Page 42 of Sunshine
“Now that’s what I like to see.” He gives one of those dry chuckles that make me want to mount him while simultaneously castrating him.
I gasp again as the belt lands in fast burning strikes across my panty covered cheeks, stealing my breath. I rise on tiptoes,concentrating on all the ways I can make his character suffer in my current work in progress.
I’m so caught up in my fantasy of Case losing his dick in a terrible motorcycle accident, I don’t notice he’s stopped. At least not until I hear Jake’s screeching and Case’s cursing. I turn, and holy shit, Jake is flapping his big wings, feet straight forward, attacking Case with his foot spurs.
And instead of helping my neighbor from my attack chicken, I grab my ass and burst out laughing.
Case throws up his arms to protect his face, the belt dropping with a clink to the porch. I watch in amusement, clutching my stomach, near tears from laughing until he takes a swing at Jake.
“Don’t you dare hurt him!” I squeal.
Case shoots me a look through flailing feathers and growls at me. Then he reaches out and grabs the rooster by the legs. Jake is suddenly flapping upside-down, screeching.
“Gotcha,” he says and looks at me again. “I wasn’t going to hurt him, for fuck’s sake. I’m not a monster.” He stomps down the stairs and carries the rooster to the coop.
“Jake, you can wake me up every day for the rest of your life and I will never yell at you again,” I call and scramble into the house, locking all the doors. And when Case pounds on the back entrance a few minutes later, I ignore him.
“Tessa, we aren’t done until I say so.”
Both hands find my hot bottom and I rub the throbbing away. Unfortunately, the throbbing there is far less prevalent than the other part of me pulsing for attention, but damn it, I refuse to rubitaway. It’s a matter of principal.
Instead, I sit on a pillow and start tapping away at my keyboard again. And that’s where Paige finds me the next morning, still in my underwear, bleary-eyed and smiling.
When I get up to go grab my stuff for the beach—the first thing on our list for Girls’ Weekend — she shrieks.
“He followed through on his threat!”
I spin, shocked. “How on earth…”
“Better wear a wrap over your swimsuit, Tess. Your ass is telling a story I’m not sure you want published.” She bursts out laughing and I scowl, pointing at her.
“Not another word, Paige, or I’m definitely firing you.” I narrow my eyes on her as she doubles over, laughing harder.
Changing tactics, I say, “Keep that up and I’m not giving you details.”
I smile smugly when she closes her mouth so fast her teeth click.
“That’s better.”
Chapter Thirteen
Case
I promised myself when I was with Reece there would be nothing else to distract me, so I keep my phone on airplane mode and focus completely on her. Unfortunately, I can’t control my thoughts as easily as my phone and my mind keeps wandering back to the island and the woman there who’s not only trouble but somehow also completely under my skin. And it’s putting me in a mood.
Mack and I put up temporary fencing before I left Friday and I gave Tessa a pretty good spanking for her shenanigans afterward, so I shouldn’t need to think about her or what she’s up to, but I am anyhow. And at night, as I lie on my bed, my mind conjures up memories of our kiss, of the flirty way she asked me to punish her, her saucy backtalk, and false bravado. And admittedly the reverie of her in her lacy panties, her long legs and perfect goddamn ass are pure torture in the dark.
I shove thoughts of Tessa away for the billionth time and watch my little girl feeding the goats. I’m ready to pounce if one so much as looks at her finger funny. Our worker, Janet, sits on a bench a little farther away where I ignore her.
Reece hates when I ignore the worker, so as the booth employee hands me a popsicle for Reece, I order a diet cola for Janet. I know she likes diet from the many times she’s sat sipping it, reading and keeping an eye on me as if I’m the criminal I’d portrayed for five years.
That thought drags my mind back to Tessa. Would Python spank a woman who was causing him trouble? Most definitely. Even when I was portraying Python, I had a no-hurting-women rule. It’s why I stuck up for Lulah when the other members of the ransom wanted to rough her up. But a spanking wasn’t hurting a woman, especially when she secretly wanted it and plenty of the women that wanted Python, wanted just that kind of treatment. But I wasn’t Python anymore. Or was I? I’d never once played around with dubious consent before the Ransom.
A drip of sugary juice drips on my hand, yanking me back to the petting zoo and my daughter.
“Popsicle, Reece?” I call to my daughter, smiling as her little face, flushed from the sun and shiny from the sunscreen, beams. She nods and then leans down to whisper into the brown and white goat’s ear. I watch the little brown thief as he eyes the cone in her hand, which is nearly empty of feed. The goat almost drags her away when she wraps her little arms around his neck, his weirdly slitted eyes suddenly on a toddler with droopy pants and a cone full of feed pellets.
“Whoa!” She squeals in delight then runs straight for me, a llama plucking the cone out of her grubby hand as she passes through the fence gate. “Did you see that, Daddy? I almost rode that goat.”
