Within These Walls (Within These Walls #1)(67)

“I’m sleeping with you.”

“Thank God,” he answered, a relieved breath of air escaping his lungs.

I walked past him, grinning, and entered the bedroom.

Like the few other places of the apartment I’d seen, the bedroom was sparse in its decoration. It fit what I knew of Jude. Alone and lonely for so long, I didn’t expect to walk into something out of a Pottery Barn catalog. His room was neat and tidy with no dirty piles of clothes or trash lying around. His bed was made, and he had a small dresser in the corner.

I set my duffel bag on the dark blue comforter and zipped open the top to pull out the giant Ziploc of pill bottles.

“Old people have nothing on me,” I joked, opening the top to sort through the different bottles.

He settled down on the bed and watched me. “If they keep you here, in my arms, it doesn’t matter.”

I found the three bottles I needed for lunch and turned to face him. His hands moved up my legs as I slid into his lap. I loved the feel of his arms around me.

“That’s all I want,” I said. “To stay in your arms forever.”

His arms tightened, and conviction laced his words as he spoke, “You will, I promise.”

I only hoped he was right.

The alarm on his watch went off two more times throughout the afternoon, and I couldn’t help but laugh at his dedication.

“Did you steal my hospital chart?” I asked when the second alarm went off.

“I didn’t have to steal it,” he scoffed. “I’m a hospital official. I just went in and looked.” A grin spread across his face.

“Well, you’re not going to wear that watch all the time, are you?” I asked, sinking down into his lap on the couch.

“No,” he said softly. “I think I could ditch it at bedtime.”

The tip of his nose skimmed the curve of my neck, making me shiver. My lips parted, and my eyes fluttered closed. His hands closed around my waist and squeezed. Then, he lifted me up onto my feet. I opened my eyes to meet his cocky grin.

“Dinner first,” he said.

My mouth curved into a pout.

He laughed, tapping on his watch. “Okay, okay…stupid watch.”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me in the direction of the kitchen.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I thought we’d do another meal in. We can go out tomorrow, but I’m not ready to share you yet.”

Yes, please.

“Sounds good,” I answered, watching the way his butt moved as he walked ahead of me. I definitely wasn’t ready to share him either.

Could I just hold him hostage in here forever?

“Do you want to help me make dinner?”

“Yes, absolutely. Are we making pizza again?” I asked, grinning.

I remembered him saying he’d had to get directions on how to make it, so I was curious on what he was going to cook up tonight.

“Nope, no pizza. We are making baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans.”

“Did you go to chef school while I was in the hospital?” I asked, sitting down on a stool he’d placed in the kitchen for me.

After pulling several things out of the fridge, he turned to me. “Asking you to stay with me wasn’t a rash decision. I’d been planning it, hoping, and praying for it. I knew you’d get out of that hospital one day, and I hoped that when you did, you’d come home with me, so I wanted to be prepared,” he admitted.

“You learned how to cook for me?”

“I just did some Internet browsing. It wasn’t that hard. I looked up basic recipes, bought groceries for a change, and tried a few things.”

I stood up, took the things he had in his hands, and set them down on the small counter. “You learned how to cook for me.”

“Yeah, I guess I kind of did.” He smiled.

“I don’t know what to do with that,” I said in bewilderment.

“Help me.” He laughed.

“You got it!”

He made me sit the entire time, but I managed to help wash potatoes and chop them up. Once again, we made a good team, working in tandem as we talked and laughed. A day hadn’t gone by where I didn’t learn something new about him, and vice versa. Every little new thing I’d learned was like falling in love with him all over again.

Dinner was fantastic, and I thought even Jude was pleasantly surprised. I offered to help clean up, and he adamantly turned me down. He picked me up and settled me onto the couch to rest. I watched TV until I heard the dishwasher start running, and then I felt his fingers slide up my legs.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” he asked.

“No,” I answered, shutting the TV off.

I placed the remote on the floor and gently moved my feet before coming up onto my knees. I crawled over to where he was sitting. He silently watched as I moved over him. I slowly straddled his waist while his hands found my bare skin.

“Are you sure, Lailah?” he asked, his voice heavy with emotion.

“Yes.”

The second the word was spoken, his mouth came down on mine—devouring, licking, and tasting me. With his hand around my waist, he stood, and I coiled my legs around him. Our kissing briefly faltered as he stopped along the way to his bedroom to press me against the hallway wall to remove his shirt.

After he stumbled us into the bedroom, he placed me down on the bed. It was the first time I’d seen him completely shirtless, and I took it all in. The dark scrolling pattern going up his forearm continued over his massive bicep and went around his shoulder. I wanted to trace it with my fingers and lick it with my tongue.