Bonus Scene: Scorched in Pelican Point

Bonus Scene - Ashe

The night after the Farmer’s Market

     Peaches is finally asleep. Curled into a golden ball on her fluffy donut bed like a sentient croissant. Smokey is next to her, paw over her back like he’s staking a claim. I’ve never seen two dogs more disgustingly in love. It’s adorable. It’s nauseating. It’s us.

     I close the bedroom door slowly so it doesn’t creak and ruin the miracle of silence. When I turn around, Daisy’s standing in the middle of the living room, barefoot in a vintage T-shirt that says Plants Over People and a pair of sleep shorts that should be illegal. Her hair’s loose and wild, lips pink from too much laughing today, and she’s looking at me like she already knows exactly what’s about to happen.

     Spoiler: so do I.

     “Hey,” she says, soft.

     "Hey." The word barely makes it out. Her voice is soft, inviting, but the second I look at her, everything in my body reacts.

     My breath hitches. Blood rushes south in a tidal wave of need. She's lit from the side by the string lights we never took down, and it makes her skin glow and her hair catch gold. Her T-shirt hangs just a little too loose off one shoulder, and those ridiculous shorts she's wearing should be illegal in all fifty states and Canada. My body tightens, heat pooling low and insistent, and I shift slightly, trying to hide the very obvious effect she has on me.

     Too late. She sees it. 

     She crosses the room and wraps her arms around my waist, tilting her head back to look up at me. “You made a sign for me. And painted it. With... flair.”

     “I also spelled ‘marry’ wrong the first time around and had to flip the board over and start over,” I admit.

     Her grin turns wicked. “So what you’re saying is, we’re lucky I didn’t end up married to ‘Marty.’”

     I chuckle. “Would Marty have brought you tulips?”

     She taps her chin like she’s weighing the pros and cons. “Well, that depends. Did this so-called Marty have a charmingly smug grin and a dog who moonlights as a four-legged romantic wingman? Oh, and let’s not forget biceps that look like they were sculpted by someone who clearly appreciates manual labor and the art of hauling flower crates like a superhero in cargo shorts?”

     “I’m standing right here,” I say, mock wounded.

     She presses up on her toes. “Still said yes.”

     Her lips brush mine, sweet and slow at first, but that thing between us—that spark that’s never gone out—it flares. One kiss turns into another. Then deeper. Hungrier. Like we’ve been starving and only just remembered how to eat.

     My hands find her hips. Her shirt slides up, my fingers brushing bare skin, and she makes a sound that wrecks my brain. I walk her backward, bumping into the couch, the coffee table, a very judgmental pothos plant, and then we’re in the bedroom, and it’s all heat and skin and the kind of connection that doesn’t make sense until you’re in it and then it’s everything.

     I kiss down her neck, across her collarbone, tasting sun-warmed skin and faint vanilla. She pulls at my shirt, breathless and laughing, and I yank it off over my head before she makes good on her threat to tear it.

     “I want you,” she says, voice low and real. “I want all of you. Always.”

     Something in my chest breaks open at that. The part I kept locked up until I met her. I run my hands down her back and lift her into me like she weighs nothing. Her legs wrap around me and I carry her to the bed.

     Clothes scatter like confetti. Skin meets skin. She’s soft and warm and mine. Every inch of her. “Daisy,” I whisper, my forehead pressed to hers as I slide into her slowly, reverently, like this is sacred. Because it is.

     She gasps, her hands gripping my shoulders. Her body arches into mine like she’s trying to merge into me. The rhythm we find is slow, deep, devastating. Her name is a prayer in my mouth. My name is a promise on her lips.

     We move like we were made for this. Like we always knew it would end this way—wrapped around each other in a tangle of heat and love and everything we were scared to want.

     When she comes, it’s with a soft cry and a whispered Ashe, like she’s giving me something no one else ever had. I follow seconds later, burying my face in her neck, her name exhaling from my lungs like absolution.

     We lay there after, tangled in sheets and each other, her fingers tracing idle shapes on my chest. Her touch is soft and lazy, like she’s drawing little constellations only she can see. I can still feel the echo of her body clinging to mine, the press of her thighs, the way she whispered my name like a secret meant only for the night. My breath hasn’t completely evened out yet. I’m hyperaware of every inch where we connect—her leg draped over mine, her skin warm against my side, her hair tickling my shoulder. My heart’s still thudding like I ran a mile uphill, and even though we’re still catching our breath, I already want her again. But more than that—I want this. I want her. In every way, for every tomorrow.

     “Still glad you said yes?” I ask, voice rough from everything.

     She props herself up on one elbow, smirking. “That depends. You planning to top the arts-and-crafts sign next time?”

     I grin. “Already working on a plan involving Peaches, a kiddie pool, and some confetti I swear is biodegradable.”

     She groans and drops her head to my chest. “God help me. I’m marrying a lunatic.”

     I kiss her hair. “You’re marrying a man who loves you so much, he’d turn the backyard into a doggy wedding runway if it meant seeing you laugh.”

     And in the dark, in the quiet, with Peaches and Smokey snoring on the other side of the door, I know I’ve finally found where I belong.

     Right here.

     Forever.