Inside Out - Lauren Dane [104]
He looked at her table, where she’d prepared not just one sandwich, but three. Meatloaf? Awesome.
“The woman is a goddess,” he mumbled as he put on a pot of tea for her.
He loved the way she looked all fresh from the shower. Her hair pulled away from her face only emphasized the beauty of her features, the size of her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the mug of tea. The apartment was cold, he knew, due to an aging radiator. But she had on her sweats and a long-sleeved shirt. He made a mental note to bring her some wool socks and to look into radiant heat for the floors in his bathrooms.
Wow. He stilled a moment, startling himself with the idea of living with her. And then being stupefied that he’d startled as he was ass over teakettle in love.
Living together was a huge step. Natural with the course they’d set. His place was bigger and safer for her. He thought of his house with her stamp on it, that simple femininity she had, the bold sense of colors and style.
He thought of his brother and the melding of three very distinct styles and personalities in their apartment. They worked as a unit. He admired their effort and commitment to each other, their energy put into maintaining such a complicated but totally loving relationship, which was not only intact but thriving.
For a time, Cope had worried that Ben would fall away from Erin and Todd, that in the end, Ben would end up alone and broken. Now he knew that wouldn’t happen, but there was still the worry of loss. He’d spoken with Ben earlier that day, and his brother had been scared shitless and trying to hold it together when he was around Erin.
It hurt, seeing his brother so worried and not being able to help. He worried about Erin too, but she wasn’t his wife. What would it be like to have that threatened? It made his anger at his father even worse.
Still, he was there with Ella, and for that moment, everything was right. He watched her as she laid out her clothes for the following morning, content to simply be with her.
She yawned, and he turned to the bed, pulling the blankets back. “Get in, babe. Snuggle down, and let’s go to sleep.”
“Mmm, that sounds very good.” She drained the tea, and he took the mug and the plate his sandwiches had been on and put them in her dishwasher.
“Be right back,” he said, stepping into the bathroom to clean up. By the time he’d come back, she was facedown on the bed, totally asleep. She was also topless. “Lucky me.” He grinned and slid into bed, loving how she moved toward him, even in sleep seeking his body.
He turned the lights off, but there was plenty coming in from the streetlights outside. Enough to see the beauty of her. Moonlight and stardust, Ella was all that and more.
She already had achieved that depth of sleep where she’d transformed into a soft, warm, substantial weight against him. As much as he loved how she felt, totally relaxed and unafraid, sexy and feminine, he felt bad that he hadn’t seen how exhausted she was before that evening. Especially when he’d been the one who kept her up the night before. Twice.
Thinking back, he realized he’d noticed she was tired here and there, but it passed quickly, and there’d been something else to worry about.
The woman was a caregiver down to her toes, and that’s exactly what she’d been doing. Erin had tattled on her earlier, telling Cope what Ella had been doing at the café, organizing the employees to take up any and all slack, checking by a few times a day to be sure all was well. She’d also taken to stopping in to visit Erin whenever she could break away from work. On top of that, she worked her other job, which he knew took a lot of paperwork and time, and spent time with him. No wonder she was paler than usual; distracted even.
It was his turn to take care of her for a change. Ella Tipton needed to be cherished and taken care of, and Andrew Copeland was just the man to see that it happened.
He thought of getting up to crack a beer and do some sketching, but he didn’t want to wake her. Instead, he grabbed a nearby scrap of paper and one of her pretty pens