Page 54 of Sunshine & Ink

I could kill him easily, come up behind him and wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze, break his spine in a few angry motions.

But what if that distressed Sunni?

Goddamn it again

I wouldn’t kill him unless he really pissed me off.

But he clearly needed another warning.

So when I had closed the distance between us, I shoved him into the side of a car.

He fell down with weak yelp and I had to resist my urge to drive my knee into his forehead. Although he was a tall man, he was dwarfed by my height.

“I told you to stay away from Sunni,” I snarled, my boot on his back.

“R-Raker?” he choked out. “She doesn’t want you anymore.”

“I’m working on that,” I snarled. “Stay away from her or I’ll kill you.”

“I have friends in the Elders,” he said, twisting back and forth, but I only ground my boot in harder.

“I don’t give a shit,” I said. “Leave.”

As he crawled away, looking furtively behind his shoulder as he got into his car, I walked up the steps to Sunni’s apartment and let myself in.

It was a small place, just a studio apartment with one combined room that had a bed, kitchen, and living area.

The walls were worn but clean, and as I moved soundlessly through the apartment I noticed that she had covered them with all kinds of things. A row of geodes sparkling with crystals. Canvas paintings full of bright splashes of cover. And then, on the little kitchen window sill, a few tiny plants, wilted and parched.

I looked closer. There was a little dropper beside each one with plant food.

Knowing Sunni and her gentle heart, these were probably plants other people had trashed that she was refusing to give up.

A board creaked as I stepped past the fridge.

“Raker, I know it’s you.Get out.”

My body stilled with the sound of her voice, and I turned toward the bed, my lust pounding through me at the throaty, sleepy note in her voice.

“Did you just fuck him?”

It wasn’t at all what I intended to say, but I couldn’t stop the bitter regret laced through my voice.

“Yes,” she said coldly. “He’s my fiancé, Raker. Of course I fucked him.”

Jealousy writhed through my body like a venomous serpent, and I closed my fist to fight down the urge to follow Leo again, give in to my darkest urges and fucking kill him this time.

Sunni was lying on her side in the moonlight, a pillow between her thighs, and it fucking burned to feel her contempt and indifference.

“You said you didn’t want to touch any other man but me.”

Agony scraped raw and painful down my throat.

“I changed my mind. Now the thought of touching you disgusts me.”

I tried to force my untamed jealousy of Leo from my mind, his hands touchingmySunni, his seed swelling her belly.

It should have been mine, I realize with a start. It should by all rights have beenmemaking her a mama.

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