Page 56 of Sinister Red

With a sigh, I go to light my smoke, realizing too late that my fingers are frozen and not working the way they should.

“Fuck it.” I toss the cigarette in the snow, grab my cane, and force myself off the side of the house.

There was a fifty-fifty chance that bullet paralyzed me, and the odds weren’t really in my favor since Beau stabbed me a few times once I was down, but the surgeon didn’t really know what would come from my injuries until I was functioning for a few days.

And that’s what it took before I got the feeling back in my toes.

A couple more before I could feel my legs, then a few more before I could move anything.

I didn’t wait for my incisions to meet the doctor’s standards to start PT, though. The minute I bent my left leg at the knee, I pushed for therapy, and after five and a half weeks of busting my ass, I was able to walk into the service honoring Tavish and Angus on my own, and you better believe I’ll be riding my bike to continue doing that whenever the weather lets up. Against doctor’s orders, of course, but I’ve regained my mobility, am at almost ninety percent with everything, and my pain is at a constant three on a scale of one to ten, which is fucking huge since it was a solid eleven for a month and I won’t take anything more than Motrin for it. The cane is more or less there in case my legs try to buckle or my nerves pinch and create a problem. It’s the only compromise I was willing to make.

So yeah, I need to keep working on my physical ability and health because I’m still recovering, but I’m not going to let it stand in my way of anything I plan to do today.

I stand and rub my hands together, trying to get a little feeling back in my fingers as I survey the property, my gaze lingering over Sofie’s house longer than what’s probably acceptable.

Dr. Douchebag isn’t home.

Then again, it is Thursday, and that means he’s probably on lunch banging his secretary in that skeezy motel. And I really don’t need to be thinking about him or Sofie anymore. She can do whatever the fuck she wants and it won’t faze me, even if it means spending the rest of her life with a prick who can’t be faithful to the most amazing woman on the planet.

Fucker.

I shake my head then blow on my fingers before I grip my cane a little tighter then make my way to the back door, opening it to find the woman I’m supposed to hate bent over, digging around on the bottom shelf of what used to be the pantry, but now doubles as a storage room for display urns.

“Jesus Christ!” Sofie jumps and spins toward me as I let the storm door slam closed, her hand covering her heart that’s probably pounding in her chest. “You scared the hell out of me.”

I say nothing, just close the backdoor and stare at her.

“You’re soaking wet.”

Annoyed that she has somehow forgotten what happened the last time we saw each other or can pretend we didn’t spit venom for fifteen minutes in a hospital room, I keep staring without a word.

I still can’t get over how gorgeous she is. I couldn’t when we first met, couldn’t the entire year we were together and I saw her in every facet of who she is on a daily basis, and I still can’t after knowing her for years. Sofie is, and always will be, the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. Even in a simple black dress that hugs her figure in a way it didn’t when I was privileged enough to hold her, or with her face totally bare, save for the stains left by her tears, the big brown doe eyes and perfect pillowy lips more gorgeous than when I was allowed to kiss her tears away.

Sofie hasn’t changed at all, and if anything, twenty-eight is sexy as fuck on this woman, so much so that the obvious irritation with my lack of response is apparently doing it for me now because my dick is twitching in my pants for the first time in years.

Believe me when I say I have fuckingtriedto get this kind of reaction from him over literally anyone else without any luck. I can’t even fuck the woman out of my system because various parts of my body refuse to accept the fact that Sofie and I are done, regardless of what my brain is telling them.

Loyal to a fucking fault.

Even when it means jerking off for the rest of my life.

“You’re… you need to dry off or else… “ Sofie bites her lip as she looks over my shoulder briefly.

And I can’t figure out why the fuck she’s even talking to me right now. Which is absolutely why I say, “And you all of the sudden give a shit because…”

She scowls. “Fine. If you want to be like that, then fine.” Sofie turns back to the door and attempts to turn the knob. “I thought that maybe if we ran into each other we could try to be civil, we could be polite or whatever.” She shakes it, turns it, then stops. “We didn’t have to be friends, or even pretend to know each other, but considering why we’re both here…” I lean back against the door and watch Sofie fight with the one in front of her. “I figured we could set everything aside and—fuck!”

“I’m not against it.” I smirk as Sofie spins toward me, those chocolate-colored eyes dark and angry. “A good hate-fuck never hurt anyone.” My grin grows as she blushes. “But I’m sure you’re too laced up for that now, what with the safe fiancé and all.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“And you don’t know how to open a fucking door.”

“It’s stuck.” She huffs before turning around to fight with it again. “Of course it had to get stuck right now, just as the jackass of the year walks in through the back. It’s just my luck I’d wind up in a goddamn box with my…” Sofie’s shoulders bunch up to her ears as I step up behind her.

“Yourwhat?”

She goes completely still as I press my front to her back, my wet clothes drenching her dry ones, and reach around to grip the knob.

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