Page 36 of In the Light of the Moon

I managed to smile and greet a few familiar faces on my way toward the door, signing my name on the sheet for extra credit before leaving all together. There was no way I’d be able to continue standing there, making small talk while Orion was in the room. And if he didn’t want to be honest with me, there was really nothing more we had to talk about.

We haven’t even—I shook my head and cleared the invalidating thought bubbling up. No, we’d shared enough moments together for this to sting. I wouldn’t take the fault for it.

My heeled boots clicked as I hurried up the hall, and I mentally began separating myself from Orion. Though it hadn’t been that long, only a month, I’d grown quite attached to hiswitty messages. His encouragement and sweet kisses and just feeling… like I could let go. Not worry.

I straightened my spine as I rounded the corner that led toward the stairwell. No matter. I’d been alone enough where the familiarity of it would soon drown out the hurt of this. And I had Granna and Josie. My studies both in and out of school. I’d be fine.

I’d been lost in my thoughts, mindlessly stomping through the halls. My face was flushed and pinched with my frantic musings, trying to pull myself together, when warm hands spun me around.

My own flew up onto a strong, solid chest and felt the fast beating beneath. His lips were soft and warm, and my body relaxed into Orion while my mind melted all together. He clutched his long fingers at the base of my skull and pawed my lower back with frantic intensity as he kissed me.

He pulled back just enough to separate our lips with a delicate smack and nuzzled his nose against mine. “I’m sorry, Sylvie. Please believe me. I only just got back. But I know that I hurt you. I’m so sorry.” His lips met mine, and I couldn’t form any words, anything articulate to respond to his apology with. Because it felt too good to have him in my arms again. To hear the fervent words leaving his mouth that was opening to meet my prodding tongue.

I deepened the kiss between us, and maybe it was because I was weak or too trusting, but I believed him. It’d been a long while since I’d seen that harder version of him, but as I molded my body against his, head craning up to meet his kiss, I remembered how good things felt with him.

But he tried to deflect his frustration onto me, my brain couldn’t help conjuring, and then I was pushing him back, breaking our kiss that was heating to a place that was threatening to make me lose all sense. His arms dropped frommy body, and I panted, “And yet you insinuated that I was—what? Cheating on you? You really believe that?” My voice was strained, but it had enough venom to underline the seriousness of my words.

I could tell that he was grinding his teeth together, but I didn’t care. He deserved it, even if I… ultimately forgave him. After a moment’s tense silence, he stepped closer to me again, though this time, he didn’t try to kiss me. Orion gripped my forearms, firm but delicate, and leaned into my ear, “No. But I can’t stand to watch you smile like that at someone else.” My eyelids drooped at the commanding intensity that’d taken over him.

I somehow managed to scoff into the air, but my navel quivered at the tone of his voice and his breath skating down my neck. “You’ve let me in, Sylvie. Don’t be surprised when I see you as mine and only mine.” His stubbled cheek rasped against my face, and I felt his lips brush against the curve of my ear, “When you look at me the way you do, kiss me the way you do. You should know that I will always come back.” Something in him was different. It was similar to the Orion I knew who was more unabashedly confident, but it was also more. His face looked… wilder, his touch rougher. But instead of making me bristle in trepidation, I was even further soothed.

And then his teeth closed in on my throat, just under my earlobe, and I couldn’t suppress my moan or keep my eyes from rolling back in my head. The pressure he applied with his teeth wasn’t nearly enough to break the skin, but I knew that it was something. Something that made my skin feel like it was on fire and my soul feel like it was unfurling and settling into him.

Then there were voices growing louder, more than one person threatening to round the corner and see us both like this. “Orion,” I croaked after trying and failing twice to get my voice to work. But he was already pushing me backwards,almost lifting my feet off of the ground completely, and we were suddenly out from under the bright overhead lights of the hallway.

A door closed with a thud, and I hardly had time to take in the office we were in before I felt his hands grip just under my ass and hoist me fully into the air. Something hit the ground with a clatter as I squirmed on the top of the desk set adjacent to the windows on the far wall. Above the lingering smell of coffee and cigarettes, the room smelled overwhelmingly ofhim.

Orion gripped my face, the heels of his hands against my neck, and his kiss was more untamed this time. His tongue fought with mine, teeth nibbling my lips and striking against my own while I fisted the front of his shirt. His hands wandered down my body, thumbs flicking my nipples through my sweater before trailing down my sides and palming the fullest part of my hips.

“Swear to me,” I breathed into the dark room, “swear to me that you’re not lying to me. That you’re sorry.”

I felt his teeth close again on that spot at my throat, and I moaned at the pleasure it sent through my whole body. I’d surely bruise there, but I didn’t care. I wanted him to mark me, claim me.

Just before the bite turned painful, he pulled back to swipe the flat of his tongue over it, and I couldn’t help but imagine how his tongue would feel over the rest of me.

Between long swipes, he spoke gravelly, almost like a growl, “I had to go away, but I was alone. I won’t hurt you again. I’m sorry.” In the back of my mind, I recognized that he hadn’t quite sworn that all of what he was saying was the truth. That he wasn’t hiding anything.

But his hand moved again, and this time it was under my skirt. My legs responded immediately, opening wider for him. He moved up to my ear again, the sensation of his faceagainst mine warring with that of his fingers pushing aside my panties. “You’re too precious, too important. But donotthink that I won’t rip someone’s throat out for touching you.” He emphasized his words by dipping into the wetness that’d been pooling since I first caught sight of him. This was the first time he’d touched me like this, and I immediately knew I wasn’t going to survive it or keep up my anger toward him.

I scrambled to get the last bit of it out before I truly melted, “Are you still stuck on this? I was just talking to that guy to avoid you. Make you jeal—” my words cut off into a desperate cry when Orion started to circle his fingers, sending a lighting jolt of pleasure up my entire body. My back arched, which only pressed my chest more firmly into his.

“I know,” he gritted before pressing his forehead to mine. His lids were lowered under brows drawn in lust while he watched his hand work between us, “And I deserve it. But make no mistake,” he slowly pushed a finger into me, and my eyes rolled back again as he pumped and circled at the same time, “I am possessive by nature and do not make idle threats. You walk in looking like this, smelling like this, and then gift your smiles and laughs to someone else? It took everything in me not to throttle him.”

I smirked, the proprietorial words doing nothing but making me feel more ramped up, more turned on. “You like the way I look, huh?”

His fingers picked up speed, and I sunk my own in his hair, holding him to me. He grabbed a fistful of my curls while my body started shaking uncontrollably, the inevitable orgasm almost taking me by surprise. At first he didn’t answer, breathing heavily through his nose while he fingered me in his office, and my boots were scrabbling against the sides of his legs, trying to find purchase.

My vision blanked out, mouth dropped open, but before the boom of my climax could make me groan loudly enough for someone to certainly hear, Orion dropped his mouth onto mine. He took every morsel of sound from my lungs, giving me his own ragged groan in kind.

It took a few moments for my brain to come back online, but when it did, I was already deeply kissing him back. We’d been taking this part of our relationship slow, but now that he’d given me a taste of it, I wanted it all. He withdrew his touch from between my legs, only to replace his tongue with his fingers.

He watched me, bright eyes wild, and I held them while I sucked and licked, working over his fingers to show him what I would do if I could drop to my knees.

But I’d do that another time. Because I had another need burning in my gut, and when I moved to palm the front of his crotch, I knew that the same was true for him.

I moaned around his fingers, and though it was nothing to take the entire length of them in my mouth, I began to bob my head, moving back and forth while I undid the buckle of his belt. He watched me with rapt attention, and his mouth opened in pleasured panting when I unzipped and pulled his stiff cock out.

He was so hard, I wouldn’t be surprised if it ached, and I closed my fist around his shaft. Orion’s brows lowered, almost looking like he was in pain, and I brushed my thumb against him, feeling a tick vein winding up toward the head. As I began to pump the cage of my hand up and down, I moaned at the length of him.

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