So I’m holding my breath and hoping he doesn’t wake up. I want to look my fill without worrying he’ll read too much into it. The first night I saw him, I wasn’t even sure he was handsome. Boy, was I wrong. He’s gorgeous. Everything is prominent. His nose. His wide mouth and full lips. His high cheekbones. It’s almost too much, like the man himself. Too gifted. Too smart. Too funny. Too . . . right. And yet, so wrong for me. I’d lose myself in Rhyson. Before I’d know it, I’d be off on his world tour, following behind him and neglecting my own dreams just to be with him. I’d sink everything into him, and I’ve seen firsthand where that leads.

“Kai,” he mumbles my name in his sleep but doesn’t wake up.

Does he dream about me? Does he think about me as many times a day as I think about him? Does his heart skip beats when he knows we’ll see each other?

His arms tighten around me, and I don’t have the resolve to wake him up. His big hands run up and down my back, warm through the thin tank top I put on after work last night for the Sex and the City marathon. I haven’t been touched like this . . . ever. I’ve had a few boyfriends. Slept with a few guys, but even in his sleep, Rhyson is so tender with me. His hands move under the tank top until they caress my bare skin.

I’ll wake him up soon. I promise myself I will, but I can’t yet. It feels too good. One hand drifts down until he’s cupping my butt. I want to push my hips into him, relieve this pressure building between my legs. He groans, a frown pulling his dark brows together.

“Pep.” His sleep-husky voice seduces away what remains of my common sense. I slide my hands under his T-shirt. Oh, God. The lean muscles of his back flex beneath my fingers. He bends his head until his lips trace my neck. The layer of scruff on his chin is a prickly, tickly, tantalizing burn across my skin. Being touched by him, being kissed by him, even just on the neck, is heaven.

“Mmmmm.” He moans against my collarbone, eyes still tightly closed.

I have to stop this. He shouldn’t be kissing my neck. He shouldn’t be stroking my back. For the love of God, he should not be twisting my nipple between those long, gifted fingers, but he is. I push my breast deeper into his palm, needing the pressure. Needing his touch. An electric thread pulls taut from my breasts to my core. He hasn’t even kissed me, but I’m wet through my pajama bottoms. Embarrassingly wet, and I want his fingers on me. Pushing inside me until the world around me goes prismatic with an orgasm I know will be more spectacular than anything I’ve ever felt before.

I want him, but I can’t have him. Not and be who I want to be. Not and do the things I want to do. There’s too much of him. Not just physically. His presence. His talent. His fame. It’s this fabulous vacuum I won’t be sucked into. I’m afraid if I have him completely, he’ll take all of me.

I ease myself away, inch by careful inch, making sure not to wake him. My body mourns the loss of his hands and lips, his warmth, but I pull back until I can stand on shaky legs. I allow myself one last look. He settles back into the cushions, long lashes fanning down to cover the shadows I noticed earlier under his eyes. So much of his life happens late at night in studios while most people are sleeping. One day that’ll be me. The shadows under my eyes will be from doing what I love, what I’m meant to do. Not from waiting tables, teaching high school students dance routines, and reconciling Grady’s accounts.

It’s rare to have a break from all my jobs at once. And if Rhyson hadn’t come, I’d be spending the day exactly the way he predicted. Doing laundry. Instead, I get a day at the beach with the wind in my hair.

Speaking of hair, mine’s a rat’s nest. My tongue is covered in mink, and Rhyson may still smell good, but an investigative sniff under my arms confirms that I don’t.

Thirty minutes later, I smell like the pear cinnamon soap Mama sold in the diner. I’ve been meaning to get the recipe from Aunt Ruthie. I’m down to my last three bars. When that soap runs out, it’ll be one more piece of Mama I’ve lost forever. If I can make another batch, replicate her recipe, I’ll be able to hold on to that bit just a while longer.

With damp hair hanging down my back, I slip on a black bikini top and a pair of old cut offs. I have no idea how to dress. The smell of brewing coffee tantalizes my senses and pulls my caffeine-deprived body toward the kitchen.

Rhyson has such a great ass. It’s the first thing I notice when I enter the kitchen. His back—and ass—are to me as he scrambles eggs. His hair, per usual, dips and flops over his eyes and around his ears. My fingers itch to wind through its thick, not-quite-curliness. He grins at me over his shoulder.

“Morning.” His smile drops away and his eyes scroll down my body, lingering on my breasts in the bikini top and the length of my legs. “You look great.”

“Yeah, right.” I fold my arms under my breasts, self-conscious under his stare. “I’m not sure what I should wear.”

“What you’re wearing’s fine.” He draws in a deep breath. “And you smell great too. What’s that scent you always wear?”

“Pear cinnamon,” I say softly. “My mom used to make it.”

He crosses the small kitchen to stand in front of me.

“I like it.” He leans in to inhale at my neck. “A lot.”

Our glances tangle when he pulls back, and my breath hitches. He pushes my arms away so his thumb can venture over the skin covering my ribs. Every inch of skin he touches ignites like he’s branding me with his gentleness.

“You have a tattoo,” he says softly, voice rough from sleep or this moment sizzling between us. I’m not sure which.

I glance down at the cursive ink just beneath my breasts and over my ribs. My skin feels so alive beneath his touch I expect to see the ink move and dance under his fingers.

“My soul to keep?” He pulls his eyes from the script back up to me. “What’s that?”

“Um, it’s part of a prayer my mom used to say with me before I’d go to sleep.” His drags his knuckles over the skin, and I have to dedicate half my neurons to not wrapping myself around him like a koala. “You know that prayer they teach you as kids.”

“Nah, we didn’t learn any prayers as kids. Ever.”

“Not even grace?”

“No, my family’s not religious at all. Unless you count music as our religion. That, we’re fanatical about.” He crosses over to the stove, giving me back some space and air to breathe, and starts dividing the eggs between two plates. “Your family was religious?”

“Well, it’s small-town Georgia, the Bible belt and all, so that’s the rule, not the exception.” I sit down at the table, composing myself and saying a quick grace, something I haven’t done in a long time. My sagging faith would disappoint Mama.

“My grandfather was a pastor.” I sip my orange juice before continuing. “He and my Grams couldn’t have kids. They’d tried their whole marriage and were in their forties when they took that mission trip to Korea.”

“That’s cool.”

“Yeah.” Memories of my grandparents make me smile. “They were something else. Pops, that’s what I called my grandfather, said they took one look at Mama and knew she was theirs. Come to think of it, he said the same thing about Grammy.”

“That’s amazing.” He props one elbow on the table and holds his chin, eyes never leaving mine. “Just knowing you want someone right away like that.”

The way he looks at me as if nothing else in the room interests him at all is addictive. I know because I want it all the time now.

“Yep.” A laugh breezes across my lips as I drag my fork uselessly through the eggs on my plate. “Mama was just two days old when they found her. So yeah, she grew up a PK, a pastor’s kid.”

“And she kept the whole religion thing going with you?”

“Her faith was strong. Mine, not as much anymore. She married a pastor too.” My fork clatters on the plate when I drop it abruptly. “My father took over the church, Glory Falls Baptist, when Pops retired.”