Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 154037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Keen eyes flashed with the challenge.
“What fuckin’ man wouldn’t want you, Raven? What man wouldn’t want to get lost in this fuckin’ perfect body? Wouldn’t want to get lost in these eyes?”
My fingers brushed the corner of her right eye before I moved to settle my hand over the raging in her chest. “Who wouldn’t want to get lost in this kind, magnificent, brave heart?”
She tipped up her chin. “I don’t want any of those men.”
“Fuck, Raven.” It was a last-ditch effort that only served as a call.
“Tell me you don’t want me,” she demanded.
I had her hoisted in my arms and propped on the island before I could even make sense of the movement.
A knee-jerk reaction.
My hips wound between her lush legs, my jean-covered cock pressed up close to her mind-numbing heat.
Raven gasped, and her glass clinked against the granite as she set it aside. One second later, her arms were around my neck, holding on but leaning back far enough that she could read every desire scored on my face.
“I’m not what you need, Raven.” It fucking hurt saying it. Thinking of some squirrely motherfucker’s hands on her. Sharing meals with her. Curling up with her at night. Putting a baby in her belly. Lucky bastard getting to live in this tight, hot body.
“I know exactly what I need,” she refuted.
My hands glided down her sides until they were cinching around her waist. Half in possession and half in restraint.
Leaning in, I ran my nose along the delicate flesh of her neck, inhaling that intoxicating moonflower scent. Voice a rumble of reticence. “Don’t you see? I’m no good. No fuckin’ good. I can’t be the one to hurt you. I can’t.”
The words cracked on my desperation. With the plea for her to see.
I rocked back in surprise when her hands suddenly shoved against my shoulders.
Girl a flame.
A fire.
She slid off the edge of the counter and onto her feet. Appearing so damned tall, a force of nature, spite and determination in her stance.
She shoved me again.
“Don’t you dare tell me what I need, Otto Hudson. Don’t you dare. And don’t you dare try to convince me that you’re not a good man because that’s a lie, too.”
Clenching my jaw, I forced myself to move across the kitchen from her. Searching for a way to put an eternity between us all while wanting to erase every inch that could ever separate.
“I’m not. The things I’ve done…” A warning lined the words.
Disbelief shook her head. “Do you think I don’t know the things you’ve done? Do you think I don’t understand this life? Do you think I don’t understand the cost? Do you think I don’t see that you’re scarred and carry the burden of setting people free? Do you think I don’t know that always comes with a price?”
She took another step toward me as she said it, the woman a riot of emotion. Anger and hope and belief.
Every single one of those things were directed at me.
But she didn’t know. She didn’t know everything.
I had to wonder right then if it would even matter, though. If it would change a thing. If it would dim the light in those magic eyes.
“I’m finished pretending, Otto. I’m finished pretending about the way I feel about you. This either begins tonight or it ends tonight.”
She jammed a pointed finger toward the floor.
Alarm churned through my being. “What are you saying, Raven?”
“I’m saying I’m finished tiptoeing. I’m finished shuttering. I’m finished keeping this inside.”
She took another step toward me.
Intensity thrashed.
The woman an earthquake.
“Raven.” Her name murmured out of me while urgency battered my chest. Ribs stretching so tight around the fullness I thought I would blow.
Come apart.
“I might be inexperienced, Otto. I might have been wounded so deep that I’ve been terrified of letting anyone get close to me, but you are the only one who’s ever been able to do it. The only one I’ve wanted right next to me.”
Her entire body angled toward me as she whispered, “I love you, Otto.”
She touched her chest right over that beautiful heart as she took another step forward.
“I love you so much, and I have my entire life. And it’s not infatuation or hero worship or bred of this trauma. It is what my heart knows. It’s my truth. And if it’s not yours, then I’ll accept it. I’ll walk away and I’ll never look back. But the one thing I’m asking right now is for you not to lie to me. Don’t be a coward and give me some camouflaged truth. Tell me what you feel when you look at me.”
She gazed up at me with that boldness that was underscored in all her vulnerability.
Bared.
Chin lifted and those eyes weeping with her petition.
This?
This I couldn’t resist.
I couldn’t form a lie that great. So I let the truth ride free.