“Let it state, for the record, that you started the comatose cuddling.”

The deep voice, rough from sleep, is muffled against my hair, and my brain struggles to fire enough synapses to make sense of the words.

Cuddling?

One of those yawns that feels like it rumbles up from my belly makes my muscles shiver as I stretch. In the middle, I freeze like a teenager having sex in their parents’ car when a branch suddenly snaps.

I’m sprawled across the bed.

The bed I forced Grady to share with me after he insisted I couldn’t take the couch.

The bed I’d built a barrier of pillows straight down the middle of.

My head is on his chest, his heartbeat steady under my ear while my own is rabbiting.

The hair on his calf tickles the bottom my foot and yep, that’s my arm slung across his hard abs with my hand tucked under his ribs.

I should move, have to move, but humiliation is heavy.

“It was me that moved the pillow though. You were snuffling and I feared suffocation.”

Which explains why my breasts are smooshed against his side. Less why my nipples are so tight he has to feel them.

And now that I’m feeling them…

Shit. Not a good night for happy dreams about naked rock stars.

But what did I expect, trying to be nice by risking sleeping next to one when he smelled so good? He smells even better now, his spicy cologne mellowing on his sleep-warmed skin.

I shift my hips, wondering just how much of the achy I-need-to-get-laid reaction he may have detected, and my thigh rubs against soft fabric. Shifting my hips the other way, I realize the other pillow is still between us, the barrier from our hips down still intact.

Not that my leg didn’t venture into neighboring territory with ease.

The relief is so intense every bit of tension poofs out of my body. Which doesn’t help, as now I am once again plastered to Grady.

“So, awake now, yes?”

I nod and realize his nipple is in my ear.

Behold my sexy moves.

I lift my head a bit and try to slink back to my side of the bed where I will dissolve into a puddle of mortification the housekeeping staff will never be able to launder out.

Only Grady presses his fingertips between my shoulder blades. “You don’t have to go anywhere,” he says, even as he stretches, first one leg and then the other, making every muscle in his torso ripple, twice.

Then he yawns, and his jaw cracks before he swallows and softly smacks his lips.

Unlike me, he isn’t mortified at all. When I relax, the fingertips on my back make a few lazy circles and then spread out until his whole hand is against my shoulder blade. After a pause, like he’s waiting to see if it’s okay, he runs his hand as far down my arm as he can reach, then back up to my shoulder. Long, comforting strokes that almost lull me back to sleep.

“You make the cutest little kitteny noises in your sleep.”

My head snaps up. “I do not.”

His body jostles with his laughter. “You so do, these tiny squeaky sounds while you scoot into just the right spot. Then it was all deep even breathing. And a bit of drool.”

My hand gets caught in the sheet as it flies toward my face and I smack myself in the nose.

The flailing continues as I try to push to a sitting position, getting a few grunts and ouches as my knees and elbows prod Grady. Mostly though, he laughs.

I finally manage to wipe at my face, where there’s just the smallest trace of dried saliva, and narrow my eyes at him.

The smile he’s wearing is one I haven’t seen before. Quiet, content, his eyes soft and his whole posture relaxed. He stretches his arms out then props one behind his head.

“I can reach the remote. Want to just be lazy and watch cartoons or something?” His fingertips are making circles again, this time behind my ear after he tucked my hair.

It would be the worst line ever, but it’s not a line at all. One of the biggest rock stars on the planet, half naked in a decadent hotel bed, is seriously asking to hang out and watch cartoons.

Which only makes me want to find out just how dirty he is.

My thoughts have to show because he smirks. The cocky tilt of his mouth I’ve seen before, on stage. His eyes darken, but not with the cocky arrogance I expect.

With heat. The kind that promises every dirty story is true, plus an extra serving of filthy on top of it.

Something low in my belly heats, sending a pulse of desire south until I have to squeeze my thighs tighter. Words are failing me and I’m thinking of bolting when my phone makes a series of beeps.

I dive for it on the side table like it’s a bucket of dirt to put out a grease fire.

By the time I’ve opened and read the text, I’ve also opened the drapes and am gathering clothes out of my bag.

My heart sinks when the message finally sinks in. “Crap.”

“What’s wrong?” Grady is sitting up, the sheet thankfully covering his lap. The last thing I need to know is that his body is reacting like mine.

I swallow despite a suddenly dry throat.

Or worse. That he’s having no reaction at all.

“Evie?” Genuine concern makes me focus on the question.

“Oh. Um. Nothing major. The friend I was supposed to go to that show with tonight can’t make it. There was a costume catastrophe at her show and she has to fix it.”

“I’m sorry. Friend time is important.”

“Yeah.” I send a text back that I understand and will catch up with her the next time I’m in Vegas. “We were in the theater department together at college.” I don’t know why I feel the need to explain.

He nods.

My hands flop around like they’re not even attached to my arms. “It’s not like we’re super close now or anything. We never see each other and crew stuff, so not a huge deal.”

“Evie…”

“It’s fine. I’m going to—” I hitch my thumb over my shoulder. “Get dressed. Or something.”

Scratching my hairbrush over the spot on my neck he over-sensitized does nothing. “You are such a fucking chicken.” My reflection doesn’t respond.

The truth is, I’m not upset over not seeing my friend. She’s one of those high-strung people that drains me in a short amount time.

I didn’t want to go to another thing by myself.

Even as part of a road crew who always thinks they can do everyone else’s jobs, pyrotechnicians get a wide berth.

I work by myself. On days off, I do tourist things by myself. I sleep by myself. Even when I’m home, I don’t have many real friends. They’re acquaintances and contacts and crew people, with hectic, unpredictable schedules doing anything to get another gig.

I love my job, but the past few years, my job has meant more and more isolation instead of the camaraderie it’d brought in high school and college.

I just wanted a little bit of that back, to do one thing not by myself.

My chest constricts so hard my lungs burn from lack of oxygen. I didn’t wake up by myself this morning.

No wonder I’d crawled all over Grady last night. And didn’t move away nearly fast enough this morning.

Knuckles rap on the door before his voice comes through, only slightly muffled by the door. “Do you have a leftover breakfast preference? I ordered coffee. Lots of it. And more strawberries since you liked them so much yesterday.”

I’d eaten every single one. Even the garnishes.

Was it really only yesterday he’d ordered everything on the menu?

My sense of time was already warping the way it does on a tour.

Fuck, my sense of reality was starting to warp.

I lift my face and look at myself in the mirror. I silently debate with myself for only a moment before he raps on the door again.

“Hey, fire woman. You okay?”

I spin and open the door before I can change my mind. “Do you want to go to the show with me tonight? There’s showgirls.”

For the second time today, I see a smile I’ve never seen before. Then he nods. “Fuck yeah.”

***

“Am I dressed okay?”

His uncertainty is adorable. Even fussing with the sleeves on his suit jacket, making sure they’re rolled just right, he exudes confidence. He stops in front of me, opening his arms to the sides, and my gaze catches on his hands, ring free, but the metal studs in a leather band glint on his wrist. Singers don’t get enough credit for their hands.

I snap my eyes back to his face. “Yep. No one would ever suspect you’re a rock star.”

One eyebrow wings up, but his eyes don’t meet mine. “Let’s not go that far. Though I don’t think anyone’s going to be looking at me.” He’s doing a slow perusal of my dress, the only one I have with me. It’s long and flowy and shows off nothing, but that look has a way of making me feel like I’m standing here in a leather push-up bra and stiletto dominatrix boots.

I clear the glob of spit from my throat and shift from one foot to the other. It only makes him zero in on my breasts. The dress has spaghetti straps, so I’m not wearing a bra. Something that isn’t a problem, usually, but the smolder he’s not even aware of throwing at me has my nipples so hard they’re obvious even in the fabric’s busy print.

“So, thanks for being my date tonight. I would have hated the second ticket to go to waste.”

That brings his eyes up, along with both eyebrows and the corner of his mouth, like I’ve surprised him, in a happy way. “Date?”

Shit. Did I say date? “Date? No, not date, date. Friend date,” I stammer.

His face splits into a bright grin. I should have known that wouldn’t put him off. “So we’re friends now?” he asks, taking a step closer. I instinctively take a step away, the backs of my knees hitting the arm of the low couch.

What is it with these fancy hotels and their toddler-height furniture anyway?

“Yeah, we’re friends,” I manage to say, though my stomach is still doing loop-de-loops at the idea of having rock stars for friends.

He’s an armlength away now, close enough I can smell his cologne and soap and that undertone that’s all Grady. His grin has shifted, a version of the rock star grin I haven’t seen before. The primitive part of me that thrills every night at the stage divers and the mosh pit and the girls flashing the band thrills to this as well, an intimate grin that while I’m sure hundreds of other women have seen, feels like it’s just for me.

His voice is lower when he says, “Are we gonna be lovers, Evie?”

My bark of laughter is nerves, not amusement, and by the tilt of his head, he knows it. “C’mon,” I hedge. “We’ve totally doused any possible chemistry, haven’t we?”

“Let’s find out.”

All it takes is a playful push of his fingers to send me falling over the arm of the couch. There’s a suspended moment, right before my back hits the soft cushions, where I’m certain, absolutely positive, that my whole world has changed.

There’s no time to worry at the thought before Grady’s above me, his hands landing on either side of my head to keep his weight from crushing me.

The landing, and the sight of Grady over me, his hair falling forward and framing the deep brown of his eyes, knocks the breath from me.

“Now then.” Shifting his weight to his elbows brings his body lower, his chest brushing mine. The man must have some sort of rock star superpowers, because we’ve landed with my knees far enough apart he’s between them. If I lift my hips just a few inches, I’d be rubbing my parts all over his parts.

My parts really like the idea.

Except for my pulse skittering, I can’t move a muscle. Just watch him, waiting for him to drop that last bit and kiss me.

What he does is nothing so simple.

His long fingers slide into my hair, tingling my scalp. His thumbs brush over my jaw until with the slightest pressure, he tilts my head back.

“I’ve been wondering,” he murmurs, his breath fanning over the small valley at the base of my neck. “When you’re concentrating on something…”

Up the column of my throat, his lips just grazing my skin.

“You rub this spot under your chin…”

The tip of someone’s nose shouldn’t be erotic. Only the way he’s brushing his back and forth under the tip of my chin makes my hips raise. I snap them back down when the fact that he’s hard registers in my brain. So hard.

And now I can’t keep still. I fidget when I get turned on, seeking contact.

Contact right now is a bad idea, I try to tell myself. My traitor body does not give a shit.

“Right here…” His thumb finally finds it. A tiny white scar about half an inch long, several little white dots on the one side.

Then he goes and does it. His tongue touches the spot first, just a soft flick, but it brings my hips up again.

This time, when I force them back down, he lets his body relax, pressing his erection against me. My fidgeting rocks me against him and dear sweet fucking cupcakes, he feels good.

It’s nothing compared to the shock that courses straight to my clit when he kisses my scar, putting just enough suction into it that I buck against him.

“Sensitive little spot, huh?” He’s smug for finding it, the bastard. “How’d you get that?”

It’s hard to string words together as he kisses along the underside of my jaw to my ear, the pad of his thumb replacing his lips against the scar.

“I…I worked at a fireworks company in college,” I stutter. “One went off on the ground. Took a few shards.”

It’s not a great story.

His lips reach my ear, sucking the lobe into his mouth. The grind of my pelvis against his increases.

“Bet that itched like hell as it healed,” he guesses. Not nearly as bad as my skin was itching to feel his at that moment. My dress was suddenly made of the scratchiest material on earth.

I nod, his face coming into focus as he raises his head.

“So you rubbed at the scab, and now it’s a habit.”

Another nod, because his lips are less than an inch from mine now and he’s still circling that spot and damn the man knows how to dry hump a woman.

“A very sensitive habit.”

My tongue swipes across the bow of my upper lip, and his gaze snaps to the motion. “Yeah.” My voice is slow and thick, but another nod would have been pathetic.

“Every little spot you’ve got, Evie. I’m going to find them all.”

It doesn’t matter if it’s a threat or a promise, I should push him to the floor and run like hell.

My hands skim up his sides and into his hair instead. The strands are soft and strong, long enough to brush his collar and cheekbones. Dark, almost black. And currently blocking out the world and every rational thought I should be having.

“I’ve never been one for the slow burn,” he says, his hips flexing so I know just how hard he is. “But with you, it’s so good it can burn me to the fucking bone.”

Relief rushes through first. No matter the outcome, at least the anticipation is over.

He slides into the kiss, slow and easy, soft presses getting deeper as my fingers tighten in his hair. His tongue licks the moan from my lips, teasing mine to lick over the same spot.

Grady tastes like mint and temptation, both flavors getting stronger as I tangle my tongue with his, exploring his mouth then mine.

The man doesn’t just kiss. This isn’t just a means to an end, a prelude to sex. This is an assault, a seduction, an end all on its own.

The slow burn doesn’t need to burn me to the bone. He’s already melted the marrow.

With a quick nip to the corner of my mouth, he lifts his head and blinks at me, looking as stunned as I probably do.

“Tickets. Thing. Yeah. We should go do that.”

I’ve just about caught my breath when he tilts my head back again and takes a lick over my scar. “We’ll do more of this later.”