Tuesday Tales - Gift

Hi everyone! Welcome to Tuesday Tales!
We are back with Ezekiel Hallow in Featherweight (Hallow Brothers 6). This week’s word prompt is “gift”.
**Warning - There is adult situations and adult language.**
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Then again, he wasn’t. Seeing a beast like him doing something so domesticated stirred something inside her. It made her want to strip naked to reward him for a job well done. It made her want more from him, his heart, a home, children.
She glanced around the empty house then to the bleach spot on the floor. A whimper escaped her throat. She wanted those before and bad things happened. It was selfish for her to want them again.
She tried to busy herself with things. It was hard in a house with nothing in it other than the matching black and white ceramic cat salt and pepper shakers that sat in the windowsill over the sink. They had been a wedding gift from her mother-in-law. They only stayed because Dakota filled them both with garlic powder. They were helpful to protect the house not that it needed it anymore.
The buzz outside droned on for a little over a half hour moving around the perimeter of the property before it died off. A few moments later the garage door opened. Ezekiel stepped inside, his skin glistening with a sheen of sweat. His shirt hung out of the back pocket of his jeans. Dakota could have sworn her brain short circuited at the sight.
He smiled at her. “One last thing to worry about.”
She swallowed hard to find her voice. “Yeah, thanks.”
He stared at her for a long quiet moment before he looked around the blank walls. “What was his name?”
Dakota frowned at him. “Who?”
“Your husband.”
Her heart sunk in her chest. She didn’t realize just how fresh to wound still was after all these years. “Daniel. I called him Danny.”
He tugged his shirt out of his pocket and slipped it on. He wandered around, studying the empty rooms. “How’d you meet?”
“We were best friends in high school. He asked me to marry him our second year of college. I’m not sure how in love I was with him but then again I didn’t really know what love was. I said yes.”
“You weren’t in love with him?”
“I loved him. He was my friend. Zeke?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it right now.”
He looked at her then nodded. “Of course.”
“What even made you bring that up?”
“Empty house. You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Bleach stain on the floor. It’s your house. It’s where it happened. The attack that made you who you are now.”