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)
Not when I could feel that she needed me to hold her up right then.
Not because she was weak.
But because we all needed someone sometimes. Needed the support and the belief.
Raven edged back enough so that she could peek up at me, so goddamn pretty she ripped the breath straight out of my lungs. “You’ve lost so much, too, Otto, and look at you.”
She saw the exterior, though. The parts that remained unscathed. My loyalty for this family. My devotion. The way I joked and teased and didn’t hide the fact that I was all about the pleasure.
But that was surface. What I let everyone see.
It was all the vile bits that I kept hidden. But I had a hunch she wasn’t ignorant of those ugly pieces inside me.
“You want to tell me about that dream?” I asked, diverting the subject back to her where it belonged, though I was unsure if I could handle knowing what monsters followed her into the night. If I was responsible for them. If she saw the same damned thing I did whenever I closed my eyes.
She chewed at her bottom lip, and her gaze darkened as she was taken back to that place. The words were carved in harrowing secrets. “It’s always the same, and I’m always right back in that room where my father terrorized me. Just a little girl who had no strength. No voice.”
A skitter of rage ripped through my being. I wondered if she could feel it. The pulse of it where our flesh was pressed together.
It was the same dream she’d been having all that time.
Since she was little.
“What I wouldn’t give to be able to go back and rewrite that history for you. Give you a different start. A better start. The one you should have had all along,” I told her.
End that fucker before he’d ever had the chance.
River had taken care of that problem years ago. Put the fucker six feet under because fiends like him didn’t deserve the oxygen they were stealing.
Made sure the deviant never had the chance again.
She blinked, dark eyes glinting beneath the moonlight. “None of us have that power, and I hate that my brother carries the guilt that he couldn’t stop it. He was a child, too.”
He was older than her by seven years, though, so I understood how he’d taken on that burden.
“I hate that all these years later he still carries it. Hate that he still worries about me so much,” she admitted.
Knew firsthand that he did. And I understood both sides—his innate need to protect her and Raven’s need to find herself outside the gilded cage all of us had taken a part in keeping her in.
“That why you’re afraid of telling him you’re moving out?” I asked.
She wavered before she said, “I just don’t want to cause him more worry than he already has. Don’t want to put more of a burden on him. Don’t want to upset him.”
“He’s gonna get that you need this, Raven. He’s going to put your needs in front of his. It’s what people who care most about each other do. They take care of each other. Support their goals and dreams. And it might take him a minute to wrap his hard head around it, but I know he always has your best interests at heart.”
My insides shriveled at the thought of her out on her own. But there was no question that she needed it. Deserved it. Last thing she needed was all of us trying to stifle her spirit.
“And here I’d thought you were going to take River’s side and try to convince me to stay with him?” It was almost a tease from those seductive lips.
“The only thing I want is for you to be happy, Raven.”
Safe and fuckin’ happy.
Glowing all her light.
“I feel happy…right now,” she whispered.
“After that dream?” Didn’t seem possible.
“With you…right here. I missed this.”
Something pulsed through her distinct features, her face flushed with things she should never feel. Things neither of us should contemplate. Which was why I should haul myself out of this bed and plant my ass back on the couch.
Only she nestled herself closer. I could tell she didn’t have on a bra as she pressed those tits against my chest, only the fabric of my tee separating us. Her heat all around. This need saturating the air in some kind of greed that made me lightheaded.
Stupid and reckless.
Because I curled her closer, too, and tucked her head under my chin. “It’s where I want to be, Raven. Right here with you whenever you need me.”
“Then stay. You make it better, Otto.”
I swallowed down the lust that bolted through me, my voice haggard when I muttered, “Sleep.”
Because there was no chance in hell I was going anywhere.
EIGHTEEN
RAVEN
A pale gray glowed through the bank of windows as the earliest hours of the morning nudged me from sleep.