She swallowed.I can’t keep lying to him.It wasn’t fair, especially after everything they’d been through and how hard she’d worked to gain his trust.
But telling him would bring this little dream to an end.
“Well…I don’t have to go just yet.” She smiled while her stomach churned with guilt.
He searched her gaze. She would have given anything to know what he was thinking.So many secrets still between us.They stood outside the door in silence for another minute or so, Luna looking between them like she didn’t understand what the holdup was.
“Can you teleport with a dog?” Raum finally asked.
Sunshine nodded.
“Alright. We’ll take her. But I have to bring her back eventually. We’re only delaying the inevitable.”
She bounced on the balls of her feet. “Thank you!”
Picking up on her excitement, Luna’s tail wagged and she forgot to tremble in fright for several moments. Raum shook his head, turning to open the door, but Sunshine didn’t miss the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
The butterflies started up all over again.
21
Flip The Bird
When Sunshine flashed them to the roof of Raum’s apartment building, Luna freaked a little and ran circles around his legs, nearly tripping him with the leash.
Once she calmed, he disentangled himself amidst Sunshine’s laughter, fighting back his own laugh. He hid it out of habit. He wasn’t used to laughing, and the truth was, it embarrassed him a little bit when he did. He felt like he was exposing too much.
When he was untied, he handed the leash to Sunshine. The first time they’d been here together, he hadn’t cared a lick about leaving her alone on the roof. Now, he didn’t like it.
He glanced around at their drab surroundings. “You’ll be okay up here?”
“We’ll be fine,” she assured him, reaching down to pat Luna’s head. “We’ll get some sun and enjoy the view.”
“I’ll make it quick.”
“We’ll be here.”
He went to the edge of the building, pausing briefly before he jumped off. As he fell through space, he didn’t have the same urge to let himself keep falling as he normally did, and he shifted sooner than usual. The falling didn’t give the same rush or provide the same distraction from the emptiness. Because, he realized…there wasn’t much emptiness to begin with.
He didn’t think that was a good thing.
He was getting addicted to Sunshine. He could jump off buildings until he was blue in the face—or rather, a stain on the sidewalk—and it wouldn’t come close to how it felt tasting her as she came apart on his tongue. Or feeling his shaft slide between her lips, or spilling all over her chest.
Or…listening to her laugh. Seeing her smile. Hearing the way she said his name. Looking into those big dark eyes, so full of life. Catching her watching him from the corner of his eye.
Fuck, he was so fucked.
He landed on the windowsill to his room and squeezed through the crack, shifting to human form when he was back inside.
His room looked the same, yet it felt like a stranger’s space. He stared at the undecorated walls and felt no sense of belonging or identification. It was just a room he slept in. He might as well have been sleeping in a hotel.
Oh a whim, he crossed the space, moved the chair barricade, and whipped open the closet doors. It was the first time he’d done it in months. To keep his loot contained, he’d taken to slipping his new acquisitions through the crack between the frame at the top.
Now, freed at last, it spilled forth. The pile came up to about his ankles, covered the entire bottom of the closet, and overflowed a couple feet onto the bedroom floor. There were wallets, phones, jewelry, car keys, drugs, and other miscellaneous valuables.
He looked at the pile of his deepest shame…and laughed. Well, it was more of a silent snort, but for him, that counted as a laugh.
His brothers were right. He took things too damn seriously all the time. This pile haunted him like a vengeful ghost. He often lay away at night, trying not to stare at the closet doors, knowing what lurked behind them.
