I saw his face just a moment before my eyes floated closed because he was kissing me, soft and sweet and sated and unhurried.

That kiss said we had now, and tomorrow, and the next day, and week, and years and years besides.

It was a kiss that said this was our beginning, and there might never be an end.

That kiss wasn’t a promise or a vow.

It was just reality.

The here and now.

And forever.

I wasn’t just moved by that gorgeous kiss.

I was shattered by it at the same time it held me together.

He was the only man who’d ever kissed me like that.

And I had a strong feeling deep in my heart that he was going to be the last man who would not only kiss me like that.

But kiss me at all.

He broke our kiss, slid his nose down the side of mine, over, down the other side, and God.

God.

He was perfect.

Everything.

“No more sleeping on the couch,” I said quietly.

He lifted a hint away and grinned at me. “Right.”

“Do you have tomorrow off?”

He nodded.

“Will you spend it with me?”

“Absolutely.”

I trailed my hands up his back, over his ribs, up his chest, his neck and cupped both his cheeks.

“You’re beautiful too,” I told him.

A glitter hit the ice of his eyes.

“Thanks, baby,” he replied.

“That was awesome,” I said.

“Yeah it was,” he agreed.

“I would say it’s a case for delayed gratification, but I don’t want you to wait three days before we do it again.”

“Three months,” he corrected.

“Three months,” I relented.

“Maybe six.”

I laughed softly.

“Felt like ten years,” he muttered.

“Totally,” I concurred.

“Need to deal with this condom, honey,” he said.

That surprised me.

“You put on a condom?”

“Yeah. You missed it. You were in the zone of showing me how to tongue fuck your mouth.”

Like he needed me to show him.

He did not.

I just encouraged it.

“I sense you probably already knew.”

“Always good to have a refresher.”

I grinned at him.

He kissed the grin on my face, slid off me, but rolled me to my side, closing my legs and catching me behind my knees with his arm to curl them up for maximum comfort.

Yeah, I should have known that was something Axl would do.

Not leave the bed with me spread eagle and make me move my own limbs.

Looking after me.

Taking care of me.

Thinking of everything.

I watched him hitch up his cargos that he hadn’t fully taken off and disappear in the hall on his way to the bathroom.

I then saw movement, shifted my gaze, and Cleo jumped on the arm of the chair.

Her tail twitched and she shared her hearty disapproval of the recent activities.

When Axl returned, still in cargos, but sans his boots and socks, Cleo turned her attention to her daddy and communicated her revulsion of our carnality with an irate flick of her tail that Axl didn’t miss.

“Sorry, my queen, you’re gonna have to get used to it,” he warned his cat.

Mm.

Another irate tail flick.

Axl put one knee in the bed, and suddenly I was all tangled up in him, mostly on my back, partly on my side, all of him on me.

Snuggly.

Nice.

“Bummed you have to go to work,” he said to my lips.

“I don’t have to leave for hours,” my lips told him.

His gaze lifted to my eyes. “But I have to fuel you before you go.”

“Will you stay?”

“Sorry?”

“For the show? Will you watch me dance? I’ll sit with you when I don’t have to prep for my next one.”

A change came over his handsome face.

A gorgeous change.

This before he said softly, “I’d love that.”

I loved that he’d love that.

I’d love it too.

I didn’t have any deep, abiding messages to send to him through any of the numbers I had planned for that night, but I wanted to know his eyes were on me as I was doing what I loved to do.

He slid the hair off the side of my face, my neck, then wound his fingers in it, his eyes watching.

I pressed closer and Axl adjusted his long legs in mine, the scrape of the material of his pants against my skin wildly erotic.

This meant I fitted my hips more closely to his.

His attention went from my hair to my face.

“That was big, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“It was big,” he confirmed.

At his confirmation, feelings overwhelmed me. Feelings so huge, it was good I was lying down, or they would have brought me to my knees.

I dipped my head, pressed my face in his throat and his fingers sifted into my hair.

“You okay?” he asked, his lips in the top of my hair.

“I don’t know what this feeling is, but I do know it’s a whole lot more than okay.”

His arm around me squeezed tight.

“It’s always been big, what’s between us, you know?” he whispered into my hair.

Oh, I knew.

Kiss me like you mean it.

Not once, not a single kiss, not even a lip touch, did he ever kiss me like he didn’t mean it.

I nodded.

“The first time I saw you dance,” he said.

I closed my eyes.

That was when it happened for him.

The first time he saw me dance.

For me?

When he walked into that studio, trying to pretend everything was cool, and I knew he’d seen me lose it, and the expression on his face said he wanted to sweep me away.

Take me someplace safe.

Slay dragons for me.

No one had ever looked at me like that in my life.

So yeah.

That was when it happened for me too.

“Yeah,” I said against his skin.

“You’re remarkable, Hattie.”

I flattened my hand against his back, pressing in.

My voice was husky when I said, “You too.”

“No, listen to me, hear me, baby, you’re remarkable, Hattie.”

I pulled my face out of his throat, tipped my head back, slid my hand up into his hair and drew his mouth down to mine.

I kissed him.

And I meant it.