Chapter 15 – Tag #2
“No,” I said, and leaned down so only she could hear me. “I just want to know that when I finally do fuck you, darlin, you’ll let me know I’m the best you’ve ever had.”
She pulled away and smiled again. “Cocky,” she accused me.
“Factual,” I said. “Let’s go get some air out back. This place is a sauna.”
I caught her hand and pulled her with me toward the back where there was a line for the women’s room and a slightly shorter line for the men’s.
There was a door at the end of the hallway that was supposed to stay shut, but any time the men’s line became too long, business was taken care of out back.
I pushed through the door, took a quick peek around to find a few smokers lingering, and pulled Sunshine out into the night.
She tilted her head back and sucked in some of the fresh night air.
“If you pulled me out here to convince me to leave with you, you’re going to be disappointed,” she said. “I promised Bliss I would stay the whole time. It’s important to her that I see her in action and I’m trying…”
“What are you trying?” I prompted her when she fell silent.
Her eyes glittered in the moonlight. “I’m trying to be a better sister? Or should I say, half-sister.”
The Stand faced the town square, so the only thing behind it was a small kids’ park and rolling hills as far as the eye could see.
By mutual consent, we walked until we got to the old carousel and each of us picked an animal.
I picked the white horse with the green eyes and she picked a frog with a crown.
“What are we doing out here?” she asked.
“Just wanted some air,” I told her. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about kissing.”
She laughed but her mood was pensive. Which wasn’t the right mood for a big welcome home party.
“Okay,” I said, stretching out my legs as best I could. “But I’m a better kisser than I am a cowboy.”
She chuckled, but her mood didn’t change. So I did what I always did with quiet unsure creatures. I waited.
“Twenty-seven,” she finally said.
My expression must have read confused.
“That’s how old I was when I lost my virginity.
I bet nobody bet that high. It was awful and awkward.
Of course, I couldn’t tell the guy I was dating at the time.
That would just put me further in the weird column.
But, he figured it out anyway, and then I never heard from him again. But, at least it was done.”
“Shit, Sun,” I cursed. “I’m sorry that was your first experience.”
“I had such a crush on you in high school,” she said, batting away my sympathy with her hand. “I used to think about how you could be my first time. That’s probably embarrassing for you. I’m sorry.”
“I knew you had a crush on me,” I said, with an easy smile. “I could feel those four eyes burrowing into the back of my head during geometry class.”
She laughed. “Anyway, it got better. Sort of. Then I figured out…what I like.”
Every muscle in my body contracted. Because, whoever it was who had shown Sunshine the rough side of sex was going to have to die by my hands.
“Oh, no, not like that,” she said, correctly interpreting my darkening expression.
“Through books and movies. There was this one book. The girl cut herself, to stop the noise in her head. And I felt so seen by that, you know? So understood. I tried it and realized I can’t handle the sight of blood, so… there was that.”
“Geezus, darlin. What is in your head?”
“Sometimes too much. Sometimes more than I can handle. That’s when I started doing all those spa treatments.
All the women in the office were like, beauty is pain.
So I thought that might be a better solution.
One stone, two birds and all that. I found those core shock treatments and I didn’t think at all for twenty minutes, at least once a week.
It was wonderful. Then one day, this very stubborn cowboy decided to join me and ruined everything. ”
She leaned way over her frog and bumped her shoulder against mine to let me know I hadn’t really ruined everything. I’d just seen something she kept hidden from the world.
“I am a stubborn cowboy,” I admitted, even as I took some comfort in knowing she’d discovered her particular kink through beauty treatments, and hadn’t ended up with some creep who might have actually hurt her.
The kind of sex Sunshine wanted required a ridiculous amount of trust. Which obviously didn’t happen easily for her, given how long she’d waited to have sex. But she almost immediately had that trust with me.
There was that feeling again. That lightness in my chest. I was not familiar with this feeling. It was a little bit like the sensation of a particularly hard job done well. But, it was something else too, and I didn’t have a name for it.
“I don’t know why I told you all that,” she said, staring up at a sky filled with brilliant stars. “Stuff just sort of comes out when I’m around you.”
“That’s because I’m almost as good a listener as I am a kisser,” I told her.
She turned her attention from the stars to me, her face very serious in the moonlight. “I can’t kiss you, Tag. I need to go home at some point. I don’t belong here. I’ve never belonged here.”
“That’s what’s always been in your head,” I agreed. “Ever since you were a little girl. But you should start looking at this place through adult eyes. You might not see it the same way.”
I could already feel the loss of her in my bones, and she’d just gotten here. Whatever this was between us, it wasn’t just sexy fun. I respected the shit out of her. I liked her.
I felt it the second I saw her in her fancy office.
If I was being honest, it had been there back in high school.
I didn’t just know she had a crush on me.
I liked that she had a crush on me.
There was something about having all that serious focus trained on me. Because I knew she was special, the fact that she’d picked me out of the entire high school to crush on, made me feel special.
And that wasn’t something I felt a whole lot of.
Silly to get that validation from a fifteen-year-old girl. And creepy, so I’d deliberately stayed away from her. But now she was here. She was back. And I could admit it…part of me wanted her to stay.
“But while you’re here, for however long you’re here, let me take care of you.”
She immediately bristled. “I can take care of myself, Tag.”
“Of course you can. You’ve been doing it since you were sixteen and you’re rich because of it, which always makes things easier. I’m saying I brought you here, let me take care of you while you’re cleaning up this mess.”
“Which me? Kaitlyn or Sunshine?”
I laughed. “And that right there, darlin, is part of your problem. Pick a person and be that.”
“I thought I did,” she said, shaking her head. “I have to go back inside. I don’t want to disappoint Bliss.”
“You go on, then, I’ll watch to make sure you get back okay.”
“Worried about crime in Last Hope?” she said, climbing off her frog with grace.
“More worried about some drunk stumbling out the back door and pissing on your shoes.”
She whipped her head toward the building, but there was no drunk. We were still alone.
“Please don’t let that happen,” she said.
I chuckled and watched her walk away.
Kaitlyn/Sunshine, whoever the hell she was, I liked both of them.
And that was going to be a problem.