Page 72 of I Choose You
He showered and dressed, but it looked like it sucked all of his energy to do so. He sat on the bed, looking at his boots for five whole minutes, trying to muster the energy to put them on. If that was how he was feeling before we even left the hotel, he would never be able to get through the day.
“Rest. You’re still recovering. I’ll call Davis’s and see when we can reschedule it. If they have to ship them instead, then we’ll do that.”
“No. We came all the way up here. I want to get you those lights.”
I didn’t miss the way he said that. He needed these lights more than I did, but he knew how excited I was to finally see them. We drove seven—well, five of the seven—hours away in a blizzard because I said I wanted them as soon as possible.
“Let me at least call and see what he says.”
Reid nodded and lay down while I made the call. As it turned out, the shop was closed due to the weather. A state of emergency had been issued, halting all travel. I told Mr. Davis that we were planning on being here for the weekend, and he agreed to meet us at the shop on Saturday, as long as the travel ban was lifted, to get everything loaded.
“All set…” I started. Reid was snoring softly, laid out like a starfish on the bed. Yeah, we weren’t going anywhere today.
Reid had napped off and on all day. The hotel didn’t have a restaurant on-site, so we filled up on vending machine snacks and made do with that. He managed to keep all of it down, so when nighttime came, I weighed the risk of catching what Reid had against the uncomfortable chair. Sleeping in bed with Reid was far better than trying to handle another night in that chair, even if I ended up getting sick. And at this point, that seemed unlikely anyway.
I curled up beside him and felt the weight of his arm as he slung it around my waist and hauled me to him. My butt pressed into him, and he groaned in my ear.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“What are you sorry for?” I turned my head to him.
“I wanted us to have a nice weekend away. And I have you in this bed, pressing your hot, little ass against my dick, and I’m pretty sure I’ll pass out if I start something.”
“Can I be honest with you?”
“Always.”
“The first time we had sex and we didn’t cuddle afterwards. You said that I wasn’t a cuddler, but that isn’t true. I was just all up in my head and didn’t know what to do. Maybe this can be our makeup cuddle.”
He kissed the back of my neck, his hand moving softly up the front of my shirt.
“I fucking love cuddling with you.”
I wrapped my arm over his and fell asleep to the feel of his strong body holding me tightly.
* **
The travel ban was lifted overnight. We still had about two more hours of driving to get to Davis Ironworks’ shop, plus we needed to figure out how we were going to dig ourselves out of the three feet of snow.
Reid was pretty much back to normal, and we both thanked our lucky stars that whatever he had didn’t seem to have passed to me. He talked to the front desk about possibly using a snow shovel, and the hotel did one better and sent a maintenance person out to help. I watched him from the window, his muscular back hauling shovels full of snow away from the U-Haul.
It didn’t take long for me to pack up our stuff, and I met him by the truck with our bags just as they were finishing up.
“You didn’t have to haul the bags down. I would have come and got them.”
“I’ve got them.” I smiled at him.
Reid thanked the man and pulled a tip from his wallet.
“No,” he said, waving his hand in the air. “You get your girl home safe.”
Reid and I both thanked him again.
The roads were coated in fine white salt and slush, and ice hugged the outer sides of the lane. We made good time on the final leg of our journey. Mr. Davis was waiting for us when we pulled up.
“Hi, Mr. Davis. I’m Claire. This is Reid.” I shook his hand and gestured to Reid.
“Glad you both made it here okay. That was one heck of a storm that blew through here.”
