Page 177 of Under an Endless Moon

His hand was still in hers, and he was the one to shift and face her, moving so he was hooking his pinky with hers as he searched her face in the night.

“They’re still coming at you bad?” he asked, voice low and coarse.

“They were worse while you were gone,” she admitted around the thickness in her throat. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest she wondered if he could hear it. If he could feel what whooshed and slicked through her veins.

Regret curled through his expression. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Blue flicked all over her face.

Studying.

Memorizing.

Maybe rewriting.

“It is, though, isn’t it?”

She got brave—brave in a way she’d never done before—and she unhooked her pinky from his and reached out to scratch her nails through his beard. “You do what you have to do.”

“And I’m beginning to wish I had a different choice.”

The bed creaked as he rolled, and he fumbled around on her nightstand and grabbed the mirror. He started to hold it out for her to see, and she wiggled closer to him, carving out a space at his side and resting her head on his shoulder.

His spine went rigid, and she could feel the shallowness of his breaths, before he gave and curled that arm around her and dragged her closer. With the other, he lifted the mirror. “Hope you were looking at this while I was gone. Hope you saw what I see. This brave, strong, beautiful woman.”

The last of his words were brand new.

Beautiful.

Woman.

A buzz rolled through her, and shesnuggled closer.

He came night after night. When she dreamed and when she didn’t. She’d begun to wait. Anticipating his arrival. The quiet thud of his boots across her floor and the creaking of her bed as he climbed in beside her.

When her stomach would churn, and her heart would race.

He held her close, and he whispered his belief into her ear. Filled her up with his praise. But he never touched her the way she craved for him to do.

She wanted him to push her onto her back and peel her out of her clothes.

Take her in a way she’d never been taken.

But Otto always maintained the distance. Kept an invisible barrier between them.

She wanted to push through it. Climb over it or under it. Whatever it took to get to him.

But there was an obstacle she had to face first. This guilt that soured in her conscience. The secret she’d been keeping that she wasn’t sure she could keep any longer.

She was worried about Haddie. About how reckless she was being.

But the betrayal locked on her tongue. Unable to form the words that she knew would drive a blade between her and her best friend.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t.

Haddie trusted her, and she couldn’t break the bond that they had formed.

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