23. Amelia
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
amelia
He called me his girlfriend. Not only did he call me his girlfriend to his fans , he said he wasn’t good enough for me and he wanted to spend the rest of his life trying to be the man I deserve. My head is spinning by the time I gather all my stuff I want to take to his apartment and change into my reading clothes. I’m itching to text the girls, but I stop myself from reaching for my phone. I don’t want anything to ruin this bubble of happiness I’m in. I know the girls will be ecstatic, but I want to keep this to myself a little longer.
Once I’m all packed and ready to go, I plop down on the couch and wait for Judd to get back from the store. I texted him a list of snacks and told him whatever he gets is good for me. While I’m waiting, I open up my notes app on my phone and jot down a few ideas for my next book that came to me while we were walking back from Hazel’s. Writing down these ideas has the excitement building in me to get back to writing, something I haven’t felt in a while. I should be writing today, while I have this feeling. But I really want to spend the day reading with Judd. He’s the first guy I’ve dated that hasn’t given me shit about my love of books.
Wow, even saying we’re dating in my head feels weird and unbelievable.
I’m just finishing up my last idea when a knock sounds at my door. Bruno and I both bolt to the door and a look through the peephole shows Judd standing there with four reusable bags on his arms.
“Did you buy out the whole store?” I ask, opening the door for him.
“You sent me a long list,” he says with a shrug. He looks my body up and down, stopping at my sweater. His mouth moves reading the words, barking out a laugh when he’s done. “I’m digging the sweater, the whole outfit really. It screams comfort.”
I look down at the sweater Hazel gave me last year for Christmas. It says, ‘Your anxiety is a lying hoe.’ “Thanks, Hazel got it for me, and don’t change the subject. I sent you that list, so you had things to choose from, Judd. I didn’t mean to buy it all.”
“This way we’ll have plenty of snacks for more reading days, or movie nights, or sleepovers.” He wiggles his eyebrows up and down. “Not that there will be much sleeping,” he jokes.
Shaking my head with a laugh, I grab my stuff and Bruno’s leash, clipping it on him. “Ready when you are.”
We head out the door and lock my apartment. Judd taps his phone to the elevator once we’re in. “Remind me to set up your phone with my access key,” he says as we ride the elevator up.
“Why?” I ask, not doing a great job of hiding the shock in my voice.
Judd chuckles. “Because Amelia, we’re dating. I want you to come to my place whenever you feel like it.” He lifts a shoulder. “Besides, once you see my library, you’re never going to want to leave.”
“We’ll see about that,” I tell him as we reach his floor.
“Ladies first,” Judd says, motioning in front of him.
I walk out of the elevator and my mouth drops open.
Judd’s penthouse is amazing. It’s a modern design with sleek lines and wood tones. Dark hues of blues and blacks spread throughout the space. The white granite countertops pop against the black cabinets in the kitchen. It’s an open concept layout so the kitchen and living room connect. Across one of the two large couches is a gas fireplace. And the back of the apartment is all windows, giving us the absolute best view of the city and mountain range in the distance. “Wow,” I whisper.
This apartment screams masculine but lacks Judd’s personality. It feels…incomplete.
“Make yourself at home,” Judd says, walking into the foyer behind me and tossing his keys onto the side table next to us, then heading to the kitchen to set the bags of snacks down. Bruno must think Judd is talking to him because as soon as I unclip his leash, he runs into the living room and bounds up on the black leather couch, quickly turning a circle before plopping his body down.
“Bruno, that’s not our couch!” I chastise him, running over to pull him off before he tears a hole in the butter soft material with his claws. “I’m so sorry.”
Judd chuckles. “It’s fine, Shortcake. He’s just taking me up on my offer.”
“But his claws,” I start.
Judd doesn’t let me finish. “He’s fine, Mills. I’m not worried about it,” he says, coming over to me and cupping my cheek. He closes the space between us and gives me a soft kiss. “Now, come on.” He links my fingers with his and tugs me towards a room off to the right of the living room. Judd pauses at the door and turns around. “Close your eyes.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Why?” I ask, suspicious.
“Humor me.”
I sigh and close my eyes. “Fine, but if I open them and it’s just you naked in a room instead of books, I get to give you a surprise.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time, babe.”
I shake my head. I hear him turn the handle to the door, then feel his body behind me, guiding me forward.
I’ve taken half a dozen steps when he stops me. “Okay, you can open them.”
Doing as he says, my eyes pop open and for the second time in five minutes, my mouth hangs open. “Holy fuck, Judd. This is amazing,” I tell him as my feet carry me further into the room, where I make a circle.
The wall of windows has continued into the room, giving it tons of natural light, brightening the otherwise dark room. Floor to ceiling black bookshelves line two of the walls. Lights dotting the shelves every few feet. The shelves are filled with books of all kinds, mystery, thriller, fantasy. Special editions of books I’ve read myself. A ladder, a freaking ladder, with wheels is on the longest wall.
There’s a smokey gray and white patterned area rug in the middle of the dark mahogany colored floor with an oversized brown leather couch and matching chair facing the window. A wooden coffee table with a black metal frame completes the look.
I keep turning, completing my circle facing where we came in. On the furthest side opposite the door sits a bulky wooden desk and leather chair in the corner. The wall behind it is lined with shelves holding various items of baseball memorabilia. This room is what I was expecting the living room to look like, not the sterile, cold vibe it gives off. He must spend a lot of time in here.
Judd’s still standing where I left him, hands in his pockets. “I told you it was hard to beat.”
As I’m walking back to him, I notice a framed sketch of a house on the other side of the door, opposite of where the desk is. “What’s that?” I ask, passing Judd and walking over to the drawing.
The sketch is of a beautiful two-story house with charcoal gray siding and stone accents. The peaks of the house are all framed with wood to match the garage door and pillars of the porch. Matching wooden shutters also frames the black windows.
The bottom sketch shows what the back of the house would look like. It’s the same as the front, but there’s a black framed sliding door that takes up half of the back of the house.
“That,” Judd says, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my middle, “is the house I hope to build someday.”
“Why don’t you build it now? I mean, you have the money.”
Wow, rude Millie.
“Sorry, that was rude of me to just assume.”
“No, you’re right. I do have the money to build it now if I wanted to.”
“Then what’s stopping you?” I ask, turning in his arms to face him and linking my hands behind his neck.
He tips his head back and forth. “Well, for one, I’d like to live out near my parents and Kessler and his family. And right now, there’s nothing available near them to buy.”
“You’re really close with them, aren’t you? Not just your parents and Kessler, but Lucy and Hudson, too.”
“I am. Lucy and Hudson were meant to be in our family. I could see that from the moment Kess brought them to the house.” He smirks. “Plus, Lucy is always up to join me in giving Kessler a hard time.”
I smile up at him. “Always the troublemaker, aren’t you?”
He lifts a shoulder. “That’s what little brothers are for.”
“That was reason one. I’m assuming there’s a second reason?”
“There is,” he says, pausing to tuck a piece of my hair behind my ear. “I don’t want to build a house by myself. I want to build a home with someone. Plan what the inside will look like. How many rooms we might need for kids. Fight over the color of the kitchen countertop or what color the living room should be.”
My chest squeezes. The passion in his words flowing over me. The look of desire in his eyes, pulling me in.
“Oh,” I whisper.
“Yeah,” he whispers back. “And until my dream girl agrees to that, my dream house will have to wait. Because I can’t have one without the other.”
My heart speeds up, because I know he’s talking about me and as much as my heart screams yes, the logical side of my brain chimes in, telling me no. It’s too soon. He hasn’t seen the worst of you.
“Anyway, enough about that. Do you want to see the rest of my place?” he says casually, like what he just admitted was no big deal.
Maybe it’s not.
I write about this stuff all the time. Why can’t it happen in real life?
Putting that thought away to mull over later, I give him a nod and we exit the library and up the metal staircase across from it.
“There’s just a guest room and ensuite up here,” he says, flipping on the light to a sparse guest room that only has a bed and a nightstand with a lamp on it. I guess you wouldn’t need much if you were just a guest.
“Then out here,” he says, turning the light off and leading me towards another door, “is the rooftop access.” He opens the door, revealing a large, graveled area that we step out onto. There’s a little area right off to our left that has what looks like a grilling station with a counter and barbecue that’s been covered for the winter.
Judd points to an area that’s bare. “I’m going to get furniture for that area next summer, not that I’ll get to enjoy it too much with it being the middle of the season. But it would be nice to sit out here on warm summer nights.”
“The view is amazing from up here,” I say, taking a few steps further into the space. When I turn, I let out a gasp. “Is that a hot tub? ”
Judd chuckles. “Yeah, I haven’t really used it much since moving in.”
I look at him in horror. “Why would you not use it?”
“I’ll show you,” he says, grabbing my hand and pulling me back through the door.
We make our way down the stairs and walk underneath them to a door. Turning the handle, he guides me in and switches on the light, revealing a huge king-sized bed with one of those floating frames. Wood and iron nightstands are on either side of the bed. Across the room is a large TV mounted on the wall. The wall with the bed is the only one in the room that has pitch black paneling, the rest of the room is white besides the thick black curtains that cover the windows. Other than that, there’s really not much in here for decorations.
“How long have you lived here again?”
“I know. It’s not really decorated. It kills my mom, trust me. She’s been chomping at the bit to decorate my place, but I told her not to bother. This is just a place to live. I spend most of my time either at their place, at Kessler’s, or in my library. Now, let me show you the second-best room in the place,” he says, tugging me across the room and to the door to the right of the bed.
Judd hits the light switch, and the lights turn on revealing a bathroom I could live in. There’s floor to ceiling windows in here too and in the corner of those windows sits a huge free-standing tub. I ignore everything else in the bathroom, heading straight to the tub of my dreams.
“It has jets too!” I say a little too enthusiastically.
Judd’s deep chuckle sends shivers up my spine. “I told you it was the second best room. Plus, the shower has dual heads and can turn into a steam room.”
I climb into the tub with my clothes still on and lay back, closing my eyes. “I’m moving in. You can just leave me here, maybe bring food and water every once in a while.”
Judd kneels next to the tub and crosses his arms over the side. “You can stay here anytime you want, Shortcake.”
I open one eye and look at him. “You say that now, but you don’t know how obsessed I am with this tub.”
“Hopefully as obsessed as you are with me.”
I tap my chin. “Mmmm, I think the tub takes the number one spot,” I tease.
Judd gets up and climbs into the tub with me, grabbing my hands and pulling me forward until I’m straddling his lap. His erection straining through his jeans. “You like that, Amelia?” he whispers into my neck. He moves his hips forward just enough to create some friction against my thin lounge pants, making me whimper. “Mmm yeah, you like that, don’t you? You’re a slut for my cock, aren’t you, pretty girl?”
Judd repeats the motion. This time my hips move with him, hitting that delicious spot over and over. “Judd,” I pant, clutching onto his shirt. He nibbles up my neck, sending goose bumps down my arms. “If we don’t stop, I’m going to come,” I warn, almost to the edge already.
“Then come for me, Mills. I want to watch you come apart in every room of this place,” he says. His hands move to my breasts, his thumbs gliding over the nipples with the pace of my hips.
“Kiss me, Judd,” I demand, taking his face in my hands and pulling him to me. He greedily takes my lips, sucking and biting as my orgasm hits me hard. His mouth mutes my loud moan, and he doesn’t stop kissing me until the last of my orgasm fades.
“I take it back,” Judd pants.
“Take what back?”
“This might be my new favorite room.”