Page 52 of In the Light of the Moon

“Yeah,” I nodded to myself while I unlocked my door and stepped inside my place. Yeah, we would be good.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Sylvie

The music from the record player was as buttery as the dim light in the room. The fire Orion had set was a pleasant crackling that seemed to be in tune with the increasing bubbling of the kettle he set on the stove.

I hugged my arms tighter to myself as I padded into the main area of Orion’s home, and I tried to imagine a younger version of him. With the mop of white curls like in the childhood photos, maybe nose buried in a book while sitting hunched but relaxed on the old leather sofa. I ran my fingers over the back cushion, picturing him tinkering away with his father, working on this house that he’d told me they built with their two hands.

He palmed my waist from behind, and I melted. Orion’s arms circled around my torso, his warmth evident even through his thick flannel shirt that I’d thrown on after waking up from my doze. After Orion drove us both to campus, I’d called home to ask Granna if she’d mind me being away for another night. When she’d scoffed and chastised me for even entertaining the notion that she wouldn’t, I called Roz and asked her to check upon Granna tonight, maybe feigning a spontaneous desire to have dinner.

Before I could text Orion or find him in the building to ask if it would be all right if I spent the night again, he texted me during my second class that morning.

I’ll be done around 4 today and have no plans tonight. Would you want to stay over again?

Though his directness had been off-putting during our first encounters, I was now grateful for this quality. It lessened my anxiety substantially, and having his declaration of love also didn’t hurt. One night of having the explicit realization and subsequent agonizing over whether I should tell him was enough for me. It was like he couldn’t bear to be any other way besides honest, and it was one of the things I loved most about him.

Now, Orion kissed the curve of my neck, where the mark of his teeth still hadn’t faded even though he’d never broken the skin.

Maybe it was barbaric, but I liked having that signal that he had been there. That I’d let him close enough to do that. “You should let me markyou,” I snickered aloud, but Orion’s answering grumble vibrated both of our bodies.

I worried that I said the wrong thing until he answered, voice low for reasons other than sleepiness, “Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep, Sylvie.”

I spun around in his arms and wrapped mine over his neck. My cheek pressed into the hollow of his throat, “Who says I don’t?”

He stilled, and I noticed his breaths quickened just slightly, “You would… want to do that?”

My lips pulled back, and I knew he could feel my smile on his bare skin, “Sure, if you’d let me.” It felt a bit ridiculous, towant to give each other what were a lot like hickeys but not. Something about it felt right, though.

Orion lifted his hands to my face and pulled it back. I gazed up at him, and his brows were drawn in an expression I couldn’t decipher. “I never… asked you whether this was okay.”

I suppressed the shiver his fingertip trailing the mark of his teeth drew out of me. His green apple eyes flickered with longing and shame, so I tapped the pad of my finger against his lips to get his attention. “I like it.”

“Why?” His lips turned down beneath my touch.

I shrugged, “I don’t know. Feels right. Don’t worry about it.” I wasn’t going to start distrusting my intuition now that I was determined to follow it.

Orion pursed his lips as I brought my hand back to clasp with the other behind his neck. I took the time to take him in, this man whose eyelashes were so white that it looked like he’d been standing in the snow, flakes collecting and tips freezing.

“If you did that, Sylvie, you’d never be rid of me.”

It took me a moment to turn over his words. His face was serious, but I wasn’t being flippant. Not at all—I just couldn’t understand why it felt like he was constantly warning me. “Is that a bad thing?” Was this his way of telling me that he didn’t wantmein that way? But, no, he’d just told me this morning that he loved me.

Had it really only been this morning? It felt as easy as breathing to imagine Orion being by my side for the foreseeable future and beyond. Even without Josie’s prediction.

He brought his hand to my chest and rested it over the beating of my heart, “Be careful what you say to me, Sylvie. I already see you as mine. If you did the same to me, that would make it true.”

“Oh, goodness, Orion,” I smacked a quick kiss on his lips before dropping my hands. “If you don’t want me to, just say that.”

His finger made one more circle around the mark, “Sylvie, if you marked me, I wouldn’t be able to drop to my knees fast enough. You’d have me crawling behind you for the rest of both of our lives and after.”

I shuddered with pleasure, with another surge of that sense of rightness. We hadn’t been together that long, but the thought of Orion with me forever was one I wanted to make real.

I lifted his hand off my chest, kissed his knuckles, and then rubbed my cheek over them. “Be sure thatyouare ready for that.”

A low grumbly sound emanating from his throat was the only warning I had before my back flopped onto the supple leather sofa, nearly knocking the air out of me. Orion looked down on me with eyes wilder than I’d ever seen them. He swept his nose around mine over and over, and I spread my naked thighs for him to settle between them. Before I could run my hands over his chiseled arms, his chest, he brought my wrists together in the cage of one hand and held them above my head. My heart picked up excitedly, and I couldn’t stop my hips from writhing and trying to meet the tenting of his pajama pants.

“I’ve been ready for you to claim me since the night we met, Sylvie,” and then his mouth was on mine in a staggering, smashing kiss that was a mess of tongue and teeth. I moaned, taking it all and still demanding more. My heels pressed against the backs of his thighs, pulling him closer.

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