Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
I log off and kill the light on the ring stand but leave my phone in the holder.
“Getting laid, huh?” I mutter, flopping back down onto the chaise longue. “Not likely. Not tonight.”
Judah and I have talked or texted most days since… the sex, but we haven’t seen each other at all. We’ve both been busy. During the week, his sons are home, and their care takes a lot of time. I understand that. Between chauffeuring Inez and Lottie back and forth to Harrington, getting up early for gymnastics, staying late for clubs, and volunteering on parent committees, not to mention all the brand work I’ve taken on lately to make sure the ends keep meeting, when would we have had time to re-create the coital magic, so to speak?
And am I even down for that happening again?
My body screams Yeeeeeessss, bitch. You definitely are.
Making love with Judah uncorked something in me. I was horny before, sure, but this is different. I know exactly how Judah feels inside me. How he sounds when he comes. How ferocious and selfless and patient he is as a lover. My body wants that again and again and again and as many times as I can have it.
My mind is not as sure. My heart wants to be left out of it—let my body and mind fight it out because as soon as my heart takes a side…
I pick up a wallpaper book to flip through a few selections marked as possible for the back wall.
“This won’t put me to sleep,” I mumble, caressing a floral sample. “Swatches excite me too much.”
A text notification chirps, loud and unexpected. I drop the wallpaper book and cross the room. Grabbing the phone from the ring light, I flip it over to read the incoming text.
Judah: Heard you can’t sleep.
I bite into an irrepressible grin and sit on the arm of the chaise longue, almost dropping the phone, my fingers are so eager to respond.
Me: Stalker, but yes. I’m up.
Judah: You still in your she shed?
My heart performs a somersault in my chest, but I take a deep breath and type.
Me: Yeah. I’m still in here.
Judah: Are you alone?
Me: Lottie and Inez are asleep. Lupe’s staying over at Deja’s tonight. So… yeah. Out here all by myself. What about your boys?
Judah: It’s the weekend. They’re with Tremaine.
Me: What are you doing up?
Judah: Working on a presentation for Monday and just happened to catch you live.
Me: Just happened to, huh? LOL.
Judah: I have a few things that might help you sleep. Do you want them or not, smart-ass?
Me: I would appreciate these things of which you speak very much.
Judah: Good. Can I swing through?
Getting laid always knocks me right out.
Shut it, DTF2000.
Me: Sure. I’ll unlatch the gate.
Judah: Gimme five minutes.
Me: That fast? That soon?
Judah: I was already on my way
Of course you were.
“Five minutes?” I shriek with sudden realization. I run to unlatch the gate, then dash back to the tiny powder room at the back corner of the shed. Really no more than a toilet and a small sink with a mirror hanging above it. My hair is everywhere. I’m wearing a cropped T-shirt that says JUST FOLD IT IN and a pair of Lupe’s jogging pants with PINK printed across the butt. They’re too long, so I have them rolled up to the knees. And we crown this ensemble with a pair of white faux-mink slippers from a sponsored ad I did a few weeks ago. I’m a motley mess, but there’s no time to fix any of it. I’m at least trying to finger-comb my hair when there’s a tap tap tap.
“Crap,” I whisper, but I cross the short distance from the powder room to the door.
Judah’s outside on the postage-stamp cement stoop carrying a Harrington tote and wearing a black hoodie with gray sweatpants. The way those sweatpants hang on his lean hips and hug his ass—the night is not playing fair.
“I almost forgot Adam attends Harrington,” I say, stepping back so he can come in. “I’m surprised I never see you there.”
“He’s older than your girls, so he’s on north campus. Plus it’s closer to Tremaine’s office, so she usually takes Adam. Aaron’s school is closer to mine, so I take him.”
“Great system,” I say, needing something to distract me from how good he looks. He has a fresh haircut, the edge precise and neat, but there’s the slightest hint of daylong stubble hugging the carved line of his jaw, and it is sending me. If he were wearing his glasses, I’d be sitting on his face by now.
“When the boys can’t sleep, especially Aaron,” he says, reaching into the tote, “this helps.”
He hands me a gray blanket. I accept it, surprised by how heavy it is.
“Did they knit this with cement?” I joke. “It must weigh fifty pounds.”