Under an Endless Moon: Chapter 35

The second the discordant brawl of engines roared into the distance, there was no stopping what came over me.

The overpowering rush of protectiveness and possession.

A need so fierce there was no way to deny it.

I let go of the foul words scrawled across the paper as I stalked Raven’s way and took her stunning face in my hands.

The paper littered with the threat fluttered to the ground, and I gripped her by the sides of the head, my fingers delving into the soft locks of her hair as I urged her to look up at me.

Ink-stained eyes blinked at me in surprise, her breaths coming in short, jagged puffs.

That intoxicating moonflower scent invaded.

“Who’s after you?” I basically croaked the words, unable to keep the desperation from bleeding into them.

She struggled to inhale, to breathe through the heat that flamed around us.

A circle of fire that kept us trapped.

“I truly don’t know.”

“What about someone else you’ve dated the last couple years?” The question was shards.

I was barely able to tolerate thinking about someone else having their hands on her. Except I didn’t have to contend with that any longer. The truth that she’d never let anyone get close enough to actually touch her the way I’d been dreaming of doing. The way she’d let me do last night.

This fuckin’ fierce, innocent, beautiful girl who was nothing but a light in the middle of the darkness.

And some motherfucker was trying to drag her back into it.

I could see her process through each one, calculating their risk.

The faintest line dented between her brows when she whispered, “None of them were really anything. A couple dates here and there. A kiss on the cheek. Most of them got bored and stopped texting when they realized I moved way too slow for their tastes.”

That made me fuckin’ ragey, too. Seemed there wasn’t one thing about her that didn’t send me into a tailspin.

“Anyone at the shop set you on edge? A customer or a supplier? Someone who might have gotten obsessed?”

She gulped, and she was barely able to shake her head with how tight I was holding onto her. “I don’t think so. No one has given me the gut sense that something was off.”

“Anyone in your past?” I grasped for anything.

Straws.

A needle in a giant fucking haystack.

I mean, how many goddamned people had she come into contact with over the years?

I felt the slightest flinch beneath my palms, the tiniest indication that maybe her brain had gone to a moment in time that might have meant something, before she blinked it away. “No. There’s no one.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

I pushed closer, and my nose brushed hers as the urgent words fell from my mouth. “If you think of anything…absolutely anything…I need you to tell me, Raven. Trust me with it. Because I can’t stand the thought of something happening to you. Of letting some asshole get to you. I need to stop this.”

“And I hate that something in my life has brought this on you,” she rasped. “I hate that you were hurt because of me.”

She stared at me through the dense air that swirled around us in a disorienting cloud.

A haze that distorted everything I should cling to.

The reality that I couldn’t have this girl.

But I couldn’t find that footing right then.

“You think I wouldn’t stand in front of every bullet for you? Take every blow for you? Suffer any consequence?”

“It’s not your place.” Even coming from her mouth, it sounded like a lie.

Both my thumbs brushed under the dark hollows beneath her eyes. “Isn’t it? Isn’t standing for you what I’m supposed to do? Isn’t it what I’ve always been meant to do?”

It’d been me she’d come to when she was afraid. Me who’d held her. Me who’d chased away the nightmares.

But when everything had gone to shit, I’d known I had to put a barrier between us. Erect and fortify it.

See to it that neither of us could break through.

No question, what had gone down between us last night had put more than a dent in the surface.

It’d created a crack right through the foundation.

And I was afraid I’d already done it—crossed a line of no return. Because I couldn’t step back. Couldn’t peel myself away from this woman who held me like a magnet.

Gravity.

Luring me forward as I gazed down into the fathomless depths of those dark, entrancing eyes.

“Maybe you are meant for me. In every way.” She answered my demand in that throaty lilt. Pushing even farther into the perilous territory I’d been toeing.

Pure fuckin’ temptation.

My gaze dipped to her lips, and a pained groan rolled out of me when they parted at the attention.

A silent plea.

Coaxing me into disaster.

“Raven.” Her name was a warning.

Praise and a riot of lust.

Her hand fisted in my shirt, and my thumb brushed across her plump bottom lip. My gaze jumped between the action and her eyes.

Hoping to God that she might be the one to stop this madness because it’d become clear that was not going to be me.

Apparently, I lost all power when it came to her.

“Tell me to stop. Tell me not to touch you. Tell me you don’t want this,” I demanded.

She laughed a brittle, disbelieving sound. “The only thing I’ve ever wanted is for you to touch me. Haven’t you heard my body begging for it?”

Had tried to ignore it. Pretend as if I hadn’t felt the desire radiating from her flesh. The way that gaze had always tracked me, and her heart raced an extra beat whenever I got into her vicinity.

All of it was the exact same thing mine had done.

Her body a match to mine.

“Touch me again,” she rushed, her voice so low, her breath skating my face and infiltrating my senses. “I don’t want it once. I want to feel it again and again.”

I could scent her arousal. Way her entire being trembled with desire. With this desperation that had built for so long, and now that it’d been released, it’d become a life of its own. Grown into a volatile, charged entity.

“You want me to touch you again, Moonflower?”

“Yes. So bad. I need it. I need to feel you. Whole and safe. I was so scared⁠—”

Before she could get the confession I was terrified of her saying free, I crushed my mouth against hers.

A promise that she was going to make it through this. A promise that I’d take the brunt of whatever was meant for her. Stand in the way of any motherfucker who would dare to do her harm.

A promise that I was going to take care of her…in every fuckin’ way.

Only the second our lips touched, a roll of pleasure hit me so hard that I couldn’t see.

Motherfucking bliss.

Dizziness spun, and my pulse careened through my veins.

Should have known better than kissing her. Tasting her. It was bad enough with what I’d done last night.

Now, I was instantly consumed. Delirious with the greed that spiraled through me.

A despairing hand fisted in her hair as my lips moved against hers, devouring her delicious mouth like I was tasting my favorite treat for the first time. Sucking at her top lip then the bottom before I got extra greedy and swept my tongue inside the hot, wet well of her mouth.

Raven gasped the second our tongues met. And that match lit.

Sparks and fire and need.

Rising up on her toes, she pressed those tits against my chest and her fingers came up to yank at the short pieces of my hair.

The woman kissed me back like that was exactly what she was made to do. Meeting me lick for lick, her tongue stroking and tangling with mine.

My cock hardened to steel, and my free arm looped around her waist so I could tug her delicious body against mine.

All that soft against my hard.

“Otto,” she rasped against my mouth, every bit as delirious as me, and I was hoisting her up into my arms, no care to anything but this.

On instinct, her legs wrapped around my waist and her arms wound around my neck, though she jerked back far enough to see me. Concern was carved on every line of her expression.

“Not that I haven’t fantasized about you tossing me over your shoulder and carrying me off to have your way with me, but you’re hurt.”

I grunted in return, diving back in for that mouth, though I was rumbling against her lips, “Doc said I will be just fine.”

“And he also told you not to overexert yourself.”

“You think carrying you three feet is gonna hurt me?” My voice dipped between a tease and coarse, raw need. “You think these arms weren’t made to hold you? You think I’m not made to carry every-fucking-thing that you are?”

I was spilling things that should never be said, making claims I couldn’t keep, but they were leaking out, anyway.

I kissed her wildly as I carried her over to a workbench on the far wall. I used my arms to scatter the tools from the top, the clang of metal crashing to the concrete floor.

A tiny bump of surprise rolled out of her when I propped her on top of it.

I forced myself back a foot so I could get a good look at her.

Attention roving, dragging over her, head to toe.

So fuckin’ pretty where she sat on the table.

Black hair a matted mess and those eyes the most potent things I’d ever seen. Black diamonds that sparkled in the rising of the sun.

Pale skin flushed, still wearing that tank and those shorts.

My moonflower aglow.

She held onto the edge of the worktable as she wiggled in discomfort, needing the only thing I could give her.

“You need to come, sweet girl, and I’m not about to leave you wanting.”

It sounded like another promise that I shouldn’t make, but it was out, anyway.

I pulled my shirt over my head and tossed it aside, before I reached out and grabbed the hem of her tank, hesitating for a second as I grunted, “You mind if I get you naked? Been dying to see every inch of this body.”

She choked a surprised sound before seduction went barreling through her demeanor. “All yours, Otto Hudson.”

Yeah, she shouldn’t be talking like that, either, but I’d never claimed that I wasn’t a selfish prick, so I peeled the tank up her torso, and she lifted her arms so I could drag it over her head.

I tossed it to the floor, and my stomach fisted as I gobbled up the sight.

Fuck me.

“Look at those fuckin’ perfect tits. Number of times I felt them pressed to my back while you clung to me on my bike. Wondering what it would be like if I ever got to see them like this. Last night it was a dream. And this…seeing you like this in the light of day?”

Raven let go of a wispy sigh at my confession.

I ran my knuckle over a hard-peaked nipple. She whimpered and arched in my direction.

“You like that, Little Moonflower?”

“Yes, I like everything you could possibly do to me.”

My cock jumped, far too interested in all the ways he could have her. By the things I could do to her.

But I needed to rein it. Remember this wasn’t about taking what I wanted. This was about giving Raven what she needed.

“You’ve always glowed beneath the darkness, and you’re about to glow for me.”

Angling in, I hooked my thumbs in the waistband of her shorts, and I pressed my lips to her jaw, kissing down the column of her neck at the same time as I started to wind her sleep shorts and underwear down her legs.

I kept kissing south, licking a path over her chest to the swell of her breast before I was taking one of those pert nipples between my teeth.

I gave it a nip before I sucked it into my mouth and swirled my tongue around the hardened bud.

Raven’s fingers flew back into my hair. “Yes. That. I like that.”

A rough chuckle skated up my throat. Loved that she wasn’t shy to say exactly what she wanted. That she wasn’t shy with me.

I licked and sucked for a second, rolling the other between my thumb and index finger, before I shifted back so I could twist her shorts the rest of the way off her ankles.

And there she was.

Fully bare.

Sitting propped on that worktable, swaying with desire.

She looked like the perfect pinup.

Dark hair and big eyes and swollen lips.

Perky breasts and thin waist and wide hips.

The sight of her dropped me straight to my knees.

Completely floored.

“Otto?” There was a question behind it, like she wasn’t sure if she should argue the situation, thinking I was too banged up to get on my knees for her.

But I was already there.

A worthless beggar at her feet.

“You good?” I asked her instead. Knew I had to be careful with her. That I couldn’t just gorge and devour.

Funny considering I was being the most reckless I’d ever been.

Hurtling in a direction that was only going to bring desolation.

Ruin everything.

But there wasn’t an iota of rationale inside me that could stop me right then. Nothing that could stop me from giving her the pleasure she was begging for.

“Yes.” It was a breath.

“Good. Then hook your heels on the table and spread your knees wide.”

I rumbled it low.

Raven didn’t hesitate to comply, and I nearly fuckin’ died at the sight.

Her pussy was pink and drenched and swollen, so needy I could almost see it throb.

“Knew your pussy was going to be just as gorgeous as the rest of you.” I took a single digit and pressed it all the way in to the knuckle, pumped it twice, before I pulled it out and circled the tip of my finger around her engorged clit.

She jerked and whimpered, “Yes, yes, I like that even better. Keep that up, and you’re definitely going to be my very favorite person.”

She attempted the tease, though the words were strangled.

Would have laughed if it weren’t for the roil of possession that held me hostage.

“You’re already mine, Raven. You’re already mine.”

Then I wound my arms under her thighs and dove in.

Tongue diving into her cunt, pushing in as deep as I could go all while trying not to come undone from the taste of her.

Nails sank into my shoulders, digging deep and holding on as I dragged my tongue through her slit and lapped up to that sweet, swollen nub.

“This…this. Don’t stop.” She was rasping it as she struggled to get closer, her hips bucking off the table in little jerks.

I ate her up, rumbling, “Don’t intend to stop until I hear you screaming my name, Little Moonflower.”

I used my shoulders to keep her legs propped open, and I let my hands glide around her hips so I could spread her pussy with my fingers. Exposing all her glistening, perfect heat.

I sucked at her clit, licking her into a frenzy, before I went back to dragging my tongue through her folds.

“Otto, please…I want…”

“Know what you need. Promise you I’m not going to leave you hurting. Going to make you feel good. So fuckin’ good.”

“Yes…so good…I…”

I knew she was winding up, the way her body started to tighten, pleasure gathering up from the edges as I drove her toward ecstasy.

It was the only place I wanted to take her. Where she had every fucking thing that she’d ever desired. Everything she’d ever needed.

I couldn’t give her all of that, but I could give her this.

For now.

For this moment.

Those fingers were tugging at my hair, pointed nails raking at my scalp and drawing me closer as she lifted her butt from the table.

I swept my tongue back through her slit and up to her clit, then I shoved two fingers deep into her pussy.

Fingers ripped at my hair, and she widened her legs, a plea falling from her mouth, “More.”

Fuck me.

Only Raven.

Begging for what only I could give her.

I added a third finger, pumping her hard and deep as I flattened my tongue against that throbbing nerve, swirling and licking in time.

She writhed and jerked and clawed at my neck as I drove her toward the pleasure that was waiting.

Felt it when she snapped.

When she rended apart, her walls spasming and clenching as the orgasm tore through her body.

An explosion that had her shouting.

And the one thing she was shouting was my name.