I smiled, humming under my breath. We turned more fully onto our sides, facing each other. He reached for my leg and hooked it over his waist, pulling me flush against him. “I know it was technically your fantasy, but there was a point last night where it felt like my body had ascended onto like an astral plane. And I was levitating and orgasming all at once.”

He laughed, low and teasing. “I don’t know what an astral plane is, but I think I was there too.”

I thought he might lean in for another sexy kiss. But he merely pressed his lips to my forehead, held them there for a few seconds. The sweet, tender gesture did surprising things to my heart rate, had me yearning for a closeness I often ran from.

“My cuteness research not withstanding…it was okay with you that I stayed last night?” I asked quietly—the barest tiptoe up to those rules and boundaries.

His eyes dropped away from mine. The glimpse of vulnerability there had me nervous until he refocused. “It was very much okay with me.” He paused. “And…you were okay too?”

“Totally,” I said, with way too much excitement given the early hour. “Cuddling is a fun activity, right? And it was certainly spontaneous. Fits our work hard/play hard plan to a T now that I think about it.”

“It does,” he said slowly. “And I had fun too. A lot of it.”

I moved even closer to Dean, feeling weird about my cowardly response. This was not a conversation I usually balked at. Or had ever balked at. This brief, vague exchange wasn’t even close to a boundaries-and-rules conversation.

“You, uh, did snore. Loudly.”

I froze. “I did not.”

“Took all of the blankets. Left me to shiver for hours.”

I poked him in the chest until he looked back up again with barely repressed mirth. “You got jokes all the time now, huh? I bet I was the perfect specimen of sleep loveliness.”

His throat worked. “You were. You could be on your own magazine.”

I preened. “For being lovely?”

“For snoring.”

I burst out laughing. “Dean Knox-Morelli.”

He gathered me back against his chest, and I could feel the wicked shape of his lips as he kissed down my face. “If there was a magazine dedicated to being too beautiful for words,” he said against my skin, “you’d grace every cover, Tabitha.”

I buried my face in the crook of his neck to hide my tomato-red blush. My heart opened another fraction of an inch. I couldn’t have stopped it even if I wanted to.