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I don’t want to fall asleep. I don’t want to miss a second of this time we have together, but fatigue creeps up on me and I wake with a jolt when I feel myself moving.

Or, rather, when I feel myself being moved. His weight is no longer pressing down on me. His warm comfort is no longer surrounding me just as I asked him to do, and I feel cold in the absence of how I fell asleep.

I shiver in his arms.

“Shh,” Cooper soothes. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” It takes me a moment to realize he’s carrying me through the hotel suite. My eyes focus out the window, where the bright lights of the resorts flash in the dark night sky.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask.

“To bed.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” I say, and I yawn as I completely contradict my own words.

He chuckles. “Neither do I. I don’t want this night to end, but I thought we’d be more comfortable in the bed.”

I’m sure he’s right, but now that I got a short nap in, I feel ready for more.

I’ve never been in a relationship like this before—one where I’m constantly raring to go, but also one where we can have a conversation and we can laugh together and we can feel ourselves falling further and further down into a place neither of us will ever be able to climb out of.

He sets me down gently on the bed, and I climb under the covers. I’m still naked, and he takes his jeans off before he slides into bed beside me.

We lie facing each other, staring at each other wordlessly, as if we’re both in awe that this is actual reality right now and not some dream we’re about to wake up from. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to be in the bed. Maybe I’m afraid I really will wake up and he won’t be here and I’ll feel that same sense of heartbreak when I realize it was all just a figment of my imagination.

I reach out and run my fingertips along his jawline, the rough scruff there scratching my fingertips, and I know it’s real. The delicious ache of my body after being thoroughly fucked on the couch is another sign that this is real.

And the love I feel for him, that overwhelming sense that I’ve never felt before…that makes it feel awfully real, too.

His eyes study me as I touch him, my fingertips dropping from his jaw down to his neck, along his collarbone, around his shoulder, and down to his bicep, where my palm settles for a beat. I watch my fingertips, and he watches me.

“What are you thinking about?” he murmurs.

My eyes move to his as I go for honesty. “Just trying to figure out whether this is real or a dream.”

One side of his lips curls up into a partial smile.

“You?” I ask.

He blinks, and then his eyes flick to my lips for a beat. “All night I’ve been thinking about how stupid I’ve been.”

My brows knit together. “Why?”

“For pushing you away. For thinking I could give this up. For acting like what we started a few weeks ago isn’t the best thing I’ve ever had in my life.” He shakes his head a little as if he can’t quite grasp all we’ve been through, and when he speaks again, his voice is a little lower. “I’m also thinking I don’t know how long we’ll be able to hide it. These feelings, this thing between us…it’s big, and it shines. It’s bright and bold, Gabby, and your father is a smart man.”

“I know he is,” I say with a little nod. “And I don’t want to deceive him, but I also think it’s okay for the two of us to revel in our secret a while before we need to tell anyone anything. I think when the time is right, when we’re both ready…that’s when we tell him. But for now, he needs to know what’s going on between the two of us as much as I need to know about the club he runs.”

He freezes a beat, surprised that I brought it up. “The club,” he finally repeats.

I nod. “My father’s a smart man, and maybe that’s where I get it.” I lift a shoulder. “You told me once that the friend who offered you a job owns a sex club.”

“It’s not a sex club, per se. It’s a place where celebrities and athletes can congregate without the general public looking in. The first floor is pretty rad, if I’m being honest, but I didn’t go beyond that. From what I gathered, the second floor is a high-rent strip club, and the third is where optional extracurricular activities happen.”

“Sex?”

He lifts a shoulder and nods at the same time, and I wrinkle my nose. He takes the opportunity to press a kiss to the tip of it while it’s still wrinkled. “We never have to go there.”

I make a face like I just ate something rotten. “We never will go there. My father owns it?”

“He’s part owner along with Victor Bancroft, James McKinney, and some silent business partner from Vegas,” he says.

So an actor, a famous rock star, and a businessman along with an athlete. Interesting combination of people.

“It’s not my thing,” he says. “Your father, he does a lot of business there on the first floor. What he or anybody else does on the other floors is none of my business. Your father is also the manager of the Vegas Heat, and that’s pretty fucking kickass.”

“And your boss,” I remind him.

“And one of my closest friends,” he finishes. “I won’t be able to hide this smile for long, and when you’re with somebody for an entire season, plus the pre-season…let’s just say men chat in the locker room.”

“Are you okay with this?” I ask.

His eyes flick to my lips again before moving back to mine, and they’re a little cloudy when he finally answers. “I have to be. We tried the alternative, and it just isn’t an option.”

He drops his lips to mine and kisses me softly, sensually, luxuriously…as if we have all the time in the world.

And maybe we do—just as long as we can keep it a secret.