Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
In the middle of the night, Jude awoke with a start.
Curled up to him, Fee slept deeply, peacefully. Her hair spilled across his chest, and he breathed in the scent of her perfumed shampoo and body lotion.
Gratitude flooded him. He couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe he got to be with her.
But not knowing how much time they had together made him greedy for more. He wanted to slide into her from behind, take his time fucking her. Slow, deep thrusts, filling her, working them both up into a frenzy.
But he had the strangest sensation. An urgency to go check on Cody.
Carefully, he slid out from under her arm and leg. He drew the covers over her shoulders and brushed a strand of hair off her cheek, tucking it behind the prettiest little shell of an ear.
His heart was so full, he couldn’t help pressing a light kiss on her cheek. Then he threw on his sweats and a T-shirt and headed into the hallway. He didn’t want to leave her, wanted nothing more than to crawl back under the covers with her, but he couldn’t ignore the alarm going off in his body.
When he got to Cody’s room, he peered inside. At first glance, he seemed fine. He was asleep. He’d kicked the sheets off, and he looked so little, his body curved, arms clutching his red blanket.
But as Jude’s vision adjusted to the dark, he noticed the boy’s expression. Even though his eyes were closed, emotion fluttered across his face like he was watching an action movie.
When Jude came closer, he noticed the boy’s muscles flinching. He didn’t know whether he should wake him or let him sleep through it. He didn’t have a clue how to take care of a kid.
Then again, who better to relate to the experience of being in a strange house with people he barely knew? Jude had been a scared little boy, too. He sat on the mattress and touched Cody’s back. It was so frail, the bones so delicate.
How do I make it right for him?
But there was only one answer to that question: You make him feel safe.
Jude stretched out beside him. He didn’t want to wake him, but at the same time, he couldn’t sit there and do nothing while the boy twitched and made scared little noises. So he wrapped an arm around him and held him close. “It’s all right. I got you.”
The boy startled and rolled onto his back. “Mister?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“How come?” Cody blinked as if trying to wake up.
“You were having a bad dream. I wanted to make sure you’re okay.” Maybe he found the quiet unsettling. At the bike club, the lights were always on, and there was laughter, conversation, and music. In this house, he might hear creaking or his neighbors talking or the idling of cars.
“Is my grandpa better yet?” Cody asked.
“I don’t know. But we can call him tomorrow and ask. You want to do that?”
“Yeah.” The boy stared at the ceiling. “Tomorrow, I’m getting a Christmas tree. And the competition starts. I have to bring a shovel.” His head shifted on the pillow to look at Jude. “Do you have one?”
“Yep.” His brothers might be excited about Snowfest, but it just wasn’t on his radar. But it seemed it was on Cody’s, and that was all that mattered. “Do you know what we’re making?”
He nodded with enthusiasm. “They were gonna make a wolf and a polar bear in a canoe, but I said I wanted a house. Big enough to walk into.”
Huh. Each team worked with a twenty-five-ton block of snow.
He wasn’t sure how big a house they could make that would allow people to enter it.
And what would they put inside? A couch and chairs, or something more elaborate like a family watching a movie together, with a big bucket of popcorn on the son’s lap?
Whatever his family designed, it would be over-the-top good. The McKennas were competitive fuckers. “So that’s what we’re going with? A house?”
“Yeah. And I get to help with the stomping.”
Everyone loved that first part of the process. The town delivered a giant mountain of snow in the center of the square. Using wheelbarrows and buckets, each team filled a giant wooden frame and then got on top to pack it down, adding more until they reached the rim of the box.
He’d text his brothers and get in on the plan.
Whatever they did, it had to be special for Cody.
“Tomorrow, at the stomping, you and I can take a look at the design.” Wyatt and his dad would have schematics, a list of tools, and a plan.
“And you can add any last-minute touches. But for now, we need a good night’s sleep.
Got to be rested for the event. It takes three whole days. ”
Cody settled down, but his eyes were wide open.
And that brought Jude back to his original concern. “You okay in this room?”
“Yeah. I like it here.”
“I’m glad. I like it here, too.” Curious, Jude asked, “Where’d you sleep at the club?”
“With my grandpa. In a bag.”
“A what? Oh, you mean a sleeping bag? On the floor?”
“Yeah.”
“So it must be weird sleeping in a big ole bed like this.”
“Yeah, it’s big. I never slept in a bed like this before.”
“It works for me because I like spreading out,” Jude said. “But that’s because I sleep like a starfish.”
“What’s a starfish?”
“Here. Look.” Jude flipped onto his stomach, spreading out his arms and legs.
“You take up the whole bed.”
“I know, right? It feels good. Try it.” He shifted to the edge of the mattress to give the boy space. “Go on.”
Cody flopped onto his belly and moved his arms and legs like he was making a snow angel. His shy smile did something to Jude’s heart. “Look at that. You’re a starfish, just like me.” Jude started to get up, but fear flashed in the boy’s eyes. “You okay? Want me to stay longer?”
The boy didn’t answer, and his eyes cut away. Jude set a hand on Cody’s head. “You got something on your mind? You can tell me anything.”
“Will you stay with me till I fall asleep?”
“Yeah, absolutely.”
The boy curled up like he did before, hugging his blanket to his chest. Every few seconds, he’d crack his eyelids open to see if Jude was still there.
“Buddy? There’s something you should know about me.”
Cody watched him warily.
“I’m always going to be honest with you. If I can’t stay till you fall asleep, I’ll tell you. I’ll say, ‘No, I can’t do that.’ But if I say I’ll do something, you can count on it. I’ll do it.”
“Okay.” The boy closed his eyes. He peeked at Jude two more times before his breathing slowed, his fingers relaxed, and his shoulders sagged.
This boy needed a home. A dad. He needed a routine he could count on. He deserved to feel safe and secure. To feel loved. Cherished. It might’ve been a rough start for Jude and his brothers, but they’d never doubted their dad’s devotion, the certainty that they were his priority.
The impulse to hug the boy came out of nowhere, but he didn’t want to wake him. That was another thing he hadn’t considered. The boy’s need for human touch.
It was overwhelming, all that was involved in raising a child.
He brushed a finger across the back of Cody’s delicate little hand.
I’ve got you, little one.
Once Cody had fallen deeply asleep, Jude shifted his legs off the mattress and got up. He was startled to find Finlay in the doorway, watching. When he reached her, she hurled herself into his arms.
“You’re so good with him,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest. “You’re so good.”
“I have to be.” He bent his knees and lifted her, carrying her back to the bedroom.
When he dropped her onto the bed, she had a concerned expression. “Are you going to stay with me tonight? Or are you going back to the guest room?”
He got it. She was waiting for him to run, to shut down, but he wasn’t even feeling that impulse. He needed her. All of her. Every single piece of this woman’s mind, body, heart, and soul.
He answered by peeling off her pajama bottoms, dropping his clothes on the floor, and getting under the covers with her.
He grabbed his phone off the nightstand and shot off a text.
“What was that?” she asked. “Canceling your booty call plan for tonight? Or is that a group text to your legion of women, letting them know you’re off the market?”
He grinned and rolled onto his side, hiking up on an elbow. “My booty call?”
“Yeah. Don’t tell me you haven’t sent a text at one in the morning, looking for a hookup.”
“I’ve never sent a booty call text. And do you want me off the market?”
“Those are the terms of this agreement.”
“Oh, we have terms? Do you want to spell them out for me?”
“Sure.” She rolled onto her side, mindlessly caressing his forearm. “Number one, you have to deliver the best orgasms of my life.”
“Not a problem. Go on.”
“Number two, we have to do errands together. No dividing them up to get them done faster.”
“Easy. I always want to be with you.”
The humor left her eyes, and sadness pinched her features.
“Hey.” He shifted closer, cupping her cheek. “What just happened?”
“I don’t know. I just…I would’ve gone a lifetime without this.” She curled her hand around his wrist. “Do you feel it?”
If she meant the current that ran up his arm, across his shoulders, and down his spine, then yeah. If she meant the connection that set his pulse pounding, that made him feel as fully awake and alive as cannonballing into a glacier lake, then yes. Absolutely yes.
She gave him a pleading look. “If you hadn’t shown me what I was missing, I’d have lived with that same emptiness my whole life.”
The strange thing was that he understood. He’d never experienced the kind of touch that sparked on his skin. That awakened the softer side of him. That stirred his heart. “Since I know exactly what you mean, I have to say yes to all your terms.”
She smiled. “You haven’t heard the others.”
He made a rolling gesture with his hand. Carry on.
“Number three, you have to cook. Unless you want a steady diet of pumpkin bread with chocolate chips, snickerdoodles, brownies, and peshwari naan.”
“Peshwari what now?”
She laughed. “It’s an Indian bread with rose syrup, honey, cashews, pistachios… It’s pure heaven.”