Page 154 of Under an Endless Moon

“I’m not. The things I’ve done…” A warning lined the words.

Disbelief shook her head. “Do you think I don’t know the things you’ve done? Do you think I don’t understand this life? Do you think I don’t understand the cost? Do you think I don’t see that you’re scarred and carry the burden of setting people free? Do you think I don’t know that always comes with a price?”

She took another step toward me as she said it, the woman a riot of emotion. Anger and hope and belief.

Every single one of those things were directed at me.

But she didn’t know. She didn’t know everything.

I had to wonder right then if it would even matter, though. If it would change a thing. If it would dim the light in those magic eyes.

“I’m finished pretending, Otto. I’m finished pretending about the way I feel about you. This either begins tonight or it ends tonight.”

She jammed a pointed finger toward the floor.

Alarm churned through my being. “What are you saying, Raven?”

“I’m saying I’m finished tiptoeing. I’m finished shuttering. I’m finished keeping this inside.”

She took another step toward me.

Intensity thrashed.

The woman an earthquake.

“Raven.” Her name murmured out of me while urgency battered my chest. Ribs stretching so tight around the fullness I thought I would blow.

Come apart.

“I might be inexperienced, Otto. I might have been wounded so deep that I’ve been terrified of letting anyone get close to me, but you are the only one who’s ever been able to do it. The only one I’ve wanted right next to me.”

Her entire body angled toward me as she whispered, “I love you, Otto.”

She touched her chest right over that beautiful heart as she took another step forward.

“I love you so much, and I have my entire life. And it’s not infatuation or hero worship or bred of this trauma. It is what my heart knows. It’s my truth. And if it’s not yours, then I’ll accept it. I’ll walk away and I’ll never look back. But the one thing I’m asking right now is for you not to lie to me. Don’t be a coward and give me some camouflaged truth. Tell me what you feel when you look at me.”

She gazed up at me with that boldness that was underscored in all her vulnerability.

Bared.

Chin lifted and those eyes weeping with her petition.

This?

This I couldn’t resist.

I couldn’t form a lie that great. So I let the truth ride free.

“You want to know how I feel, Raven? You want to know if my heart fuckin’ bleeds every time I look at you? You want to know if I toss at night thinking about holding you in my arms?”

My brow pinched in emphasis. “You are the first thought I have when I open my eyes in the morning and the last one before I go to sleep. You are the thunder in my veins and the chaos in my spirit. You are everything I want and the one thing I’m not supposed to have.”

I took a single step toward her, voice going gruff. “What I feel for you is endless, Raven Tayte. So, you want me to tell you exactly what that means?”

My hand fisted against the center of my chest. “It means I’m so fuckin’ in love with you, so fuckin’ gone for you, that there’s no chance my world could spin right without you in it. So fuckin’ in love with you that I feel like I’m ripping apart every time I look at you. You are my heart, and that’s the truth.”

Moisture blurred her eyes, and her delicate throat bobbed as she swallowed, and there was absolutely nothing I could do.

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