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"What about Mel?" I choke on her name.

Josie shakes her head. "You replaced her face when I…" Her palm is on my neck, a languid caress. "When I went to sleep at night." She swallows. "I shouldn't drink around you anymore."

She tries to turn away from me, but I hold her face. "Are you telling me you touched yourself thinking of me—for months?"

"It's only physical, Florence. I don't—"

"I don't care," I rasp, crashing my lips against hers.

She pulls away, looking at me with a ravenous hunger. "Up." Her voice is raw as she backs me up against the table and puts her hands on my waist.

She presses herself between my legs, her body suddenly hot against me. Her soft lips brush against mine. The taste of Josie and sweet wine overwhelms me.

She puts a finger under my chin, pressing up as her mouth finds the contour of my neck. Then she nuzzles the delicate skin, inhaling deeply and releasing an almost agonized sigh before she licks my skin. The heat of her tongue tickles, her hot breath sending waves of intense desire to my core.

My legs instinctively wrap around her hips, and my moans tangle with hers as she trails open-mouth kisses along my jawline, to the hollow of my neck.

I reach for her breast through too many layers of fabric, but she grabs my wrists, pinning them to the table behind me. "You don't touch. Not yet." Her voice is low, possessive. Her hand moves to cup the side of my head, holding my neck firmly against her mouth. The other hikes my dress up, fingernails raking up the inside of my thigh, making me shiver.

I open, desperate for her. Her palm grinds against me, setting me on fire as her fingers rake over my soaking panties.

"Josie, please. Fuck me. I need you inside me."

Her breath is already short and erratic. She nips lightly at my neck as she slides her hand inside the silk. "You're dripping."

She sounds wrecked.

Her fingers slip through my folds, coating her in my juices before she slides a finger inside me.

I buck against her hand. "More, Josie. Please."

Panting as she slides a second, then a third finger to fill me, I race toward the edge. She slows down, deeper, harder, pulling me back from the edge, teasing me closer, then pulling back again.

"Josie, please," I beg.

"Please what?" she asks, hot breath in my ear.

"Look at me." I need to see inside her soul. "Kiss me."

The depths of her eyes push me over the edge.

22

Josie

The phone rings, and I pull the pillow over my head. The sun's not even up.Who would be calling so early?

Beside me, Florence groans. She reaches for the phone."Ciao, bella."She yawns loudly. "It's early. You okay?"

I hear rapidfire Italian on the other end of the line as she relaxes against me. Nothing wrong, then.

"No, it's fine. It was just a late night. The charity dinner was last night." She reaches over and gives me a quick kiss. "My sister," she whispers before going back to her conversation in a hushed voice. "It's complicated," she says into the phone in Italian. "She's my girlfriend, but publicly she's my fiancée." She explains the situation with Woodhouse and the social media mess. "Yes, I like her a lot." My Italian may be rusty, but the time I spent in Venice my junior year in high school wasn'tthatlong ago.

I pull away from her and get out of bed. I was in no shape to drive last night, and after I postponed class with Renna, I'dplanned to sleep in the guest room. Until Florence begged, and I gave in to my insatiable need to trace my fingertips along her neckline, to taste her skin. I spent months after that night five years ago, thinking about her in that red dress, her luscious bare neck on display for everyone to see. Thinking about her—fantasizing about her—while I brought myself to climax, or while Ruby got me off. She was the reason I stopped fantasizing about Mel.

But Florence's feelings for me grow every time we see each other—I can see it in the way she looks at me. It's probably because she doesn't have any friends or anyone close to her—but it's not healthy to encourage that, especially since we're stuck together for the next year. I only agreed to sleep in her bed with her once we both had a T-shirt and shorts on—mine borrowed, obviously. She was grumpy about not getting me off, but I was sated enough by worshiping her body and feeling her come around my fingers.

"Come back to bed," she says quietly. "I'll be off the phone soon. Promise."