Her fist flexed, and I knew she was thinking of taking a shot at hitting me. I rubbed my chin where she got me last time and smiled at her.

“You going to hit me again? Where are you going to go, Sunshine? There’s the door, but what about after that? Are you going to run back to the home you hate? Maybe the boyfriend that treats you like shit? How about the school that doesn’t interest you?”

“I may not run anywhere, but it would feel good to break your nose,” she said, and I couldn’t stop the laughter that rolled out of me. I’d laughed more in the short time I’d known Kirby than I had my entire life.

“Go on, get in the shower. I promised I’d clean you at some point.”

“You really don’t….” I put my finger on her lips to stop her from once more trying to deny what she wanted.

The heat in her eyes told me she wanted me, but she needed to say it with words. The power and her submission were hidden behind her words. She needed to hand herself over to me fully, let go of her past and the life she lived, and embrace this new one I was offering her. We hadn’t spoken specifics, but she was a smart one and knew what it was that I was offering her.

Sunshine may have been denying everything that her body and heart were telling her, but her resolve was weakening. Like an onion shedding the thin layers that protected the middle, I slowly peeled away the flaky petals to reveal a much stronger and more powerful version that lay beneath. She just didn’t realize that yet.

“Get in, Sunshine.”

Those big purple eyes blinked a couple of times, and then she turned and stepped into the shower. There was no door, no barriers to hide behind. The chains rattled as she moved them, so they were near the taps under the spray, and I wished that she was ready to take them off and break free of all that held back her potential, but she wasn’t ready…soon, but not yet.

I pulled off the T-shirt I was wearing over my head, kicked off my shoes and socks, but left my jeans on and stepped in behind her as she lifted her face to the spray. She turned around in the warm water but didn’t open her eyes as she laid her head back and let it run in streams down her body. I recorded this image of her to memory, and it would be the next of my collection I intended to paint.

Picking up the bar of soap, I rubbed it between my hands. Sunshine jumped back with a gasp as my hands gripped her waist. “What are you doing?”