Page 56 of Sunshine & Sinful

An adorable, frustrated sound rumbles in Sunshine’s throat as his lips press together and his eyebrows knit inthe center. “I’m sorry,” he grumbles, head shaking as if he’s angry with himself. I know his self-loathing well. For a man who discards dead bodies, he feels a lot more than you’d expect someone in his profession would.

I poke his tattooed shoulder playfully in the middle of a skull-centered rose. “It’s fine. We went a little hard.”

“We went a lot hard,” Sunshine mumbles more to himself than me as he adjusts my legs further apart to get a better view. Not that there’s much to see. It’s a pussy. The anatomy is always the same. But I don’t stop him from staring if that’s what he wants to do. I’m surprisingly not self-conscious about it. It’s not every day a hot man stares intently at your most sensitive bits. “Everything’s swollen.” He raises a finger like he wants to touch the puffy lips but changes his mind at the last second, not wanting to inflict pain.

“Well, if we keep this up. This won’t be the first or the last time.” Which is fine by me. Truly. I have no regrets.

“It will be the last,” he growls.

“Colton—”

The firm shake of his head cuts me off. “Don’t, Sweets. I don’t fuckin’ like this. I knew we should’ve stopped.”

“But I wanted you to get off.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, Sunshine shakes his head again, and his eyes squeeze shut for a beat. Expelling a heavy breath, he gets to his feet, taking my homemade bundle with him. In the kitchen, I overhear the trash bin open and close. The water runs. Then he returns with a fresh poultice. I made a bunch of them and put them in abowl on the counter, knowing I’d need one most of the day.

Letting Sunshine do whatever he pleases, I drop my legs open again, and he places the cotton bundle against my pussy lips and snuggles it against my ass.

“Thank you.” I trace my fingertips down his bare arm to his wrist, where I squeeze to convey how grateful I am for him every day.

“Anything for you.” He draws the blanket back up my legs and tucks the edges around my waist, leaving my upper half exposed.

Lacing my fingers across the skull and ravens on my belly, I focus my inner energy down below to aid in the healing. The quicker I get better, the quicker we can have sex again. “What do you have planned for the rest of the day?” I ask when Sunshine moves from the floor to perch on the edge of the coffee table.

“Besides being here with you?” He rests his hands on his knees.

“Yeah.”

“Nothing. Except spend time with you.”

“I don’t want to keep you. If you’ve got other things you gotta do.”

“Kali.” Sunshine drawls out my name as if I’m being silly. “I love you. You’re the most important person in my life. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

My silly heart skips a beat. “Well… I… I love you, too. But I’m fine. Really. If you’re worried about me because of the Anthony stuff, don’t be.” I wave that notion off.

“I’m glad he’s dead.” More than glad he’s dead, if I’m honest. Sure, I feel like an idiot for not seeing the writingon the wall. I slept with that man in his home. The same home he kept a shrine to me in. That’s… unsettling. Sure, I feel even dumber that my ex and his father were the ones to figure it out, but I can’t change it now, and I’m happy the stalkers are done for real this time. After a decade of waiting for the next one to crop up, it’s a relief to be free of them. At least now I know it wasn’t me causing this. It was Dark’s wife.

Damn.

His wife.

Say that five times.

Dark’s wife. A woman who’s not me and not the woman two houses down.

Sunshine strokes his beard. “He had an entire room with pictures of you, Sweets. You can say you’re fine all you damn well please, but I know better. You fucked that piece of shit. It wasn’t a job. You weren’t working him to then end his life. At one point, you liked the bastard.”

“I did,” I agree. Todd was beige wallpaper, and some of us need beige wallpaper in our lives now and again without the stalker element.

“Exactly. So, there’s gonna be a moment, I don’t know when, but you’re gonna let go of that iron grip on your fuckin’ anger, and when you do, you’re gonna hurt. So, I’m not leavin’. The brothers already got me covered, and Till’s got you covered.”

I don’t deserve that woman. For all she meddles, she’s always got my back.

“I should have texted her,” I groan, letting the guilt sink in.

“I already did.”

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