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)
“I like the sound of that, too.” There was no teasing to that. It was pure softness. My gratitude to him.
A strained second passed before he croaked, “Who is this bastard?”
He asked it against the back of my hand, pressing it to his forehead and squeezing his eyes closed as if he were praying for the answer to drop out of the sky.
“I don’t know…but we will find him.”
Otto slowly opened his eyes. Determination roiled in their depths. “We will. I’m going to toss every speck of dirt until I uncover who this asshole is.”
“I know you will.”
“Good.” Then he stood, a buttress of intimidation and fortitude.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To make you some soup.”
I didn’t know whether to giggle or roll my eyes. “I don’t have the flu, silly boy.”
Leaning down, he pressed a growl to the uninjured side of my head, though it rumbled with affection. “I’m going to take care of you and you’re going to like it.”
A patter fluttered in my pulse, and I grinned as he pulled away. “Fine, Burly Bear.”
He rounded the couch, and I could feel his heavy footsteps thudding across the floor as he headed for the kitchen, the man an earthquake to my senses.
“But if you really want to take care of me, then you’ll bring me a glass of wine,” I shouted, trying to keep from smiling when I did.
Already anticipating what was coming.
“You little vixen. What am I supposed to do with you?”
It wasn’t a question because I had a hunch that we both already knew.
FIFTY-ONE
OTTO
TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD
Otto stared at her through the duskiness of the night. Face so fuckin’ pretty he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but lay with her on that bed with her tucked tight against him.
What the hell am I doing?
This was Raven Tayte he had in his arms. So goddamn off limits it felt like he was committing a mortal sin just inhaling her air.
Those jagged puffs that kept jutting from her lungs as she gazed across at him. Looking at him in a way she shouldn’t.
And for the last two weeks, he’d been looking at her in a way he shouldn’t, too.
He didn’t know what’d happened between him getting sent away and then. But it’d struck him like a bullet when he’d looked up and found her standing in the doorway to the kitchen when he’d come back to the house after he’d been released.
A thunderclap.
A lightning bolt.
The feeling that had jolted through him so intense he was sure he’d sustained burn marks across his heart.
He couldn’t do this.
But still, he came to her night after night, holding her this way, ensuring that the dreams never came.
Raven smoothed a timid hand up his chest, and he struggled to drag the oxygen into his too-tight lungs. Because when he did inhale? He was only inhaling her.
Her innocence.
Her goodness.
Her sweet moonflower scent.
“I’m so glad you’re back,” she finally whispered.
“Hate that I was away from you,” he muttered into the shadows that crawled the walls and pelted at the windows.
“I hated that you were, too. The whole time…I felt like…like a piece of myself was missing.” She whispered the confession through the hush that infiltrated the room.
He pulled her closer, in a way he knew better than to do. Her heart beat violently at his chest, the air dense and rippling with dark, decadent things. Things he couldn’t contemplate. Things he knew would make him the biggest monster of all.
But he couldn’t stop the way his spirit pitched toward hers, as if she had a hook impaled directly on his being. Connected to her in a way he couldn’t be.
But it was there, a bright light that radiated around her and drew him close.
A connection.
One that was deep and profound.
Shifting, Raven propped herself up onto her elbow, and Otto rolled to his back. His guts stretched tight, and his fingers moved on their own accord, brushing over the gorgeous swell of her cheek before they were threading up into her hair.
Her lips parted, and those inky eyes dipped to his mouth. His mouth that watered with the urge to draw her against him.
To taste and devour.
“I shouldn’t be here like this,” he forced out.
Rejection of the notion billowed across her face, all mixed with a muddling of hope. “I think this is exactly where you’re supposed to be. Here, like this. With me. I…”
Hesitation brimmed through her, though he could read everything she was trying to say in that gaze that covered him in an embrace.
In trust and truth.
“Do you feel it?” she asked, voice timid and brave.
His chest stretched tight. No doubt, he should keep the words locked tight, but he was unable to hold them back. “Yeah, I feel it, Raven. But that doesn’t mean we should—”
Raven’s phone suddenly started vibrating from where it sat on her nightstand, and Otto glanced to the side to see the screen light with Haddie’s name.