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He turned slowly, though not slow enough to fully remove the exhaustion from his face before he looked at her. “Thanks.”
She stood in front of him. “Lean back against the counter and lift one leg at a time.”
He reached for the pants. “I got it.”
Dani shot him a look. “Conserve your energy, Riddick. This is going to be a marathon for you over the next week or two. Accept all the help you can get.”
On a sigh, he rested his hips against the counter and did what she said, allowing her to slide one pants leg and then the other over his feet and onto his calves. Sean took over from there. “I don’t like needing help.”
Well, she couldn’t blame him for that. “I get it. I don’t either. But sometimes we all need it, you know?”
“Yeah,” he said as she put the shirt over his head.
“Besides, would you rather have Mo or Billy helping you dress, or me?”
He smirked. “Is undressing an option here? ‘Cause if so, I’d rather have you do that.”
“Oh, my God,” she said with a groan. The last thing she needed was him flirting with her. “You are flippin’ relentless.”
He chuffed out a little laugh. “I gotta be me. Ain’t no one else I can be.”
“All right, well, take all of that—” She waved a hand in his general direction. “—and go sit your ass down. Dinner’s about to be served, and then you owe me some movies.”
Sean gave a single nod and turned toward the stairs.
Which was the first time Dani saw the writing on the back of his shirt.
Engine Company 11
Truck Company 6
Finding ‘em hot
Leaving ‘em wet
“Even your freaking shirts are relentless,” she called.
He stopped, looked down at himself, and then peered over his shoulder, a spark of Sean’s normal arrogance and challenge in those dark eyes. “Truth in advertising, D. That’s all it is. Not that I need to tell you.”
Dani gawped. Then glared. Then shook her head. “I don’t have any damn idea what you’re talking about, Riddick.” Even though, hell yeah, she remembered exactly what he’d wrung out of her body. And how many times.
He sniggered. “Play it that way if you want to,” he called as he started down the steps again. “But we both know that ain’t true.”
Damn him. He was right. But no good would come of admitting it, not when she intended for it to never happen again.
* * *
An hour later, they were on the couch together, dinner dishes discarded on the coffee table, the ice machine strapped to his chest, and laughing their asses off.
Well, she sure was. He was more trying to laugh on the inside so that his chest would stop screaming at him. For fuck’s sake.
At least this time, Sean wasn’t the butt of the joke.
Dani was fucking loving ‘Deadpool’, and that fact delighted Sean to no end. She’d already been grinning as the credits rolled at the top of the movie, which he appreciated because they were fucking funny. And then she’d chuckled at the first fourth-wall break right at the beginning, where Deadpool talks to the audience about fondling Wolverine’s balls. And then she’d sat wide-eyed at the over-the-top nature of the first action sequence, grinned at the “some of the best love stories start with a murder” line which she remembered him saying at the hospital, and finally erupted in full-out belly laughter when Wade bit Vanessa with his plastic vampire teeth while giving her oral sex.
All of which made Sean glad he’d given in to her demand to watch ‘Deadpool’ first even though he’d tried to explain the whole order of the Marvel universe thing. She just hadn’t cared that ‘Deadpool’ was nowhere near the beginning. And it didn’t matter to him just then either, because she was digging something he loved.
And Sean couldn’t get enough of it.
“Stop watching my reactions,” she’d finally said after the montage of sex scenes ended.
“I’m not watching you,” he lied. Because he was definitely watching her reactions. And liking them. And liking looking at her in this unhurried way that he never had with her any other time.
Damn, she was fuckin’ beautiful. The long glossy dark hair. The almost regal shape of her face, with its high cheekbones, wide eyes, and bow-shaped mouth. Her easy smile and laughter.
Her being gorgeous was not a news flash, of course, because Sean had clocked that from the first second he’d seen her at Warrior Fight Club almost five years ago. But admiring that beauty as she sat in his house, on his couch, watching ‘Deadpool’ with him and loving it? That was something way the hell else.
He liked it a stupid lot.
As if that mattered. He knew it didn’t. He was well aware that Daniela England was sitting in his house and on his couch while laughing at his movie only because his ass needed caring for in the wake of getting up-close-and-personal with a box truck. She was here out of a sense of duty, out of being the kind of person who did right by other people. Not for any other reason. And certainly not because she cared what he thought about her.
