SLEEPING BEAUTY

I’m about to pull back when Nicole murmurs, “Don’t make me leave, Nathan.”

My heart trips over itself.

She’s dreaming about me. And in the dream, I’m turning my back on her.

“I won’t,” I promise, stroking her hair. “I won’t, sweetheart.”

“The purple dinosaurs will get me,” she says. And then she mumbles a string of truly unintelligible words.

So maybe it doesn’t mean anything that she’s dreaming about me. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything at all.

But I don’t pull away. Instead, I fall asleep, cradling her against my chest.

NICOLE

I wake up with a heavy masculine arm draped over my waist, and the drowsy warmth of someone strong and solid at my back.

Nathan.

The memory shoots through me as I remember where I am and who I’m in bed with. I give myself one moment to savor all that luxurious, masculine heat at my back. I’m only human.

Then I try to slip away.

It doesn’t work. Instead, Nathan tightens his arm, pulling me flush against him, instinctively nuzzling into my neck. I shift against hi