“You and me need to talk, Sunny.”
“No, we don’t,” she said, frowning.
“Yeah, we do because this tension is fucking killing me.”
The wind whipped around them, and Seb brushed Sunny’s hair back, which had come loose from her ponytail, keeping hold of her face once he was finished.
“I hurt you.”
“You rejected me,” she accused, hurt in her eyes. “But I’m over it now.” She couldn’t lie for shit. Making sure she was looking at him by not allowing her to pull away from him, Seb unleashed his truth after holding it in for years.
“Hurting you killed me, Sunny. But I didn’t see any other way. You got the jump on me, and it blew my fucking mind. I’d been waiting. So much fucking waiting for you. And it was too soon. I was trying to do the right thing for us.”
She frowned, and he knew he’d have to explain further.
“You were eighteen, Sunny. When it all suddenly switched on. These feelings for you differed from how I’ve always felt about my little friend. The kid who would follow me and worship me like I was Superman. The little girl I would drop everything for if she needed me, no matter what. The same girl I fretted over like my limb was missing the summer when you went to school camp. Me and your dad nearly rode there to check no one was bullying you, but your mom wouldn’t let us.” He gently touched her face and saw the emotion in her eyes as she remembered their shared memories.
There was no Seb without Sunny somewhere around.
Being away at college had been the most challenging time, even as he pretended he’d had the best three years. His melancholy was because of her. The whole time.
“But those memories we have together, Sunny, were nothing compared to what happened when I saw you one day.I saw you. Everything altered in that one second. And I felt like a piece of dirty shit because I was twenty-five, seven years older than you. I couldn’t doanything, even when I ached to hold you and confess my fucking heart out. You went to college and started distancing yourself from me, and I thought it would go away. I’d love you as my little friend again, my best girl. I’d only feel like your protector, but it didn’t change, Sunny. And I told myself I had to wait until you were old enough, but it was the worst fucking thing I’ve ever done because I lost every part of you, and I’ve been trying to get you back ever since.”
Whatever he’d thought she’d say, Seb never expected to see the emotion switch to fiery anger or to feel her fist slug him in the arm.
“You shit!” she hissed. “You absolute shit, Sebastian Priest! I ought to kick your ass all the way back to Colorado and then get a prospect to bury you in the river.”
Nothing amused Seb more than when Sunny threatened him, and his mouth split with a grin. She tried to punch him again, and he grabbed her hand, flattening it out, and pressed it to his beating heart. “No, you just hold right here, sweetheart.”
All the fire evaporated from her, but she didn’t let go. Cupping the side of her face again, Seb brought his forehead down to hers, connecting them.
“I am a shit. But I want to be yours. A lifetime of being yours, sunbeam.”
That she was silently looking up at him didn’t worry Seb. Sunny was a thinker; she liked to process her thoughts and feelings, and he’d waited this long. What was another minute? Even so, he stroked his lips against her forehead and felt her throbbing pulse.
She shivered in his arms as he rested his butt on the bike seat and brought Sunny into the space between his legs, putting them on the same height level.
“I’ll make it up to you, Sunny.”
“I can’t,” she whispered, and he felt the noose around his neck tighten. She couldn’t? Then he’d have to persuade her, because losing her wasn’t an option.
“You can.”
“You hurt me,” she accused.
“You offered yourself to me like a club groupie, Sunny. I was furious you’d do that because you’re so much more than that to me. Even though I wanted you with my last breath and resisting you was agony, I still would have been furious the way you talked about yourself.”
“So, it’s okay for them to be sexual, but not me?” Her chin went high, and Seb grinned.
“Yes.” It was double standards, but this was his sunbeam, and he didn’t care that he sounded like a prick. She had done nothing wrong that night. Far from it, she’d presented him with nirvana, and he hadn’t slept soundly since hearing those words repeatedly inside his head. “You fucking floored my ass. I wanted to spank you until you couldn’t sit down. Instead, you didn’t talk to me for a year.”
The little brat dared smile like she was pleased she’d put him in a frozen hell, but he’d deserved her silence.
“Tell me you’ll be mine, Sunshine.”
“No,” she gasped. Her eyes lit up with desire, and she started pawing his chest.
Seb didn’t need the words yet. She was his. They both felt it in every labored breath. He pressed his forehead against hers and searched her bright eyes.
