Her feelings for him were developing at an unexpected rate. Fast. This was fast. But also…right. Which was definitely scary, considering he didn’t know about her lost audition with Bexley. How she’d planned to use Leo to get another. Nor did he know she wasn’t a successfully employed Broadway dancer, she was merely one of thousands of hopefuls, her deadline clock ticking ominously in the back of her mind. The hole she’d dug had reached her neck, but no amount of guilt or dread could force her into ruining these perfect moments with him.

She’d resolved to tell him everything as soon as she got hired. As soon as there was no question about her intentions. But after this morning’s disastrous audition, that reality seemed further out of reach than before. Another reality moving further out of reach? One where she and Leo weren’t compatible and didn’t want to see each other again. With every passing moment, that didn’t merely seem unlikely. More like impossible.

How long was she expecting to drag out this pretense?

What if she never got hired?

Banishing the troubling thoughts from her mind for later, Reese followed Leo to the bed, slowing to a stop in front of him. Because nothing between them ever seemed to feel awkward, she gave in to the impulse to lean in and smell the hair-dappled skin between his pectoral muscles. “Are you going to get comfortable?” she asked, easing back to nod at his jeans, complete with belt buckle.

“Comfortable might be a stretch,” he rasped, his mouth resting on her temple.

His chest was so warm, she couldn’t help leaning against it, absorbing the heat. “It doesn’t seem fair that I’m the only one who gets to be without pants on this nap date.”

For once, she had no idea where a situation was heading.

Were they really going to nap?

Were they going to have sex?

No clue. Everything between them moved in an addictively organic fashion and this moment before they climbed into bed together was no different. There was no mistaking his hard-on. It curved the fly of his jeans, straining the button. She was sorely tempted to reach down and pop the button, lower the zipper, slide her hand inside the denim and memorize his response to her first stroke, but there was something more unique to them in the pauses. The lack of rush. The letting things happen.

So Reese boosted herself onto the bed and waited, cool silence surrounding them.

Leo watched her in that serious way, his hands eventually moving to his belt, unbuckling and letting the leather sides sag within their loops, unbuttoning next and pulling down the zipper. Her mouth opened on an involuntary puff of breath over the way his shaft swelled into the opening, hugged tightly in the black cotton of his briefs.

Boxer briefs, she amended, when he pushed down the jeans and stepped out, kicking them aside. Neither one of them moved right away, simply taking each other in, Leo’s gaze tracing the lines of her dangling legs, her attention mostly riveted by his hands. The way they flexed, but made no move to touch her, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Finally, he circled around to the other side of the bed and climbed in under the covers, the weight of his attention resting on her spine.

Tingling with more awareness she ever knew was possible, Reese swung her legs up onto the bed, tucking them into the cool, smooth sheets and fluffy comforter, inwardly moaning over the comfort of this bed compared to the beanbag chair she’d been sleeping on. She rolled onto her back and looked at Leo, finding him watching her in the near darkness, and they just kind of gravitated in one another’s direction, the way they always seemed to do.

They met in the middle of the bed and he shifted slightly, offering his shoulder as an even better pillow—and she went, her nose tucking naturally into his neck, inhaling him without subtlety. Their thighs were next, pressing, hard against smooth, his erection a thick column between their stomachs. They’d only been lying that way for a moment, breaths growing choppy, when the fingertips of Leo’s right hand dragged up the outside of her thighs slowly, traveling the valley of her side, the featherlight touch making her damp. So damp between her legs that she gasped, pressing closer.

And their mouths were simply powerless to do anything but find one another in the darkness, their bodies shifting to accommodate the kiss. The hungry energy of it. Her fingers curled in the waistband of his boxers, urging him closer, his right hand twisting in the T-shirt material covering her back.

“Maybe we’ll be able to nap if we…” Reese started, whispering the words against his mouth. “Exert some of this energy.”

They fell into another explosive kiss that took a full minute to break, both of them pulling apart, gasping. “Is that what you want?”

Her nod was painfully enthusiastic. Or it would have been painful with anyone else but Leo. Their need matched like it had been cut from the same cloth. Her leg rose to drape over his hip, his hands catching it mid-move, already anticipating her, and they rolled, Reese ending up on her back, thighs clinging to his waist, both of them fumbling with the hem of her borrowed T-shirt to get it off, every second that passed without their skin touching unbearable.

They could barely stop kissing long enough to get the material over her head, their tongues in a constant, sensual tangle. When they finally came up for air and managed to remove the garment, Leo’s expression of bald male lust seared itself into her memory for all time. “I didn’t have a change of panties in the bag,” Reese managed, explaining her total nudity around labored breaths. “Or a bra.”

“I’m not complaining. I’m the opposite of complaining.” His palm stroked downward from the between her breasts, brushing her belly and traveling back upward to take her right breast in his hand, molding it with just the right amount of pressure, the intensity on his face making her pulse quicken. “Christ, Reese. You’re so fucking beautiful.”

“I feel that way. When you look at me.” Wow. That was easily the most vulnerable thing she’d ever said during an intimate moment…and she didn’t feel any less secure for it. The reverse, actually. The connection between them only burned hotter, brighter, Leo swooping down to claim her mouth for another kiss.

They made out. Naked, except for Leo’s boxers. It went on for hours. It lasted minutes. She had no idea when her thoughts were tilting and spinning, wrapped up in this man. No one’s touch came close to the buzz she got from dancing. Until now. This was better. Leo Bexley’s mouth, the substantial weight of his body pressing her down, his hardness rocking against her sex again, again, again made her higher than dance.