Page 76 of Hide and Sneak
Lila and I have spent all our spare time with each other. We sleep together in one of our beds every night, and waking with her in my arms is something I never want to end. It’s been nice not having to sneak around and I’m not going back to that.
Dusty wakes me on Saturday morning, putting his cold nose on mine. Lila doesn’t budge when I get up to take him outside. I’m not surprised. We fucked our brains out for half the night. I can never get enough of her.
When I return, she’s curled up in the middle of my bed, her hair splayed over my pillow. God, she’s beautiful. I’m not waiting any longer to tell her what I want. She peeks up at me and mumbles. “Are you watching me sleep? Creepy.”
She has the covers pulled up over her breasts, and I crawl on top of the blanket, trapping her underneath it. She pulls her arms out from under it, but I pin them to the bed. “Creepy? Take it back right now.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll never make you come on my tongue again.”
“We both know you’re lying,” she says, wiggling and trying to get her hands free.
She’s got me there. “It’s not my fault you’re so gorgeous that I don’t want to look away.”
I love how her cheeks turn pink. She drops a quick kiss on my lips. “Fine. It isn’t creepy.”
I move off of her and let her sit up. “That’s more like it.”
When she gives me that sleepy morning grin, I can’t wait anymore. I slide my hand into hers. “I know we agreed this would be a casual arrangement, but there’s not a damn thing that’s casual in how I feel about you. I want to be together. Without hiding it from anyone.”
My heart thumps in my chest. It feels like everything important in my life hangs on the next words she says. I don’t want to move out without knowing that we’ll still see each other. I don’t want meals at my new table without the sound of her laugh, evenings in my new living room without talking to her, or nights in my new bedroom without her warm body wrapped around mine.
Her tongue slips out to wet her lips and she looks me in the eye. “I want that too.”
“You want to be my girlfriend?” I clarify.
She nods, a smile growing on her face.
“I’m sorry, but I’m going to need verbal confirmation.”
She straddles my lap and hooks her arms around my neck. “I am your girlfriend.”
“Ha! You like me. I knew it.”
“Do we have to go that far?” she teases, running her thumb over my nape.
I slide my hands under her shirt and around to feel the warm skin of her back. “Admit it, Delilah.”
She leans in and plants a kiss on my neck. “I might be…” Her mouth travels to my jaw. “Just a tiny bit…” She lets her lips hover over mine. “Crazy about you.”
When she kisses me, I roll her underneath me and show her just how crazy she makes me.
Afterward, we shower and go out to shop for new furniture together. Lila only needs a few things for her apartment but I have a whole house to fill.
“Do you want to check the thrift stores first?” she asks.
“Good idea. Then we’ll go look at couches.”
“Do you have any idea when your electric will get hooked up?” she asks as we enter the thrift store.
“They say two weeks. But they also said that two weeks ago.”
She wraps her hand around my arm as we browse. “I was talking to Maren. I can move into my place anytime, really. If your electric isn’t on in the next month, would you want to stay with me until it is? So we can let them get the trailer ready for the next person on the waiting list.”
“Absolutely. If they still haven’t hooked it up by then, I’m going to be camped out in front of the utilities building.” I drop a quick kiss on her lips. “But yes, of course I’d stay with you. We can get everything out of the trailer by then.”
Lila is just as excited about her new apartment as I am about my house. It’s funny, we began by living together and now that we’re officially together, we’ll be living apart. It doesn’t matter.We’ve had a little test run so we know we’re compatible when the day comes that she doesn’t want to live on her own. I have no doubt we’ll end up in the same bed most nights.
