to run?”
“No!” I answered, taking the quilt with me as I scrambled out of bed. “That’s not how my talent works! I just want you to be happy. But unfortunately, when I decide not to write a speech, sometimes my subconscious makes me write it anyway.”
I cringed and admitted, “This isn’t something I talk about with clients. Or anyone ever. But this isn’t the first time I’ve woken up to the speech I really wanted to write fully typed out. It’s just that it’s usually sitting on my computer where the client never has to see it unless I want them to. And even if I agree with every word I wrote for you, I would never have forced it on you. Not like this.”
Josh squinted at me. “Are you tr
ying to tell me you sleep wrote this speech?”
“Um….” I tried and tried to come up with a better answer. But in the end, all I could say was, “Yes.”
Josh stared at me for a cold, hard beat.
Then he said, “I knew this was a mistake. I met a woman, and she was perfect for me. Sunny personality, great family, famous for reasons that weren’t lurid. And best of all, she’d had a crush on me for years. She’d written me all these Christmas cards, and they were the highlight of my years—not the month, but the whole damn year. Her cards were what I looked forward to the most in life. So when I finally met my secret admirer, I should have been ecstatic.”
I stared at him, so confused. It sounded like he was talking about me. But the details were off…
“But am I back in Virginia with her. Romancing her like she deserves? No! For some reason, I decided to come up here to you and sabotage it. What was I thinking, betraying Shelby like that?”
Wait a minute. He wasn’t talking about me. He was talking about Shelby. Shelby Summers. My worst enemy.
But how? Why?
The answer dropped down on me like a boulder along with the memory of the note from Dante that Shelby, not he, had written.
Shelby Summers had somehow found out about my Christmas cards and claimed to be Josh’s secret admirer. Of course, she had. A woman like Shelby was the opposite of me. I was dark and small, the kind of timid creature who’d hide in the cave of my secret love for years. Meanwhile, she was blonde and golden as the sun.
Of course, she’d claim the Christmas cards I’d written as hers. She’d do anything to win.
Words vibrated in my throat, aching to get out. But the memory of something Josh had said stopped.
“She’s perfect for me,” he’d said.
And he was right. I couldn’t bear politicking outside of speechwriting, but Shelby would fit right into his political life. She’d look and act perfectly on the arm of a U.S. Senator. And having a celebrity for a girlfriend would be enough to flip his state seat—Josh wouldn’t even need me to write his speeches.