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)
My gaze skated to the deeper scar on her lower left side, the one that was covered by the words that rolled up her ribs.
I will make it to the sunrise.
Fury glinted at the edges of my mind. In the darkest recesses where the demons howled and played, my own scars carved inside of me ragged and weeping and still begging for retribution.
But Raven’s scars?
They only shouted of her resilience.
Of her bravery.
Of the goodness that radiated from her spirit.
“Arms up,” I told her, and there was the tiniest grin playing at the edge of that sexpot mouth when she obeyed. I slid the shirt over her head. It was enormous on her, swallowing her tight, enticing frame, coming all the way down to her knees.
I scooped her up without warning. She squealed in surprise, and she threw those arms around my neck at the same time as she wrapped those long legs around my waist.
“What are you doing, Otto Hudson?”
“Told you I needed to feed you.”
She edged back, arching a brow, her face so goddamn striking in the wisping light. “I think you forgot something important.”
“What’s that?” I asked as I started to carry her from the bedroom.
Her brow arched higher. “My panties.”
“You aren’t gonna need those.”
Swore, it was glee that sprinted through her being, lighting as sparks in those dark, dark eyes. Excitement and greed and her own wicked, wicked things.
Fuck me. She really was meant for me.
“Is that so?” she challenged, playing along.
“That’s right,” I told her as I ambled down into the main part of the house. I strode right into the kitchen and perched her on the edge of the island.
“Want that sweetness ripe and ready for me.”
A shiver rocked her, and she gripped the counter, wiggling in the spot. She looked like a temptress there, a siren sitting beneath the hazy rays of light that danced in through the windows that overlooked the lake beyond.
View might have been magnificent, but it didn’t hold a candle to her.
I strode to the refrigerator, whipping open the door and riffling around inside to find something to sustain us. There wasn’t much that wasn’t going to require effort, but there was half a cake that Raven had picked up at the restaurant across from Moonflower a few days ago.
My favorite fuckin’ cake from my favorite fuckin’ girl.
It was exactly what we needed.
Chocolate and carbs.
I pulled out the platter and set it beside her on the island.
“We’re having chocolate cake for dinner? And here I always thought you were a steak kind of guy.”
I wedged myself between her legs that dangled from the counter, and I tipped my face up to hers. “Turns out, I’m a Raven Tayte kind of guy.”
Her fingers sifted through the longer pieces of my hair. “I think you were always a Raven Tayte kind of guy.”
I took her hand and kissed her palm, sucking down her intoxicating moonflower scent. It was like pressing my nose into a spray of honeysuckle. Imbibing all the sweetness that she was. “Yeah, think you’re right.”
Raven eyes stared down at me. “Did you then? Did you want me?”
Wasn’t prepared for her to give voice to the past.
I pressed my face a little deeper into her palm. “Think I knew it the moment I got released from prison. When I walked in and you were standing in the middle of the room. The way you looked at me right then…”
I trailed off, unable to fully give it voice, knowing the way it’d all gone to shit. The way it’d spiraled. The tragedy that’d come.
Still, I took her palm that’d been against my lips and splayed it over the boom that clanged in the middle of my chest. “It’s always been yours.”
Didn’t matter how long I’d ignored it. Didn’t matter the way I’d gone after every distraction, every pleasure, like the quick encounters and easy lust that came from that kind of life would ever sustain. Like it could ever fulfill what had been lacking.
Shaking myself out of the heaviness, I pulled the foil from the cake. Didn’t bother with utensils. I dug into the spongy concoction with my fingers, ripping free a big chunk, all too eager to feed my girl.
“Open,” I told her.
Delight raced across that stunning face, and she indulged me, opening that sweet mouth before she closed it around the giant piece, moaning as she did.
A decadent sound that went straight to my dick.
I pulled back and watched as she chewed, then I reached out and wiped away a glob of chocolate that had gotten stuck to her lip with the pad of my thumb.
I moved real slow when I drew my thumb into my mouth, sucking it, watching Raven’s stare flare with her own lust.
“No fair, Otto Hudson.”
“What’s not fair?”
She rolled those pretty eyes. “Don’t act like you don’t know what you’re doing to me.”