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)
Pure muscle and brawn.
He wore these tight, tight black briefs, and I gulped when I saw he was still hard. Huge and hard and vibrating with need.
Flames consumed, and I was sure I was being burned alive.
A witch at the stake.
Because it had to be wicked and wrong, what I was doing. Ogling this man who’d reiterated a thousand times that he only thought of me as his family.
But I was only human, and he was…something else entirely.
A dark avenger. Carved of stone and hewn in gold.
Adorned in all those tats that covered every exposed inch of skin.
My mouth watered as I devoured every inch.
Only I froze when I saw it.
I wasn’t the only one who had gotten new ink in the last few years.
The stunning piece took up the entirety of his left lower abdomen and hip.
A tortured moon that hung in an ominous sky. Disfigured and misshapen. The earth was barren beneath it.
All except for the single moonflower that cracked the dirt and blossomed beneath the pale, murky light.
His jaw clenched when he realized what I was gaping at, my breaths coming short and my spirit spinning with possibility.
I looked back up at his beautifully brutal face, and my heart clattered in my chest as I struggled to get the air into my lungs.
Something tortured twisted through his expression. “You shouldn’t be lookin’ at me like that, Raven.”
“And what am I looking at you like?”
“Like you want me to crawl back into that bed with you.”
I exhaled a shocked breath. Unable to believe the way he’d given it voice.
Like…like maybe he wanted to.
A crash of confidence rolled through me, and I moved up to sitting, shifting around until I was on my hands and knees. Angling his way like an offering. “Maybe that’s exactly what I want you to do.”
Otto growled this low sound that trembled through the room.
My world canted to the side as he came forward to lean over me. Dizziness rushed me with this dream.
Because, oh my God, was Otto Hudson actually going to touch me?
He did, but not in the way I was dying for him to.
He set one of those giant hands on my cheek, so big it covered the whole right side of my face. His voice scraped the dense air. “Would be the luckiest man alive, getting to touch you. But I swore to myself a long time ago that I would never hurt you, and I fuckin’ meant it.”
The butterflies flapping in my belly tumbled and sagged, and my heart hurt at his confession. At the shame that littered his face.
“You’d never hurt me.”
He grazed his thumb over my lips, and that intense blue gaze dipped to the action before he forced his eyes back to mine. “That’s right. You’re too fuckin’ good for what I have to offer, Raven.”
Then he straightened to his full, imposing height. Severity lashed between us, and his jaw clenched in sharp restraint. “I’m going to go take a shower, then we’re going to go about our day like this never happened.”
I couldn’t say anything as he turned and strode across the room and into the en suite bathroom.
He clicked the door shut behind him, cutting off the energy that banged the walls of his room.
I flopped onto my back and stared at the ceiling. “Otto, what are you doing to me?” I mumbled, quiet enough that he could never hear.
Because I wanted it. I wanted to experience the things I’d never been brave enough to experience before.
I wanted to fly.
I wanted to rise.
And I knew, all the way down to the deepest parts of me, that I wanted to rise with him.
NINETEEN
OTTO
What in the ever-lovin’-fuck did I think I was doing? Jacking myself when she was just on the other side of the door and doing it with her face imprinted behind my squeezed eyes, no less?
Motherfuckin’ treachery.
But this solution was a whole ton better than giving into what I’d really wanted to do. I had never been so tempted in my life than when she’d been on her hands and knees on my bed.
Nearly crawling to me, desire carved into every crease of that gorgeous, stunning face.
The bare morning shining around her, that black hair a tumbled mess, the outline of her nipples just showing through the thin fabric of my tee.
She looked like a fuckin’ goddess.
A moonflower.
A morning glory.
No better sight to ever behold.
I knew she’d been drenched, girl giving off this floral scent that was doused in arousal.
But it was the plea in those dark, dark eyes that had nearly been my undoing.
And it was the memory of those eyes that had me tightening my grip around my cock, pumping myself hard and fast as I replayed the need that had thrummed between us as if it was music rather than utter blasphemous temptation.