Page 46 of Sunshine & Ink

“No!” she cried, but I ignored her, blood running down my arm and dripping onto her tank top as I put a firm hand on her lower back.

“NO!” she cried again, beating at me with tiny, ineffective fists.

“Stop it,” I told her sharply. “You are going to hurt yourself and the baby.”

I would have to swallow my pride and bring back a pregnant whore.

There was a bitter gall taste in my mouth as I remembered Sunni’s words to me.

Could we never marry, Raker? Could you not get a special dispensation? Since everyone knows the Elders love you.

No, there wasn’t a dispensation.

I had been impatient, angry with her.

I had lost my temper at the sweetest woman in the world.

And now this was the result. She had what she wanted with another man.

Well, the rage might boil in my throat but I wasnota good man.

I was going to take her anyway.

CHAPTER 16

Sunni

Just as Raker closed his massive hand firmly around my waist, I saw Leo appear at the door with Elise. They were cousins, both endowed with almost otherworldly beauty, both tall and elegant. Elise had long falls of burnished golden-blonde hair, blue-eyed and beautiful, looking like a fairy queen, and my fiancé Leo was tall with blonde waves and a lean, athletic body, his smile quick and easy.

Altogether the opposite of everything Raker was.

Thankfully

For one wild moment, I thought about ignoring him, pretending like I didn’t know Leo to protect him, but when he saw me with Raker looming over him, he crossed rapidly to my side.

“Sunday? What’s happening? Who is this?”

“He’s nobody,” I said, my chest feeling tight and constricted.

Raker stilled, and I felt anger gathering under his skin, making his fingers flames on me. He turned with a snarl on Leo, stopping him short.

“I’m the man who owns her. Who areyou?”

Raker wrapped a big hand around my palm, his skin feeling hot with an angry energy. I could feel his confidence that I was the same sweet, submissive club girl he had left.

But I wasn’t.

“I am Leo. I’m her fiancé,” he said firmly.

Raker’s eyes sparked with a dangerous fire.

“Fuck that. I’ll never allow her to marry anyone else.”

Then with a firm motion he ripped my engagement ring off as I yelped in distress.

He held it up in the light for a moment, then cast it contemptuously into the fire.

“You need to leave,” Leo said, his face pale but set as he reached for me.

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