Page 34 of Under an Endless Moon

“Well, I’m not staying here, that’s for sure,” she shot back as she yanked open the door. “Like I’m ever going to be able to look at my brother again.”

TWELVE

OTTO

You never knewwhen a day was going to alter your fabric. The framework of your life. I’d carefully built mine around the person that I’d become. Made boundaries that I’d driven like rebar into concrete to shore up the treasonous greed that I’d felt for my best friend’s sister for too many years.

Maybe I knew in that moment that I was getting ready to cross a line because I hesitated for a beat where I stood on River’s porch before I tugged my phone out of my pocket and shot him a text.

Me

Think your sister is a bit on the embarrassed side. She needs a minute. Your ugly ass might have traumatized her.

Dude should expect I was going to drag him through the mud on this one. I mean, seriously, didn’t he realize Raven would likely be home soon? And where the hell was Nolan?

I tucked my phone back into my pocket, jogged to my truck, and hopped in. I had it started and was taking the circular drive back out to the main road before I finally glanced in Raven’s direction.

As pretty as could fuckin’ be and as fuckin’ red as a beet. She was still scrubbing at her eyes as she looked toward the ceiling of my truck.

“You okay?”

She spun on me with those eyes wide. “Am I okay? No, I am not okay. I just walked in on my brother and Charleigh going at it. It’s bad enough I have to hear them from the end of the hall. But to see it? Do you have any idea how disturbing that is?” She flapped her hands like she might manage to shake off the memory. “Gah…I’m scarred for life.”

A rough chuckle skated out of me. It was a good thing that for the most part River had kept her from the club back when we’d ridden with Iron Owls MC. That kind of shit went down in broad daylight all the damned time. “Think he wasn’t expecting you.”

She groaned. “Obviously. I mean, I was supposed to text him to come pick me up. He probably thought I was still busy, so he decided toget busy.”

She said the last like she was testing out her first curse word.

My brow arched as I took the left onto Vista View, glancing both ways before I pulled out. “Busy?”

“Um, yeah. Busy. Knocking boots. Doing the dirty deed.” She said it all kinds of exasperated.

“What, are you eighty?”

“What do you want me to callit?”

For someone who was full of sass and snark and tossing out claims that she was on the prowl for someone dirty all over the place, she sure dipped into shyness an awful lot. Never fuckin’ knew what to make of her, even though I felt like I knew her better than anyone else.

The woman a dichotomy.

One moment this seductive siren and the next blushing all over the place.

“I usually call it fuckin’, but feel free to call it whatever you want. You know, something along the lines of taking a roll in the hay. Shagging. Bonin’, baby.” I deepened my voice on the last.

She choked over a laugh.

There. That’s what I was looking for.

Her amusement. Couldn’t stand for her to be upset.

I took a left onto Culberry Street and headed back toward town. “And where exactly are we going?”

She sighed. “Just take me back to my shop. I’ll spend the night in the back.”

“Have you lost your mind?” The words whipped out of my mouth.

“What?” she defended.

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