Page 174 of Little Sunshine

Our whole conversation seemed to cycle through my head like my brain was committing each and every moment to memory. His claims of love and obsession, but also the rest. What he was willing to do to protect me.

What he had done.

Like his words were rays of sunlight made just for me, I wanted to bask in them. Let them seep into my soul to warm me from the inside out.

Before I could do that, though…

“We still need to talk,” I said.

And I wouldn’t be put off—again.

He took his touch away and began redoing his slacks. “I’m not going to get caught.”

“But when they do testing?—”

“If they bother to—and that’s a big if—it’ll show exactly what they suspect. Drugs. After a week in that dump without the AC on, I doubt they’ll look close enough to spot the broken hand. Even if they do, that won’t jump out as odd since he’s a known shithead.”

“What about the other guy?”

“They won’t find him.”

“Are you sure?”

His expression softened as he shook off his shirt. I tried—and failed—to ignore the wetness on it.

Oops.

“Yeah, sunshine, I’m sure. This isn’t something we do on the daily, but we’ve still done it enough to be good at it.”

“We?”

“Me, Maximo, Cole, and Marco.”

My brows lowered. “They know about the guys?”

“I know you didn’t want people to know?—”

I waved it away. “No, I mean they know what you did to those guys?”

“They know ’cause they helped me.”

I mentally added yet another item to the list of reasons I was dysfunctional. Because at hearing that, my heart melted like I’d just found out they’d gotten together to throw me a surprise party and not a murder.

I set that aside to bask in later, too.

I got momentarily distracted as Ash tugged his tee off, slowly revealing muscles and tattoos like they were works of art.

Because they were.

I forced myself to stay on topic. “If you weren’t worried about them overhearing, then why didn’t you want to talk until we were home?”

Taking the tee in his hand, he pulled it over my head. I automatically moved to slide my arms in. Once it was on, he kissed me sweetly like he hadn’t just roughly used me. And then he smirked. “Because it would be harder for you to run from me here.”

That shouldn’t have been romantic, yet there we were.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “With how serious Maximo takes security, I thought maybe there were cameras or something in your company vehicle, and that’s why you didn’t want to talk. I just kept thinking about all the…”

His gaze dropped to my flushed cheeks. “All the filthy things I’ve said in that SUV?”

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