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“I don’t want to be alone, Walker.”
She could see his breathing quicken. She knew he was struggling with himself with her being in the barn with him in nothing but her nightgown. He knew like she knew that she wore nothing beneath that gown.
She moved quickly before she lost her nerve. Danni put her knee between his legs and slid across Walker’s body resting half on top of him and beside him, so he would still be comfortable.
“Danni,” Walker groaned as his arms came around her holding her in place. His hand tangled in her hair and his other held her tight at the hip.
“Don’t push me away,” she pleaded with him.
“I have to,” he replied.
“Why?”
For weeks, they had been dancing around this attraction, she now knew they both felt. She wasn’t denying it anymore. She wouldn’t let Walker either.
“Danni,” he squeezed her hip almost painfully, but she didn’t make a sound. His hand slid down to touch the skin of her smooth thigh. The sound that came from him was raw and rough. She moaned at the feel of his fingertips on her body. Danni looked at Walker. Her eyes told him what she wanted. Him.
“Please Danni, go back in the cabin.”
“No,” she was adamant about that. She wasn’t going inside. She wasn’t walking away from what they could be to each other anymore or what they could make each other feel.
He cupped her face with the hand that was tangled in her hair. He was giving in. His lips brushed brutally across hers. His whiskers were rough against her sensitive skin. Walker might give into Danni, but he was going to punish her for it too.
Danni put her hand at Walker’s waist. His skin beneath her hand felt warm and hard. She let her fingers trace up gently across the hard ridges of his abdomen causing a moan to escape from him into her mouth. His kiss gentled with her touch. Her fingers flicked over his nipples.
Walker tore his lips from hers and just stared at her for seconds at a time. Then he whispered, “What are you doing? You don’t understand.”
“I don’t.” She gripped his hand holding her face. “I don’t know why you don’t want to be with me. Walker, I’m not asking for anything but your body tonight. Stop denying us this. You want me as much as I want you. Make love to me. That’s all.”
He chuckled harshly at her. His forehead touched hers. “That’s not all, Danni,” Walker insisted. “You aren’t that kind of girl. It will never be enough, and I can’t give you more. I don’t have anything to offer you. A house, a car. Hell, I don’t even have a driver’s license. We’ve already established that. All I have is trouble.”
She kissed his lips then she responded. “I have a house. I don’t need another. I have a vehicle that I can drive myself around in, so I don’t care if you have one or can drive. You can get your driver’s license back if you want it. I don’t know why you haven’t.”
Walker pressed his lips to hers, soft, sweet kisses. Then he said, “Since prison, I feel like I’m not worthy of you Danni and you deserve more than that. Jackson has everything to give to you. He’s your first love.”
It was like having a bucket of ice water thrown on her. Her body went rigid first. She slipped out of Walker’s arms as tears built up in her eyes. She didn’t want to cry, not now. Not again. Not in front of Walker.
She stood beside the chaise looking down on Walker, irritated and hurt that he brought Jackson into this. “Yes, Walker, he was my first.” She took a deep breath. “Then six weeks later, he up and left me like I wasn’t worth a damn thing to him. Sorry, babe but I need to leave. This town is killing me, like it did my old man.” She wiped her hand across her face because the damn tears had fallen anyway.
“He left me, Walker like I wasn’t important at all. Eight years later, he shows up in a flashy truck, wearing expensive clothes and talking about his high paying job in Louisiana and he won’t take no for an answer.” Her voice went up an octave. She was pissed at both men right now. “Then he tells me what he can give me…”
Her hands were trembling now. Her voice cracked. “But all I can remember is the nineteen-year-old who didn’t think enough about my worth to him then. He didn’t think once that he should have taken me with him. I wasn’t worth it then, Walker. Somebody needs to show me that I’m worth it now.”
She turned and stalked out of the barn. Tears were streaming down Danni’s cheeks as she walked across the lawn to her front porch. She stubbed her toe on the second stair and cursed it to hell and back because her toe throbbed painfully, like her heart. She had thrown herself at Walker and he rebuked her by using Jackson Hand against her.
Slamming the front door behind her helped nothing. She went to her room and dropped the sweater on the cedar chest that had belonged to Grandma Betty, Granddad’s wife. Then Danni slipped beneath the covers. The room was cool, and the bed felt good against her burning skin.
As she slid down into the comfort of her bed, the nightgown rose up on her hip baring her butt and her thigh, but no one was here to see it, so she didn’t adjust it.
Danni cried.
Tears wet the pillow her head rested on. She cried for the young girl who stared in disbelief at Jackson Hand who was telling her that he was leaving. She cried for the girl who kept screaming at Matt that Walker didn’t do this when the Sheriff was arresting him. He wouldn’t. No one seemed to be listening, but it was Walker who wouldn’t listen. Couldn’t because Jesse was blackmailing him.
Then the bed dipped, and Danni closed her eyes. Walker reached over and pulled her hair back then he kissed her neck in that sweet spot below her ear. “You are so worth it, Danni Rose. It’s me that is not worthy of you, sweetheart. Why can’t you understand that?” His breath was warm against the skin of her neck. She felt a long shiver run down her spine.
Danni rolled over in her bed and stared in Walker’s face. He wiped the wetness from her cheeks where the tears had stained them. His touch was tender, and his face was filled with compassion and most of all love. She could see it in his eyes.
“You’re worth everything Danni,” he repeated, and he had proven it by going to prison to protect her.
