This Could Be Us (Skyland, #2)(106)

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.”

“Fifteen, actually. It’s a weighted blanket. He has like five of them. Between the blanket, melatonin, and the tea I brought, you’ll be knocked out before you count your first sheep.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I’m usually right.” He eyes the letters emblazoned across my chest. “I like your shirt.”

It’s only then I realize I’m not wearing a bra and my nipples are happy to see him.

“Oh, God.” I cup my breasts as if to shield them.

His sudden laughter startles me—not just the sound of it, which is rich and resonant, but the effect it has on his handsome face. How it cracks the austere lines and warms the usually serious dark eyes. It softens the stern set of his mouth. It opens him up and invites me in.

“Come here.” He drops the tote, sits on the chaise longue, and pulls me onto his lap. “I missed you.”

He says it so freely, and it’s hard to believe I ever thought this man was reserved, cold. He’s generous with his words, with his affection—at least to me. I drape one wrist at the back of his neck and press my hand to his chest, over his heart.