Page 51 of Sunshine & Ink

And goddamn Apostle for pushing.

It wasn’t a memory I cared to recall, but I remembered how Sunni had looked. Knees on the ground, mouth open wide.

Your job is to be a mouth to fill and a hole to fuck

Well, goddamn, she hadn’tbelievedthat, had she?

She knew I had a terrible temper, didn’t she?

I hadn’t meant those words.

I raked a hand through my hair.

Fuck me for being a jackass.

How could I fix this?

I tried to identify the feeling under my tongue. It wasn’t familiar to me.

Desperation

CHAPTER 18

Sunni

Iknew it wasn’t over when Raker sent prospects to clean up the messhehad fucking made of the Desert’s Cup.

After he left, Willow insisted we wait until the next day to clean the huge mess he had left—the toppled counter, the shattered mugs, smoke-blackened tabletops.

Leo had offered to stay over and I agreed, reluctantly. He was a psychologist, often working night shift, and I knew he’d had to take time off to stay with me.

I double and then triple-checked the door locks, unable to shake the feeling of unease.

Leo tried to soothe me, making me herbal tea with those deft, efficient motions, then rubbing my back.

He was a good fiancé, and good men were hard to find in Resurrected territory, let alone someone who would marry me knowing I was pregnant with another man’s baby.

But even he didn’t know the whole truth.

He knew I fled from a MC, but he didn’t know I had fled from the ruins of my love for the Prez.

“Will you move in with me now?” Leo asked as we settled down to bed.

“No,” I replied, crawling in next to him, my hands cradling my belly.

My baby kicked, and even with what I knew was a frown of concern on my face, I felt my body relax with the thrill of feeling him move.

But I didn’t say anything, even though Leo had always been supportive, always excited to feel the baby move, always planning our future together.

Because now I’d seen my baby’s father face-to-face.

For 8 months I’d been successful at driving any thought of Raker down as deep as I could so I didn’t have to think about him.

But now I had.

And as I spread my hands across the swollen width of my belly, I knew what was pulsing through my veins.

This was Raker’s child. Even though he hadn’t wanted a baby, I was carrying a piece of Raker inside me.

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