As he approached it, Dani smacked his butt. “Geez, wait a sec. What about my car?”
Sean stopped in his tracks. “Oh. Oh, shit. I didn’t think of that.” He went up to the passenger window of the SUV and gestured for the guy to put down the window. “Hey, sorry man, my bad. I don’t need the ride anymore, but…hang on.”
“Oh, my God, put me down,” Dani said, humor and murder plain in her voice.
He retrieved his wallet from his back pocket and pulled out a couple of twenties. “For your trouble.” The driver laughed, thanked him, and pulled away.
“I can’t believe you just talked to that dude while carrying me around like a damn caveman,” Dani said.
Sean just laughed and carried her the rest of the way to her car, parked along the edge of the yard under the shade of some big trees. He put her down so that she sat on the car’s hood near the driver’s door, then stepped between her legs, his hands on her hips.
“Jesus, D, is this really happening?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think it is.” She smiled, and she was so fuckin’ pretty it stole his breath. How the hell had he gotten so lucky?
“We can stay and watch the fireworks if you want,” he said.
She shook her head, her gaze suddenly full of heat. “I’d prefer your kinda fireworks.”
“Is that right?”
She grinned and took his cheek in her hand. “Mmhmm. What’s the line? ‘This is a face I’d be happy to sit on’…?”
The ‘Deadpool’ reference made Sean throw back his head and laugh. But what really left a lasting impression on him about that moment was that she’d chosen a quote that had been all about Vanessa’s unconditional acceptance and love of Deadpool, ugly-ass scars and all. And that was when, if he hadn’t known it already, Sean became totally and completely sure that Daniela England was the only woman for him.
“Damn, I love you,” he said, kissing her until she was fisting her hands in his shirt.
Panting, she said, “You realize it’s gonna take forever in 4th of July traffic to get home.”
“Shit, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“That’s because all of your blood flow has traveled south.” She palmed his hard-on.
“That’s fuckin’ true,” he said, groaning at her touch.
He peered down toward the dead-end of the street on which the Cortezes lived. Her gaze followed his. That’s where his truck had been parked for Noah’s Halloween party, the first time they’d ever gotten together….
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“Are you game?” he challenged.
Like giddy, reckless teenagers, they moved the car to the mostly hidden dead end. Annnd that was how they ended up still being at Noah’s house when the actual fireworks went off an hour later. Not that they could see them very well from Dani’s tiny back seat. Neither of them complained.
They’d come full circle in a way that Sean could hardly believe. Somehow, he’d gotten knocked off of his ass and right into the arms of the best woman he’d ever known. What was between them was intense and powerful and brand new and red hot. But this was one fire that Sean Riddick had absolutely no intentions of fighting. Not now. Not ever.
Chapter Twenty-One
Three months later…
Dani finished loading the last of her dinnerware into Sean’s kitchen cabinets and tossed aside the empty boxes. Well, their kitchen cabinets now.
Just like everything else about their relationship, the weeks following Noah’s party had been an absolute whirlwind, and by the end of the summer, Sean had invited her to move in. After years of putting up walls against all the things she wanted, Dani had been surprised to find that she was just as eager as Sean to wake up together every morning and go to bed together every night. Or, at least, the nights and mornings that one or the other of them didn’t work—because Sean had gotten a clean bill of health on his eye and was back out there fighting fire. So Dani had given notice on her apartment and moved in as October brought a crispness to the fall air.
That’d been two weeks ago. Now, they were just about done figuring out how to blend all their furniture and possessions. Dani left the basement exactly how Sean had it—because she loved it just the way it was. The rest had been pretty easy, too.
“You sure you don’t mind me going out?” Sean asked as he swept into the kitchen wearing a pair of jeans and a DCFD sweatshirt and looking fine as hell, scars and all. “I know we have a few more things to go through.”
“No,” she said. “I think Tara and I might do something anyway, so go have fun.”
He pinned her against the counter, braced his hands on either side of her hips, and waggled his eyebrows. “I know how we could have lots of fun.”