Read Beyond These Walls (The Walls Duet #2) for Free Online

skin. “Do you feel that?”
    “Yes,” she answered, her head tilted toward me as she laid on her stomach.
    “What did I just draw?”
    “A heart,” she replied, a small smile appearing from the corner of her mouth. “Do something else,” she said.
    This time, instead of a shape, I made letters turning into a word.
    “Wife,” she whispered.
    “Yes.” I bent down, kissing the bare skin of her shoulder.
    She turned and pulled me close, our lips touching softly like two young lovers meeting for the first time.
    She pulled back, enough to slide her hand down toward the hem of my T-shirt before lifting it over my head. Then, the tips of her fingers skimmed my sensitive skin as she traced along the hard ridges of my stomach. Her eyes never left mine as she wrote invisible words along my flesh.
    “I love you, too,” I whispered, closing the distance between us.
    No other words were needed as we came together once more, claiming each other with silent promises, tender touches, and the moving melody of our souls.

“RISE AND SHINE, sleepyhead,” Jude called out from the hallway.
    He appeared at the bedroom door with a large tray overflowing with food.
    “Breakfast in bed?” I asked, rising up to take a peek at what he’d brought.
    “Well, sort of. Since we didn’t quite get our Thanksgiving dinner experience last night, I thought we might try again.”
    I frowned. “Please don’t tell me corn pudding and stuffing are on that plate, Jude. I might have eaten some weird things in my hospital days, but even they didn’t try to feed me dinner for breakfast.”
    He smirked, setting the tray down beside me. I began to inspect the contents—as well as him.
    “This doesn’t look half bad,” I said as my fingers bent down to check everything out. “But what is it?”
    I looked up to Jude and found him grinning. “Well, I found a recipe for a leftover egg soufflé, and then I thought the mashed potatoes would be good, kind of like grilled pancakes.”
    “But hardly any of this stuff was actually made, so they can’t really be considered leftovers, Jude.”
    He just shrugged and started pouring a cup of coffee for me from the French press.
    “How long have you been up?” I looked down at the feast before me, trying to contemplate how long it had taken him to make the individual dishes and then combine them into a soufflé.
    “A while. I wanted you to have a Thanksgiving meal.”
    I steadied his hand and watched his gaze meet mine. “You’re amazing. Thank you.”
    After handing over a steaming cup of coffee, he disappeared into the bathroom. When he returned, he was ready to begin the not-so-pleasant part of the morning.
    “Mood killer,” I complained.
    “You know me—highly punctual and responsible,” he said, shaking the box of pills marked off by the days of the week.
    “So sexy,” I retorted.
    Although I had a new heart and was as healthy as I could be, I would never be able to outrun the pharmacist. Transplant patients, whether with a heart like mine or any other organ, had one major fear that ruled their lives—the possibility of rejection.
    This heart now beating inside my chest was a stand-in, a counterfeit for the damaged sick one that I’d been born with. At any point in my life, my body could reject this perfect organ and this life. Everything I held so dear could be over in the blink of an eye.
    Tossing my head back, I dutifully took my morning pills before diving into my breakfast. “Oh, wow. This is good.”
    “Yeah?” he asked, scooping a chunk of cheesy soufflé onto his plate.
    “Absolutely. And the mashed potato thingies . . . yum,” I said between bites.
    He laughed at my enthusiasm as he dived into his own breakfast. The comfortable silence settled between us while we ate.
    “Are you sure you’re okay with going alone today?” he asked after he’d set his plate back on the tray.
    I was going back for seconds but nodded as I licked butter off my thumb.
    “It’s just a