Hey Jude (Lennox Valley Chronicles #1)

“You know, it’s kind of funny staying here with you,” she says, her voice muffled as she peeks up at me from the pillow.

“How so?” I look at her curiously.

“Well, it’s not your house… and it’s not my house.” She pauses. “It’s like we’re on some kind of wild sex vacation.” She laughs as she says it and I chuckle with her.

“Well, when you put it like that…” I say, deadpanning. “Let’s never fucking leave.” I grab her ass and smile suggestively before sliding my hand around her waist. I’m about to pull her into me again when I stop suddenly. “Wait, shit…” I roll onto my back and press my fist to my forehead.

“What?”

“I need to go get Murphy. I left in a rush last night and didn’t bring him.”

“Oh, no, is he okay?” She looks concerned. I remember with a smile how much she liked him when they first met. And how much he liked her.

“Oh, he’s fine. There’s a dog flap on the back door. He’ll just need breakfast and a lift back here,” I reassure her.

“Can I come with you?” The vulnerability in her expression is mystifying to me; I can’t imagine letting her out of my arms.

I smile back at her as I run my hand down the length of her spine and over the curve of her ass, squeezing. “You’d better.”

She smiles softly. “Okay.”

“Think we can make it to the shower first?” My eyes flick to the bathroom doorway, my eyebrows raised.

She turns her head to contemplate the distance. “Let’s hope so… Although that ten feet might be a struggle.” She looks back at me, smiling shyly. “But I need my toothbrush.”

I press a quick kiss to her nose and she pushes up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She reaches down to rummage through something on the floor, then turns to me with a bag of trail mix in her hand.

“Breakfast,” she announces with a grin, her eyes gleaming.

“Aw, you cooked?” I chuckle and slide my arm around her waist, pulling her into me. She laughs softly as I kiss her temple.

“Ugh, I also need my hairbrush, apparently.” She tries to tease the tangles out of her hair with her fingers. As she stands, my eyes trace the length of her back, the dip of her spine, then linger on the curve of her gorgeous ass. Suddenly, I’m seriously contemplating pulling her back to bed.

Turning and clocking my gaze, she throws me a suggestive smile and disappears around the corner into the bathroom.

I lie back on the bed and exhale a breath.

“Jude,” she calls out from around the corner. “Not to alarm you, but someone seems to have trashed this bathroom last night.”

33

OLENA

“Tell me about your tattoos,” I say from my perch at Jude’s kitchen island.

Work had wrapped up early, so we came here to grab dinner and a few of Jude’s things. I admire him from behind as he stands at the sink, cleaning up our plates.

He pauses, looking over his shoulder at me as he reaches for a towel to dry his hands. Turning to face me across the island, he pushes his sleeves up further, laying his forearms out between us. I graze my fingers over his skin, looking at them in detail for the first time. On his right arm, in black ink, is a dandelion; the roots twine around his wrist and the leaves and stem travel up his forearm. At the top, the petals have gone to seed. Some of them float away, carried by the wind.

“So, obviously, in my line of work,” he glances up at me and smirks, “our line of work, plants are kind of the thing. The dandelion is because it’s ordinary but strong.” He runs his other hand down over his beard. “My mom also always had a soft spot for dandelions; she said the bees liked them.” He smiles as he remembers her. “She’d always give my dad shit for ripping them out.”

“It’s beautiful.” I meet his eyes again, then look back down to his other arm. “What about this one?”

I touch the dark outline of what looks like a woodworking tool I vaguely remember from a high school wood shop class.

“The hand planer—” he starts, his vision clouding slightly. “That’s for my dad.”

I look up at him, remembering what he told me about his mother. Searching his eyes, I know before I even ask.