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.