Page 63 of When We Burn

Dani chuckles and then sits up, pulling me with her. “I do have chairs on my porch. I don’t know if you noticed, but I bought an extra one, just in case you wanted to come out and sit with me.”

My head whips to the porch, and there it is. The second chair. And I don’t know why, but that makes my heart stutter. And the tiny seat sitting next to it has me leaning in to plant my lips on her cheek.

“You bought me and my daughter our own chairs for your porch?”

“I didn’t think you’d fit in my lap.” She grins and stands, and I join her as we walk to the porch. “Oh, I need to return this and your T-shirt to you.”

She plucks at the hoodie, and I scowl.

“The fuck you do. You’re keeping that. I love seeing you in my shit. I don’t want it back.”

“You didn’t let me finish. I need to give them back to you because I’ve worn them pretty much nonstop for the past week, and they don’t smell like you anymore. I need them to smell like you.”

Without a word, I march over to my house, quietly let myself in so I don’t wake my daughter, and gather up a sweatshirt I wore yesterday, along with two of my T-shirts out of my drawer, then walk back to where Dani’s still sitting on the porch and hold them out for her.

“Here. You can have them all. Keep them.”

Her eyes bounce from mine to the clothes I’m holding, and then she takes them and buries her nose in them, inhaling deeply.

“Nothing smells better than you,” she murmurs, and it makes my heart stutteragain, and my cock twitch. “Hold on.”

She hurries inside and returns ten seconds later with the T-shirt, and passes it to me. Then, she looks around to see if anyone’s watching, turns her back to the street, and quickly strips out of my hoodie, shoves it at me, and replaces it with the zip-up I just gave her, pulling the zipper all the way to her neck.

She buries her face in the red material and sighs happily.

“That’s so much better.”

“You just stripped on your porch, kitten.”

“I wanted to trade you.” She shrugs while still sniffing my sweatshirt. “No one saw.”

“You’d better hope they didn’t, because ifanyonesees what’s mine, I’ll fucking tear their eyes out of their head. Don’t do that again.”

She blinks and then walks right into my arms, holding me tightly around the middle, her head pressed to my chest. “Okay.”

I kiss the top of her head and brush my fingers through her soft, dark hair. “Come out to the ranch with Birdie and me tomorrow. We’re going to spend the day riding some horses and hanging with the family. Come with us.”

“Oh.” She shakes her head and frowns up at me. “You should spend some time with Birdie, Bridge. I know that if I didn’t see much of you this week, neither did she, and?—”

“Whoa.” I kiss her nose and cup her jaw, my fingers in her hair. “I want you with us.I want Birdie to spend time with you outside of school, when it’s the three of us together. I want you out at my family’s ranch, and you’ll stay for dinner, too. Sundays are usually a big deal out there, and I think even Blake is off from the hospital, so he’ll be around, too. Bee’s gonna come for dinner after the bookstore closes. Brooks closes down the garage on Sundays. Come be with my family, sweetheart.”

I tip her chin up and brush my lips over hers, and her hands fist in my shirt.

“Okay,” she whispers against my lips. “What time should I be ready?”

“Come over for breakfast at nine. Hell, come over whenever you want and come cuddle with me in bed.”

I waggle my eyebrows at her, and she chuckles.

“Don’t look now, but you’re sounding a little needy.”

“Alittle? I need to up my game. Because when it comes to you, I’m a lot needy.”

“Aww, that’s cute. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“For cuddles or for breakfast?”

“Probably both, who am I kidding?”

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