I’m in so much pain I can hardly see, and I’ve never been happier in my life.

It was touch and go there for a moment.

That drug hardly got out of my system fast enough, and I was still about as goddamn agile as an elephant in a full-body cast when I threw myself on that twisted bastard to get him off of Sky.

For a minute, I hadn’t been sure things would turn out okay. Don't know what I was thinking.

I should’ve known Sky would be ready to take him out.

And I’d take a bullet a thousand times over to see that smile on her face.

The scene outside Jim Appleroth’s house is pure chaos.

In a jiffy, I’ve been separated from her by an EMT, who’s got me sitting on the bumper of an ambulance while they pull the bullet out of me right then and there. I’d refused the hospital and refused a local anesthetic.

Didn't want to be doped up, taken away from the wonderful sight of Monika and Eva tumbling down the street in their nightclothes, only to crash into Sky and Joannie, all of them sobbing and laughing and hugging and nearly collapsing into a mess of all this beautiful emotion.

I almost feel sorry for the baby caught in the middle of all of it, when she looks so damn confused by all this fuss.

It’s over.

Finally, finally done.

Everything except the little odds and ends. Sure, there’s gonna be police wanting statements and testimony, an investigation, a trial, but it’s over. Jim Appleroth is conscious when they drag him out of the house in cuffs. Bloody, but conscious.

He’s lucky Sky’s too caught up with her family, or she’d probably have slugged him a good one before he was shoved into the back of the police car.

Hell, I might’ve thrown one in for good measure, if there wasn’t an annoyed EMT trying to hold my twitching shoulder still while she stitches me up.

“I have the right to declare you incompetent and force you to the hospital, you know,” she mutters.

“I’d be real grateful if you didn’t, ma'am,” I counter with a tired chuckle. God, I just want to collapse and sleep for a week.

Preferably in Sky’s bed.

As if she knows I’m thinking about her, she looks up, watching me from the close knot of her family, her eyes so broken and open and full of such warm emotion, that soft blue turned from glacial ice to warm spring skies.

She’s always been so closed off. Now, there’s so much of her in every glance I almost can’t stand the weight of what she’s saying with every look.

The apology. The need. The question of whether or not we can start again from here.

I want to tell her yes. We gotta talk, sort things out between us, put things out there in real words, but goddammit yes.

How could I ever turn down the chance to be with her?

It’s over two hours before the police let us go. The medics look Joannie over to make sure she hasn’t been hurt, then send her home with Monika and Eva about an hour in.

There’s still Skylar’s ankle to set, too. Plus, a long barrage of questions trying to give them a complete picture of what happened. Skylar’s investigation, mine, the trails we followed, what tipped us off, what we found in that house, how we fought Jim.

They’re in and out of the house, cataloging evidence. The whole time Landon, Riker, and James are hovering close by, glowering and protective, keeping the police from getting too harsh with us, too suspicious.

I’d almost think the cops were pissed we cracked a case they’d given up on.

Some people care about all the wrong things.

Finally, though, it’s just me and Sky sitting in the back of an ambulance while the cops talk to each other. There’s a moment of quiet. We’re the only stillness in a night of chaos. She looks over at me for the first time since the interrogation started.

Those deep, brimming eyes search mine; lines of exhaustion circle underneath them. She offers a shy smile.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi, beautiful,” I answer. “Nice to meet you.”

“Meet me?” She shakes her head. “I don’t understand. Gabe, don't tell me you've lost so much blood you're –”

I grin. “Nah. It’s like we’re meeting again for the first time, ain't it? That's why. Just Gabe and Sky, not a job and that big ol' wall of anger. Feels like I’m finally getting to look over the top and see what’s inside.”

“Maybe. I...yeah.” She lowers her eyes, fidgeting her hands together, and swings her legs a bit. There’s a temporary splint on her ankle, and she winces when it knocks the bumper and holds still.

“Look, I’m sorry. For everything I said. For everything I did. For treating you that way. I’ve been so scared all this time, Gabe. Even before Joannie got taken. I was so scared of someone else leaving me, and so I’ve just been pushing you away before you ever could. And I was so scared of her leaving me, too, when someone took her...” She swallows, her mouth trembling. “I couldn’t stand the idea of letting you in when I knew you’d be gone as soon as the job was over. It was wrong, it was dumb, and I'm so, so sorry.”

“If you thought I’d be leaving you once the pay ran out, darlin’, you don’t know me at all.” I lean over and bump her shoulder with my good one. “Always knew the second I saw you that I wasn’t going nowhere.”

Her smile strengthens. “The second, huh?”

“Yep.” I lean in closer to her. “It’s your eyes, y’know.”

She makes a wryly amused sound, leaning toward me as well. “My eyes. Really.”

“Yeah, Sunbeam. They’re blue, ya see.” Closer, closer, till my nose brushes hers. Then till I can almost touch her smile with mine. “And I’ve got this thing with the color blue. To me, blue’s the color of love. It ain't pink or fluffy or screaming red like desert sunsets. It's blue. Cool and peaceful and just plain right.”

She stills, her smile fading, her eyes widening. She sucks in a breath, her gaze flicking back and forth, searching me. “Love? You love me?”

“You serious? Thought I made that pretty obvious when I let you shoot me, darlin’.”

She breaks out a sharp, shaky laugh and swats my side. “That was so stupid. So reckless,” she chides, then lays her head on my shoulder. “And so...so you, Gabe. Only you'd do something like that. That's why...I think maybe, I just...” She sounds like she’s chewing nails, trying to get the words out, and they come out strained and heavy and thick. “That’s why I love you, too.”

I think the only reason my heart doesn’t burst out of my chest is because I ain’t got enough blood left in my body for it after that fight. I can’t even talk for a moment, so I don’t.

I just kiss what's mine.

I kiss her quick and hard. Full of all the warmth and happiness inside me, because while I thought maybe I might get Sky to accept I love her, I’d never in a minute expected she’d say it right back.

And I’d have been okay with that, because I’m a patient man. Patient enough to wait for her to love me.

But I didn’t have to.

I didn’t have to because she’s right here in my arms with her mouth soft against mine and her lips flavored with those three warm, perfect words spoken under the shining expanse of a brilliant blue night sky.

When my chest gets too tight to breathe, I finally pull back, resting my brow to hers. “Let me take you home,” I whisper. “They’re done with us here.”

She leans into me, her breaths short, her voice husky. “Home sounds good. Monika and Grandma won’t want me barging in anymore tonight. I want to finally, really rest. I want to be with you.”

“I ain’t going nowhere.” I curl my hand against the back of her neck, trace my thumb along the fine lines of her jaw. “I got a lotta pages to fill in my book, darlin’. So many memories of you.”

Skylar laughs, tired but bright. “The whole book’s going to be me, huh?”

“Because that’s all I want to remember.” I grin. “But I mean, c’mon. I gotta stick to you anyway. It’s only practical. Job’s not over, right? Appleroth might’ve had accomplices.”

“Accomplices?”

“Co-conspirators,” I say.

“Of course.”

“Cronies.”

“...cronies?”

“Cahoots. Wait, can people be cahoots? Or just in cahoots?” I'm lost in my own train of thought.

She cracks into a laugh again and pushes me gently with her shoulder. “You can stop. I wasn’t going to say no.” She tilts her head, her mussed hair falling in dark strands across her lovely face, regarding me thoughtfully. “Take me home,” she says, and I stand, pulling her into my arms.

“I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go, Sky. This day forward, you're mine.”

By the time I get her to the truck, she’s already unconscious in my arms, sleeping more deeply and peacefully than I’ve ever seen.

If this is the last thing I ever write, I scribble in my book, Eva Szabo murdered me.

It wouldn’t be too far off from the truth, probably.

After all, I did only give Sky’s grandmother twenty-four hours to plan a wedding.

I couldn’t help myself. It took a few blissful weeks of recovery.

Okay, yeah, we probably would've healed up faster if we weren’t naked and wrapped around each other twenty-four seven.

We’d been out walking in the park yesterday after Sky was going stir-crazy cooped up with her ankle. She’d looked so light. Carefree, content, swinging her arms and looking up at the trees, breezy in a loose, white linen tank and a pair of shorts that let me take in those gorgeous legs to my heart’s content.

And then a beam of light fell across her, and I just about forgot how to breathe.

My Sunbeam standing in a sunbeam, and the way the light falls down on her...it’s pure gold, wrapping her up till she’s sun and moon, stars and night, clouds and sky.

Everything I consider heaven in a single moment all shaped out in gold edges and perfection. The breathlessness of her, the light in her eyes, the way they shine when she laughs...

That’s the blue I’ll always remember.

That's perfection.

Even if time takes my memory away, even if that demon I fear takes every thought from my brain and carves me out hollow, it won’t take that from me.

The blue of her eyes.

The color of love.

And I didn’t even know what I was saying before I was down on one knee. Her hands in mine, a question on my lips, and then suddenly she was laughing and crying and hugging me and saying yes, yes, Gabe, yes, you idiot, what are you thinking, are you crazy?

Yes, let's get married.

And that’s when the chaos started.

Because that’s when we decided we were basically gonna elope without the running away, and whip up a wedding by morning.

For half a second, when we put that at Grandma Eva’s feet, she looked like she was gonna have a conniption fit for a proper Southern lady. There was a mumble about how it was so fast, how we had to stick to tradition, before those determined Szabo eyes snapped with fire and she just said leave it to me.

Frankly, I think proposing is the only damn thing that saved my life after Eva and Monika found out we’d been lying to them for weeks – even if it was all for the sake of getting Joannie back.

And now, here I am, standing in the very same flower-strewn park where I proposed, golden beams of sunlight flooding down through trees showering with apple blossoms and only our closest friends and family clustered around in chairs lined with twines of flower bouquets.

Landon’s there, grinning like a fool, with Kenna next to him, her eyes misted. A few other people from Enguard, too. Riker and his little girl, plus James, and a bunch of lower ranking personnel.

Monika and Eva are front row, looking a little harried, but beaming, Joannie giggling and gurgling in Monika’s lap. My Ma’s even here, flown in from Louisiana on a red-eye. She’s crying, but she looks so happy. I’m glad.

Damn glad this is making all the people most important to me as happy as I am to be here in this moment, waiting for my bride to come walking down the aisle to music coming out of a portable music player propped up on an extra folding chair.

Look...it ain’t real fancy. We had to pay twice as much for a same-day officiant.

But it’s what she wanted. What we wanted.

After denying ourselves and each other for so long, we just couldn’t stand to wait.

And this day, right here, right now, is sweet perfection.

When the officiant clears his throat, Grandma Eva leans over and changes the track on the player. From light summery music to the wedding march, and I straighten and tuck my book away, my heart thumping with excitement, eagerness.

Wasn’t nothing hiding her from me but a big canvas drape over the staging area, but now she steps out from behind it, looking almost shy. Hesitant.

Like she’s nervous with all these eyes looking at her, but I can’t help myself.

I can’t look away.

She’s radiant, standing on the little white carpet rolled across the grass and beneath the arbor of fresh flowers curving over the aisle. Instead of a fancy wedding formal, she’s wearing this airy white off-the-shoulder peasant dress.

Her suntanned shoulders gleam, dusted with a touch of gold shimmer that really makes her shine like a sunbeam. Strappy white heels lift her up delicately. She looks like a graceful bird ready to take flight.

She’s managed to get her little pixie cut up into a half-up, half-down sweep, framing her face with the messy knot in the back twisted with pretty blue forget-me-nots – and she’s holding an entire bouquet of them, with another flower-chain bracelet of blooms on her otherwise bare wrist.

Forget-me-nots.

Like I could ever forget my wife, when she’s more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen.

That shy smile on her lips grows, as she strides toward me on light feet. My Sunbeam bathed in sunlight, glowing bright as morning. And when she stops in front of me, looking up at me with all those flowers in her hair, I’m ready to split apart with sheer overwhelming joy.

She lowers her eyes from my gaze with a self-deprecating chuckle and lifts her bouquet.

“Blue,” she whispers, like it’s a secret between us.

“It’s perfect,” I answer, just as quiet. “You’re perfect. You’re beautiful, darlin’.”

She laughs sweetly. “You’re just saying that because you love me.”

Somehow hearing her say it is better than saying it myself. When she says it, it’s real, it’s right, it’s true.

Because I do – I do love her, but goddamn if it isn’t the most amazing thing for her to accept it, to want it, to say it so easily. Those walls of hers are down. Maybe not gone, no, but they’ve lowered enough to let me in. To let me close.

Close enough that in just a few minutes, Sky Szabo will be Skylar Barin.

That damn officiant better get through things fast, because I can’t wait any longer.

I lift my head and catch his eye. He nods, clearing his throat, and then raises his voice, projecting over the music just as Eva switches it from a wedding march to something more subtle and instrumental.

“Dearly beloved...”

You know how the rest goes. I don’t need to tell you.

Don’t think I could tell you, because if I’m being honest the guy’s just white noise while I fall into Sky, drinking her in with these long, needy looks, trying to fill myself up on her like she’s gonna fly away at any moment.

It’s hard to remember she’s mine for now and always. It’ll sink in soon, and till it does I’ll write her name in my book again and again.

Then it’s here, and she’s bumping me with her arm to get me to jolt from my daze and speak. The “I do” is out of my mouth so fast it blurs into one word, ahdoo, and then she’s laughing and saying it too, and suddenly this amazing, strong, smart, gorgeous woman standing next to me is my wife.

The officiant gets as far as “You may now kiss the –”

Then she’s flinging herself against me, and I’m lifting her up off her feet and it’s just forget-me-nots falling everywhere. Everywhere, while I kiss the little firecracker who’s exploded her way into my heart.

We kiss like mad as husband and wife for the very first time.

Did she always taste this sweet? Did she always make my blood run like molasses and slow time till it’s like we’re in our own lazy summer afternoon, caught in golden sunlit time? Did she always turn my heart into a twist of knots and flutters like this, electrifying my body till I’m lightning-struck and sizzling?

Yeah.

Hell yeah, she always did.

I just feel it ten times more as I kiss her, and if we didn’t have an audience I’d never stop.

Finally, it’s jubilant friends and family who pull us apart. I get a thump on the back from Landon, and his wife’s there, green-eyed Kenna laughing slyly and teasing that she’s stealing us for her next romantic suspense novel.

I can’t help smiling at that, thinking about me being in a novel, especially if she’s gonna imagine and write out all the dirty things I like to do to Sky. Or worse, if she’s gonna ask me about it, since a gentleman don't tell. The girls see my awkward smile and start poking at me and calling me adorable.

Adorable. Like I’m some kinda giant teddy bear.

Maybe for Sky.

And maybe for little Joannie, too. That little girl’s wrapped me around her tiny finger, and I guess now I’m her uncle.

I'm plenty happy. At least till me and Sky start on a little Barin brood all our own.

I’m looking forward to getting a nice practice run on it over the honeymoon, but I stick around and make nice, and I ain’t gonna lie, it’s fun. But I’m glad when we finally get the reception over – plastic cups of champagne in the park, toasts and tears and grandmotherly chiding, stern speeches and beautiful words and Sky crying with happiness till I kiss the tears from her cheeks – and it’s time for the send-off.

We’ve rented ourselves a Jeep because, let’s face it, we both gotta upgrade our car situations. There’s no way my Dodge or her Buick would survive the SoCal desert sands.

Those desert sands swallow us on the long drive.

It’s nearing sunset by the time we make it out to the remote camping spot we’d picked out for our honeymoon. It might be unusual, but it’s us.

This is right for us. Just our camping supplies and gorgeous blooms of desert flowers and rolling dunes and nobody around for miles. Somewhere we can get lost in each other, and in the blaze of stunning, breathtaking color as the sun sets over the silhouette of sandy hills.

In a few weeks, we’ll have to return to civilization. We’ll fall into the normal routines of every other couple. I’ll be moving into that little shanty of hers, helping her build out a few additions to make it a proper family home without taking away its weathered, cozy charm.

Planning on taking up a new job offer at Enguard, too. Should be interesting to find out if we can work together without killing each other with not a moment of time or space apart. But considering the ache inside me when we’re apart for even a moment...

I think we’ll be fine.

But those are all things for another day.

For tonight, there’s just the Milky Way coming out in a blaze of night and light like sprinkled bits of silver dust. First one little speckle and then another glimmer, and then it’s just the scent of desert air and this carpet of stars trailing a path across the sky.

I can see them in her eyes, when Sky looks up at the night with her face open and soft with sheer wonder, all her soft golden edges lit by the fire.

She’s told me more about herself, in these weeks, about her past. About the people who broke her heart, who closed her off so young that no one ever got to see her like this. Soft. Vulnerable.

It stirs something powerful inside me, knowing I’m the first man she's cared for in many long years. The only, since she was a girl. That there’s only me for her, just like there’s only her for me.

And I steal her back from the stars, as I lean down and capture her face between my palms so I can tip her mouth up to mine.

She tastes like promises, and like morning, too.

She tastes like that moment when she turns to look at me sleepily over her arm in the mornings and her eyes are soft and drowsy and hazy and warm. She looks at me like she actually sees me and not just someone to keep her bed warm.

She tastes like every day we could have together from this moment on, and before I know it I’m drunk on her and tumbling her back to a blanket on the sand.

The sand is still hot with the baking fire of a desert day, under the blanket.

Our bodies are even hotter. We fit together so perfectly.

It’s like I was made to wrap around her, to completely envelop her, to keep her safe in my love. The way her body molds to mine is so fucking hot, too. Always feel like I’m breathing flames on every breath of her.

For all her strength she’s still so delicate, and something about her placing all that fragility in my hands with such utter trust, arching to every stroke of my coarse fingers over her body, sets me off like nothing else.

Clothing falls away, peeled off between slow, lingering kisses till we’re naked under the stars.

It’s just me and her and skin and that brilliant sky, and when she slides against me I go electric and wild as the softness of her slender body does wild and hungry things to my aching cock.

That little sound spills out of her again, caught between our locked and devouring lips, and every time that breathiness hits me with her moans of pleasure, I have to yank my own damned leash to hold myself back.

I’m touching her everywhere. Sculpting her with my palms, relishing in the bird-bone juts of her shoulder blades, the slim curves of her shoulders, the lathes of her arms, all that satiny skin of her stomach and its gentle swell, the way I can feel it through her entire body as she shudders.

She moans again, giving it up while I cup her tits, caressing them slowly, lovingly, kneading them together. Sky, fuck.

Her fingers stroke over my back and she arches, her legs sliding together and tangling with mine till we’re joined at our hips. Her every motion makes my cock slide against the wet heat of her, stroking and taunting and tormenting us both with friction.

And when I slip two fingers into her, she sighs, her head falling back in a spill of dark hair against the blanket, firelight washing her in gold and beauty, my name heavy on her lips.

Gabe!

It's like a magic word that makes me ten times harder. Fills me with this need to fuck and kiss and own. To mate with this woman in the deepest, darkest, wildest way imaginable.

She’s so soft inside, too. This plush feeling as I stroke her, tease her, my thumb finding and softly stroking her clit in tempo, making her arch and tremble, her hardened nipples thrusting against my chest, her lips parted in a wicked invitation I can’t ignore.

Not for anything.

I steal another taste of her, delving deep, matching the pace of my fingers with the strokes of my tongue, trembling with the need to be inside her.

“Gabe,” she gasps desperately against my mouth. “Holy hell. I can’t, I can’t hold on...”

“Not yet, sugar.” I suck at her lower lip, teasing it between my teeth, then slip my fingers out of her body. “Wait for me. We come together.”

With a hard swallow, she opens her eyes, looking up at me breathlessly.

Her clutching fingers relax to delicately trace the scar of the bullet wound on the back of my shoulder. “I love you,” she whispers.

“Darlin’,” I answer, “I'll never get tired of hearing you say that.”

When I roll my hips forward, she rises up to meet me. We pause in a perfect locked moment for half a breath, poised with my cock pressed against her – and then we let go.

Then we crash together, her body taking me in, my cock sinking hard into her, and my restraint goes out the goddamned window.

It’s wild. It’s wild like we’ve always been wild, this hot burning spark of a woman who never needs me to hold back, who demands more of everything I can give her.

Every stroke and deep, hot thrust, she’s there with me, rising up to take me, drowning me in her heat and that soft gripping perfection.

I can hardly see, my vision spinning with black stars and white sparks, overwhelmed with the intensity, but throughout it all I can’t take my eyes off her, can’t lose the vision of bright blue eyes growing more and more dilated, darker, smoky, as she loses herself in my manic thrusts.

She’s gone slick with sweat, this glistening, shimmering, perfect and sexy and pure, passionate animal.

Then her head tosses back, her throat working, her spine arching, her thighs clenching against my hips.

I have one delicious moment to suck in a breath as she goes so tight around me, squeezing my cock to the point of raw, delicious pain.

Fuck me, I'm coming!

My balls churn fire and my soul splits open, pouring into her, taking her hot, wet pussy. Roaring my release through pinched teeth as I can't hold back.

And then she goes crashing over the edge and takes me with her, bound to her flesh and blood, body and soul, for as long as this amazing creature will have me.

She’s asleep.

I love her in every moment, but there’s something special about the ones when she’s sleeping and her guard is completely down that just melts me. Her body's so completely tangled in mine, this snare of soft, sleek limbs and suntanned skin that has me wrapped up so tight I don’t ever want to be free.

It’s all I can do to work one arm free, reach for my knapsack, and wiggle my book and pen free from an outside pocket.

I haven't told her yet, but not long before the wedding, I had a trip to the doctor. Had to know if I could give her the kind of life she deserved, and kids, too, without a ticking time bomb in my DNA, waiting to ruin it.

That's why I took a test. Came back several weeks later. Clean.

My old man's gene for mental ruin isn't in my code. So, technically, there's no more need to jot down everything I don't want to lose, but hell, I do it anyway.

Maybe because of habit. Maybe because I can't believe I'm really safe with one little spit in a test tube. Maybe because I know it'll burn every beautiful thing I need into my brain.

And this moment, more than any other, I need to remember.

My Sunbeam.

Sleeping next to me, filling my life with her light. She’ll always shine on in my memory, morning, noon, and night. With every word I write, I commit her to memory, unshakeable, indelible. Beautiful. Right.

Completely unforgettable because she's mine. And I take damn good care of everything I've got.

Thanks for reading Still Not Into You! Look for Riker's book coming soon.

Got a hankering to see what happens to Gabe and Skylar after the honeymoon?!

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