Page 95 of Ardently Yours

“Out like a light. They wore themselves out today.”

“Are you headed for your own bed?”

He watches me with an assessing gaze and a small smile. “I was thinking of heading back outside to the fire if you’d like to join me.”

“Let me grab a sweatshirt, and I’ll meet you out there.”

Smiling, his gaze lingers on my eyes before he leans down and brushes his lips against mine. “I’ll get the fire going.”

I join him five minutes later to find him pacing in front of the firepit and talking on the phone. “So I use the little pieces of kindling again or can I go straight to a full-sized log?”

When he sees me, he cuts off his conversation, hangs up, then scratches the back of his neck. “Did you hear that?”

“A little of it. Yes.”

“We still have some coals from earlier, but I wasn’t sure if there is a specific way one is meant to stoke the fire. I was hoping one of the guys could talk me through it before you came out. I could have figured it out, I’m sure, but I was attempting to be more efficient after my incident with the grill.”

“Don’t you have fireplaces in your house?”

“Are you going to make me say it?”

“I think you have to, because I’m confused.”

“The staff maintain them. Most of them are gas. I light the others sometimes, but if I do, it’s an already prepared stack of kindling and logs.”

I blink and look back at the coals.

“This firepit is my silverware and amuse-bouche,” he says.

I squeeze his hand. “That’s okay.”

“I tried to set up the best version of a ‘normal’ vacation I could think of, but”—Arden points at his eyebrows—“I burned my eyebrows because I have no idea how to use agrill.If sitcoms and television commercials are anything to go by, every man in the United States of America is born knowing how to cook outside.”

I cover my smile.

“I tried to wash the boys’ chocolate-covered shirts and baked the stains in. The coffee I made this morning wasundrinkable. What thehellhave I been doing with my life that I don’t know how to do these things?”

“Raising kids. Running companies. Flying planes, keeping your family safe, and putting baddies in prison?”

I snort. “Besides that.”

“Being perfectly honest, I’d sit back and bask in the joy of not having to do laundry. I’ll teach you if you want, but”—she grimaces—“it’s laundry.”

“It’d be good to know how.”

“You’ll have it mastered in ten minutes. Want me to teach you how to make a campfire too?”

“My ego is taking a beating right now.”

I stretch up to kiss his bearded chin. “I’ll stroke it better later. I like seeing this side of you. You’re not posturing the way a lot of men would be, and you’re willing to learn new things when you don’t have to.”

He wraps me in his arms and cradles my head against his shoulder. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

He straightens. “All right. Tell me how to stoke the fire, wise one.”

When flames are cracklingbehind me, Arden lowers himself to sit on the Adirondack chair, then lifts me onto his lap. I straddle him, both of us fully clothed, with my knees on either side of his narrow hips. “This is a risky position we’re in.”

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