Chapter Twenty-Two
Bones
Down on one knee in the forest, I remove an antique silver ring from the chain around my neck, before resecuring my necklace.
A deep pomegranate red garnet glitters at its center, held in place by elegant silver vines complete with delicate leaf details.
It’s simple, yet exquisite and most important of all, it’s an heirloom.
Memories of my mother wearing it through the thick and thin of our lives are plentiful.
It was there through the good, the bad, the ugly, and it was still there the day we buried her.
It’s my most prized possession. And now, another bride will get to add to its legacy.
“Sunny May Butts,” I begin, offering up the ring as we stand irreverently over Luka’s unmarked grave, “will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
Sunny’s eyes fill with tears, and her trembling hands rise to her mouth. “Maria...” she breathes. “You found out my name.”
I grin and flick my hair playfully with a toss of my head. “I have friends in very low and boring places,” I say with a playful wink. “I already told you, baby girl, if you’ll let me, I’ll take care of you and support you through whatever life throws at us.”
“Oh, Bones,” she whispers, wiping away a silent tear as she sniffles, gazing down upon me with eyes like an ocean of stars.
“I can’t explain it—and I know this puts speed dating to shame—but I do know that this feels right.
I can feel it in my heart and my gut, and I’ve learned to trust those instincts over the years.
.. So, throwing caution to the wind and all sense of fucking logic, will you marry me, Daisy Girl? I promise I’ll do right by you.”
Sunny laughs, a fresh wave of tears flowing as she nods vigorously, a smile lighting up her beautiful rosy cheeks.
“Yes,” she says emphatically without hesitation.
“I will!” She holds out her left hand, shaking with emotion as I carefully slip the ring onto her wedding finger.
It fits perfectly, like it was made for her. “Maria, it’s so stunning...” she gasps.
I rise to my feet and take her hand in mine, running the pads of my fingers over the smooth, faceted stone as memories flash through my mind once more, bringing a smile to my face. “It was my mother’s, and I think she would have loved you, Sunny. I think she’d be happy to see you wear it.”
My fiancée’s lower lip wobbles and she shakes her head, a giggle slipping from between her fingers as her gorgeous blonde locks glow like golden fire in the moonlight. “I can’t believe this,” she says. “I love you, Maria!”
“You don’t have to use that word if you don’t feel it yet,” I say, reaching up to cup her cheek. “We have time.”
Sunny leans into my palm and sighs, her eyelids fluttering closed.
“Love grows,” she says. “And while our love might be deeper in future, I know what I feel, too—and I do love you. What I feel for you is real and it feels right. Besides ... love at first sight isn’t a popular romance trope for no reason,” she adds.
The wisdom of her words hits me right in the chest and steals my breath away.
She understands. She gets it. With a laugh of my own, I capture her lips with mine, slipping her the tongue as I spin her around in the weak beams of the park lights, before setting her down on her feet once more.
“I love you, too, Sunny.” My heart overflows with joy, but my inner darkness swells in response, buoyed by the emotion of the moment and I can’t resist. “Now,” I purr, trailing a finger from her plump lower lip all the way down to her cleavage.
“Why don’t we make our oath a little unholy while we’re here?
One final “fuck you” to that asshat who thought he could destroy you. ”
Sunny’s eyes light up and a darkness that I recognize so well in myself kindles behind them, like embers smoldering to life. “Hell, yes!” And then she jumps into my arms and our tongues collide.
Her hands comb through my hair, and she kisses me back like any one of them might be her last. She’s frenzied and passionate, and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a partner.
.. Someone who can keep up with me. Someone I can trust. Someone who intoxicates me like a drug I can never get enough of.
Someone who feels like the very air I breathe—complimentary and indistinguishable all at once.
Sunny surprises me by pulling her beautiful red dress over her head, before she spreads it out over the freshly camouflaged ground.
Gloriously naked, she lays on top of her own dress, her arms outstretched toward me, her knees already spread and waiting.
“Fuck me, Maria,” she invites—offering me her body—her mouth-watering curves calling to me like the siren songs of legend.
“I want to feel you,” she emphasizes, her gaze dropping to my crotch.
I don’t need to be told twice. My honey haired princess wants me to grind on her, to fuck her clit-to-clit on her ex’s shallow grave until we both scream and come in blasphemous ecstasy.
“Sounds good to me, beautiful,” I say, unzipping my knee-high boots, before peeling off my socks, and shimmying out of my leather riders.
I throw my gear on the roof of Luka’s car, then turn to face the light of my life.
The sunshine that showed up out of the blue, hitchhiking on the side of the road, only to steal my heart and sanity in record time.
I crawl between her knees, then over her, lowering my hips, until I brush her sensitive, throbbing flesh with my own.
“Mm,” I moan as I circle her clit. Little bolts of lightning zing through me, emanating from my pussy as I apply pressure, thrusting against her, only to grind back down and around, until I can feel the slick of our desire mingling between us.
“Oh, fuck,” Sunny whimpers. The delicious jiggling of our fucking vibrates her voice, dragging out her words in the sexiest way.
“Do I feel good, baby?” I croon down by her ear as I grind my pelvis harder.
The pressure has my swollen, bare pussy lips throbbing with awareness.
And as our strange and erotic shadows stretch through the night, Sunny thrusts up to meet me, fucking me back with a desperation so sweet that it almost pushes me over the edge.
“Maria,” she breathes, arching her back as she plays with her impossibly voluptuous and pale breasts.
Her rosy, pink nipples are hard and inviting, like fresh, ripe raspberries served with a great big dollop of thickened cream just begging to be tasted.
“Please,” she mewls, her breathing deliciously ragged as her voice breaks on a plaintive cry. “Faster. Harder. I’m so close!”
I couldn’t deny her even if I wanted to. “For you, baby,” I say, my heart pumping in my ears as my clit yearns for its sister in sin. “Anything.”