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)
“Don’t, Otto. Don’t make excuses that don’t mean anything. I don’t want to hear them.”
She turned on her heel and flew across the living room and up the steps, though she stopped when she got to the top of the landing. “Don’t worry, I’ll be sure I’m gone tomorrow.”
Then she stepped into my room and slammed the door shut behind her.
Regret barreled through me. Chains so fucking heavy they nearly dragged me to my knees.
A beggar on the floor.
So fuckin’ weak that I was a second away from going to her. Pushing into the places only a monster would go.
I’d promised I’d never hurt her, but fuck, that was exactly what this felt like.
Like I was hurting her.
Betraying her.
I dropped my face into my palms, trying to fight off the conflict that waged inside.
Heart and mind and soul.
Feeling like a piece of shit, I forced myself to turn off the lights, get undressed, and grab the throw blanket from the basket.
I just laid there on the couch, staring at the ghosts that writhed across the ceiling, unable to fucking sleep.
Wide awake and bleeding out.
Hours must have passed before I heard it.
Her cry from the depths of depravity.
There was no mistaking what was happening this time.
Her pain was so stark it was the only thing that I could feel.
There was nothing I could do. No wall or mountain or fucking cavern high or deep enough to keep me from going to her.
And I was there, crawling into the bed and pulling her into my arms, whispering her name over and over, “Raven, Raven, Raven.”
She jolted when I first touched her, then her whole body gave when she realized it was me.
She whimpered as she clung to me with trembling arms. “Otto. Please. Don’t leave me. Stay with me.”
A fucking army couldn’t have ripped me away.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you. My moonflower.” I murmured it at her head as I pressed a bunch of kisses to her crown.
A shaky sigh of relief pilfered from her, and when I laid down with her in my arms, her heart beating its trust against mine, I should have known things would never be the same.
I should have known this girl would be my complete undoing.
Should have known there would be absolutely no going back.
Because she whispered, “Otto, I need you to touch me. Please. Don’t turn me away. I need to know what it’s like.”
TWENTY-SIX
RAVEN
My petition was choked and small, but I meant it with every fiber of my being.
I needed him to hear it.
I needed him to show me that I didn’t have to be vulnerable. That I didn’t have to feel small or insignificant. That I didn’t have to be subject to the fetters that kept me bound.
I needed to know I could be free.
Free in him.
Even if it was only once.
Every hard, packed groove of his massive body flexed in a bid to suppress what urged and coiled between us. Bulky muscles twitched, and his beautiful heart battered at my chest.
I knew it now. I no longer questioned if this need was one-sided. No longer wondered if I was the only one who suffered this desire.
Being here with him for close to two weeks had proven what I’d hoped for all along. Those moments over all these years when I’d thought I was going crazy, imagining the energy that’d lashed between us before he’d turn around and call me his baby sister, assuring me I was only making things up.
But this could not be fabricated.
This need that blazed.
A fiery, incandescent bond that shined so bright it was blinding.
A connection that keened so loud I heard it as a reverberation at the back of my mind.
A sense so profound I felt it curling around me, body and soul, dragging me his way.
“Fuck, Raven.” He muttered it in the lapping night. His room was nearly dark except for the vestiges of the moon that cast a murky haze through the windows behind his bed.
The outline of the soaring trees drawn in charcoal, and the endless sky smattered with a canvas of glinting stars beyond.
I could just see the shape of his fierce, glorious face within it. Could see the greed carved into every vicious line and the reticence scored into every harsh angle.
Tonight, there was no sign of the tease on his lips.
His jaw was clenched tight in sharp self-denial.
But it was his palm that slid down my side and over my hip that promised he recognized my need. What promised he saw me as something different than his sister.
What promised he saw me as a woman who needed this. To explore this with the one man she’d ever felt safe with.
Shivers raced in the wake of his hand, and I could barely breathe as he stared across at me with those blue, fathomless eyes.