Page 96 of Under an Endless Moon

Completely parched.

This was real. It had to be real because there was no chance of a dream ever feeling this good.

“You were the first fantasy I ever had, and I never stopped,” I admitted.

I sometimes wondered if it hadn’t been old fear stopping me from allowing other men to touch me, but it’d simply been the fact that they weren’t Otto Hudson.

“Fuck me, darlin’. Not sure what you think it is you’re doing to me.”

“I’ll do anything to you that you want.”

A groan infiltrated the air at the same time as a smirk hitched at the edge of his mouth. “You really shouldn’t say things like that to a man like me.”

“Maybe it’s time I do, Otto. Maybe it’s time I say exactly what I want. What I need. And for the record, what’s in those books isn’t what I want other men to do to me. It’s what I wantyouto do to me.”

His hips jutted upward.

I gasped at the sensation.

Tingles raced across the surface of my flesh, this feeling swelling from within unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.

Severity seared through his expression.

“You’re sure that this is what you want? You want me to show you?” he rumbled.

“Yes. I want it. I want you.”

“You know that’s all it can ever be. I can’t keep you, Raven. I’m a fucking bastard for even suggesting it. For even having you like this. Took an oath.” Regret filled the last, and I could sense that he was having second thoughts and getting ready to withdraw.

My nails sank into his tattooed pecs, desperate to stop him. I dragged them down, over all that hard, carved flesh, all the way down to the scene depicted on his hip.

The moonflower blooming beneath the night.

“Don’t tell me you don’t want it, too.” I wasn’t quite sure where the obstinance came from, but it was there in the lift of my chin.

A challenge.

His cock that burned below me hardened further. No way for him to deny it.

That didn’t mean I didn’t understand where he was coming from. I knew his oath to Sovereign Sanctum. His oath to my brother. This man’s loyalty was fierce and unending. Otto would never want to betray that.

But maybe it was time we were lifted above it.

“I told you it was time that I spread my wings. I want to spread them with you.”

“Just this once, Raven, and no one can fuckin’ know.” Shame splintered across his face.

I hated that he would feel guilt over me. But I needed this so badly. To find myself in him. The courage. The strength. The belief. However short-lived it was going to be.

“I don’t want them to. This is just for me. For us. If you want it.”

“If I want it?” His hands slid lower until his fingers were splayed over my butt. I arched into it, needing to feel every touch.

“Don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything so badly in my life.” He ground out the confession. “The way you’ve been driving me out of my mind, here under my roof. In my house and under my skin.”

Hope raced, his words so much bigger than temporary. But I needed to accept that’s all this could be. I needed to put any foolish notions of this man actually loving me to rest.

Bury them right in this bed.

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