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The Sun Still Shines in the Rain
“Are you going to open your eyes?”
I don’t respond.
“Why did you bring her here? She looks like she’s barely holding on. You should take her to the hospital.”
I know that voice, too.
That’s Hero Knight, Hunter’s younger brother.
Hero is the one responsible for my brother’s death.
My brother told me everything, absolutely everything about beautiful eighteen-year-old Hero, who is a spitting image of his older brother. Exactly. They look too much alike. Hero even wears his hair long like Hunter does.
I know everything.
Hunter touches my hand and, for the first time since we’ve been together, I grip his hand tight, interlocking our fingers.
“Man, she’s really pale. How do you know she won’t kill herself when you leave for a bathroom break?” Hero adds, suspiciously. “She’s six feet under waiting to happen. Everyone knows all the Waters are suicidal lunatics.”
“Get the fuck out of my house, Hero,” Hunter snarls.
“Chill, Hunter. I’m leaving. Mom just sent me to check on you. She said you aren’t answering her phone calls. You haven’t showed up to Sunday dinner in, like, two months.”
“Hero,” Hunter warns quietly.
“Alright. I’m gone. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to know you have Cutter in your house.”
Angry footsteps recede down the hall towards the spiral staircase and through the living room. The front door slams shut, the impact of it all vibrating through the walls.
“He made you upset,” Hunter states softly. “I’m so sorry about that. He won’t be here, around you. So don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe.”
Silent tears roll down my cheeks. Hunter wipes them away with his fingers but they keep coming. He slides into his bed with me, pulling me against his taut chest. “I’m really tired, Hunter,” I confess, losing myself in another current of tears.
“It’s okay, baby. Just breathe.”
I throw my arms around his middle, nuzzling closer. “It hurts to breathe. I’m so tired. I’m not strong enough to make it. Let me go.”
He squeezes me tighter. “I can’t do that, Isabel.”
“Please let me go,” I mumble through my rapid tears. “He’s right. I can’t hold on anymore.”
“You hold on to me. I’m right here. Don’t you dare give up, Isabel. Do you hear me? Hold on to me when everything else fails.”
“But I can’t,” I sob, the powerful wail rattling my chest and shaking my shoulders.
“You can. You have to.” He places a hand under my chin and tips my head back. I open my eyes, flicking the tears from my thick lashes. Opening my eyes is the wrong thing to do because I’m flooded with Hunter’s devastatingly handsome face. Strong jaw line, pink kissable lips that are a little too full, a straight nose, and vivid blue eyes I can practically drown in.
The beauty that is him leaves me stunned.
“You can do it. I know you can. You’re strong,” he declares. Then he tucks my body into his left side, engulfing me completely. “What are you, Isabel?”
“A suicidal loser,” I sob.
He growls and squeezes the air from me. “Wrong. What are you, Isabel?”
“Please, I’m tired, Hunter.”
“What are you, Isabel?”
“I’m sleepy.”
His tight grip turns into a deathtrap vice. “What are you, Isabel?”
“You’re hurting me, Hunter,” I whisper, my tears finally coming to an end as a new wave of terror takes over.
“What. Are. You.” The pressure from his steely arms is crushing my ribs. He doesn’t loosen his grasp on my body, not one inch.
I rarely see this aggressive, scary side of Hunter up close and personal anymore; years ago, after he cut me from his life, he always kept me at a safe distance. I know he has a temper, hell, everyone knows he has a temper from the numerous bloody fights he was involved in throughout high school. Hunter’s temper has gotten better with age, but I think he’s still trying to control it. His fighting hasn’t stop, it only slowed.
We attend the same school and are both in our junior year of college. I left UNCG early to deal. Winter break is approaching. Everyone will be back home and soon they’ll all know I tried to off myself. I don’t think I have the courage to face them all again.
He drops an arm from around me, his hand fists harshly in my hair, tugging it by the roots, forcing my head back so he can look at my face. Petrified and extremely aroused, I stare into his heated eyes, at a loss for words.
Unbelievable.
Those eyes get me every time.
How could anything be so purely blue?
As blue as the purest water in the world, as blue as a cloudless sky.
“What are you, Isabel?”
Feeling something flicker alive inside me, I lick my dry lips to answer, but before I do, his gaze drops to my mouth and darkens instantly. “I am strong?”
His eyes gradually shift back to mine in such a lazy way it makes my head swim and, when they do, the emotion and turbulent storm within them leaves me breathless. But I can’t quite comprehend the intense emotion there.
Frustration?
Annoyance?
Hunger?
“Yeah, you’re strong—” his jaw clenches “—and pretty. So stop saying shitty things before I lose my fucking mind.” He leans in close, so close I feel his sweet breath wash over my lips and cheeks. “And you don’t want me to lose my mind, Isabel. There’s no telling what I’ll do. You have no idea what I’m capable of anymore.”
A whiny, needy sound slides out my throat.
Did I just moan?
Yep!
I think I just moaned.
I moaned peering right into Hunter’s blue eyes. His lips hover above mine and his hand is firmly knotted at the back of my head in my hair.
He smiles widely in return, eliciting another throaty moan.
His golden brows pull together, then he inclines really close.
Oh.
My.
God.
He’s going to kiss me.
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
Kiss me.
Kiss me, please.
Feeling like a Disney princess about to be kissed by her true love, I shut my eyes and pucker my lips. The heat from his body bathes mine; I suck up as much of his scent that my lungs can hold, leaving me highly intoxicated. It’s like I’m huffing paint, unable and incapable of stopping. His lips kiss the tip of my nose lightly and then he sags back against the pillows, chuckling softly.
I open my eyes, dazed and glaring.
I’m such an idiot.
“Were you expecting more, Isabel?”
“No,” I lie, my cheeks flaming red.
Asshole.
“Liar,” he taunts. “You want me to kiss you?”
“No.”
“You want me to fuck you?”
“No.”
Yes!
“You want me to lick your pussy?”
Fuck yes!
“No,” I mumble, barely audible, hiding my face in the fabric of his black cotton shirt.
Hunter gives me a tight squeeze and tsks disappointedly. “I would’ve done all three and more, if you told the truth, Isabel. Now, you have to settle with sleeping next me instead of me sleeping inside of you.”
I release a ragged breath, kind of pissed at myself.
He would’ve done all three and more?!
My breathing quickens. Suddenly, I lose my common sense and forget how to inhale, to exhale, to do anything.
I’m hyperventilating.
“Jesus, Isabel. Breathe,” Hunter orders, shifting on top of me. “Christ, you’re freaking out.”
I am freaking out.
I’m practically naked—I’m only in my underwear—in bed with the only boy I have ever loved in a way it made me feel deranged.
He’s so beautiful up close, every inch of him.
I can’t think.
I can’t move.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t function.
He bends his head and thick waves of blond hair come crashing down all around me. He’s staring directly into my eyes, down into the deepest depths of my soul. “I think you’re going into shock.”
Bewildered by the turn of events and even my own body’s greedy needs, I nod, agreeing to anything he says.
“Can you breathe for me, Isabel?”
I nod, still unable to do anything but gaze helplessly into his eyes like a bimbo idiot.
“You can start by opening your mouth.”
Doing as I’m told my lips part almost immediately.
He moves further to my mouth, his face seriously sexy and eerily focused. “Wider,” he commands.
Feeling his heat roast my skin, I close my eyes and open my mouth wider. Then the sweet wetness of the tip of his tongue darts into my mouth, leaving me shaking and tingly all over. His tongue flicks mine and glides over the roof of my mouth and then it’s gone.
I suck in as much air as my lungs can hold and, oddly, I feel better.
“I see that did the trick,” Hunter smugly gloats, lying back down, tucking me into his side. “Still tired?”
I nod silently against his warm, hard, fragrant chest.
Arrogant bastard.
“Get some rest, then.”