Callum & Harper (Sleepless 1)

“You want me to sleep with you tonight?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep any other way.” I agreed. I would be too worried about her all alone to get any kind of rest whatsoever.

She ran the water in the sink, letting it warm, before grabbing a wash cloth from the cabinet. She let the water absorb into the cloth before twisting out the excess with shaking hands. She gently removed most of the blood before giving up and letting me know there was too much and I’d have to just wash my face. While I did, she grabbed her little emergency kit full of supplies I used to tease her incessantly we’d never need. Never again.

I sat back down and she pushed her fingers through my hair to pull it away from my wound. I winced as it tugged a little at the tear and she moved her fingers slower, more softly. She blew into my hair to dry some of the moisture that had built at my hairline, where the wound was. I closed my eyes at how sexy I found that. Her lips were red and swollen from worry from biting at them for hours. It was quiet, so quiet it was deafening. I could hear every single thought ramble through my mind. Kiss her, I kept ordering myself. Kiss her and tell her that you love her. Let her know what you would do for her. She applied Neosporin to prevent infection and bandaged the wound.

“Sleep,” she said, dragging me by my hand again to her bedroom.

I said nothing. I was already bare chested from having to remove my shirt to stop the bleeding earlier. I threw off my boots but left my jeans on as I tumbled into her bed. It was soft and smelled unbelievable. It smelled like Harper and awoke my senses. Abruptly, I was much more alert than I had been in our warm bathroom, not so quick to doze off but still very sleepy. Harper left to change into one of my boxers and t-shirts, like she always did, and it always sent my heart into a frenzy at the sight of her.

I pulled the covers over my back and laid on my stomach, tucking the pillow beneath my head and staring at Harper’s door, waiting for her. When she came in, my stomach clenched. She was unbelievably beautiful to me. She was made for me. Never could I have imagined a woman could look as good as this one did in my clothes.

She crawled into bed, throwing the blanket over her shoulders and snuggled closely. I tossed an arm and a leg over her, making her nestle even closer.

“I love you, Callum.”

“I love you, too, Harper.”

Sleep came quickly for both of us. I couldn’t remember feeling more relaxed in my life than I did lying next to Harper. Her, cradled in my arms, a welcome respite from the tedious anxiety John Bell had caused us that evening.

Chapter Thirteen

Good Ol' Fashioned Nightmare

Callum

The next morning, I woke to an empty bed and panicked.

“Harper?!” I yelled, scrambling out of bed in a stiff pair of jeans.

“I’m here!” She called out to me from our kitchen.

I sighed in relief, heading for the bathroom to relieve myself. I hated sleeping in jeans. The next morning you always wake pissed a little that you forgot to take them off or, in my case, that you couldn’t just sleep in your boxers next to your wife.

I flushed and washed my hands, inspecting my wounds in the mirror. A good night’s rest helped tremendously. I wasn’t as sore as I was the night before but my eyes still looked disgusting.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” I asked Harper, rounding the corner into the kitchen before kissing the top of her head.

She was at the gas stove, flipping pancakes.

“You looked so pathetic there with your bandaged head. I wanted to make sure that you got as much sleep as possible.”

I sat and poured a cup of coffee for myself. She always made me coffee even though she never drank the stuff. Another reason I loved her so much, so thoughtful.

“What are we going to do?” She asked me.

“For now? We’re going to wait. We’re going to be extraordinarily careful. We’re going to stick to crowds and I’ll walk you to all your classes. We’re going to be alert and you will never go anywhere alone.”

“No where?”

“I don’t even want to be separated by a room.”

“Not even a room?” She teased.

“Okay, maybe a few rooms you can be alone in,” I said, laughing, making her laugh with me.

That’s how we lived day after day, after day, after day. For three weeks Harper and I lived a very tiresome existence. We spent an unbelievable amount of time with one another, sleeping together, eating together, traveled together. We went to school together. I walked her from class to class and, to be frank, we were growing weary of the worry John Bell was causing us.