Under an Endless Moon (Moonlit Ridge Book 2)

My petition was choked and small, but I meant it with every fiber of my being.

I needed him to hear it.

I needed him to show me that I didn’t have to be vulnerable. That I didn’t have to feel small or insignificant. That I didn’t have to be subject to the fetters that kept me bound.

I needed to know I could be free.

Free in him.

Even if it was only once.

Every hard, packed groove of his massive body flexed in a bid to suppress what urged and coiled between us. Bulky muscles twitched, and his beautiful heart battered at my chest.

I knew it now. I no longer questioned if this need was one-sided. No longer wondered if I was the only one who suffered this desire.

Being here with him for close to two weeks had proven what I’d hoped for all along. Those moments over all these years when I’d thought I was going crazy, imagining the energy that’d lashed between us before he’d turn around and call me his baby sister, assuring me I was only making things up.

But this could not be fabricated.

This need that blazed.

A fiery, incandescent bond that shined so bright it was blinding.

A connection that keened so loud I heard it as a reverberation at the back of my mind.

A sense so profound I felt it curling around me, body and soul, dragging me his way.

“Fuck, Raven.” He muttered it in the lapping night. His room was nearly dark except for the vestiges of the moon that cast a murky haze through the windows behind his bed.

The outline of the soaring trees drawn in charcoal, and the endless sky smattered with a canvas of glinting stars beyond.

I could just see the shape of his fierce, glorious face within it. Could see the greed carved into every vicious line and the reticence scored into every harsh angle.

Tonight, there was no sign of the tease on his lips.

His jaw was clenched tight in sharp self-denial.

But it was his palm that slid down my side and over my hip that promised he recognized my need. What promised he saw me as something different than his sister.

What promised he saw me as a woman who needed this. To explore this with the one man she’d ever felt safe with.

Shivers raced in the wake of his hand, and I could barely breathe as he stared across at me with those blue, fathomless eyes.

Intensity thrashed, and his name whimpered from my tongue.

“Otto.”

He groaned as his palm glided back up, lighting a path of flames as he went. “I don’t want to hurt you, Raven.”

“You won’t. I trust you.”

“I’m the last man you should trust.”

I didn’t believe that for a second, but I could somehow see that he had taken on that truth for himself.

But right then, none of that mattered. I didn’t care about honesty or intentions or principles.

“I don’t care. I need this. With you. You’re the only person I’ve ever wanted this way. The only one who’s ever touched me, and I wasn’t afraid.”

“But this is different.” His voice was coated in gravel.

Was it? Because I swore that I’d felt it all along.

“Otto. I’m twenty-five. Twenty-five, and I have never let a man touch me. Really touch me.” It was the most transparent I’d ever been. Opening myself up to him this way.

Charleigh knew. I could tell her anything. But this was different. This was cutting myself wide open for the man I’d kept like a secret for so many years.

Uncertainty knitted his brow as he kept smoothing his hand up and down, pulling me closer with each pass.

He was only in his underwear, the same way I’d found out he usually slept.

Heat blazed where our skin brushed, and my stomach flip-flopped in a rush of nerves and anticipation.

“I don’t want to take advantage of that,” he argued in that low, gruff voice.

My scoff was shaky. “How could it be taking advantage when I’m begging you? When it’s the one thing I’ve wanted? Don’t deny me that when you know you want to give it to me.”

I put as much daring into it as I could muster. I wanted to find my inner strength. To flirt and tease and play like I did during the day.

Seduce him.

I wasn’t quite sure how to do it in a situation like this. Not when he’d just found out this evening that I had zero experience. That I’d devolved into a panic attack any time I’d ever tried with someone else in the past.

But I also didn’t want him to treat me like glass.

Fragile.

Something fractured and broken.

Because I was stretching my wings. Getting ready to fly. And I wanted Otto Hudson to make me soar.

I yelped when he suddenly shifted onto his back. He took me with him, bringing me up so I was straddling him.

I gasped when I realized I was seated on his thick, long shaft. My core pulsed with need, and my hands shot out to the hard, rippling planes of his chest for support.

“Oh God,” I whimpered as I struggled to make sense of the change in position.

“Haven’t even touched you yet, darlin’, and you’re already gasping.”

I guessed he’d given in because there was little reservation that remained in his eyes as he peered up at me. Blue pools gleamed with desire as he coasted both hands up to grip me around the waist.

“It’s not going to take much,” I told him.

His brow arched in speculation.

“I’ve been dreaming about this for a long, long time,” I admitted on a tremorous breath.

His tongue stroked out to wet his bottom lip. “Exactly what have you been dreamin’ of?”

“You. Just you. You and…everything. You are the face of every hero in my books.”

A growl rolled through him, the man pure beast where he lay on his back. Face carved in ferocity, two-day old stubble covering the harsh set of his jaw. Though his eyes and lips were soft, at odds with the rough edges of the rest of him.

My burly bear.

For a moment, I worried I might be hallucinating.

Because could this really be happening?

I’d better not wake up and find out I was dreaming. I had half a mind to grab my phone and snap a pic for proof. Maybe send it over to my bestie for confirmation.

“You been fantasizing about me, Moonflower?” he gruffed.

Lust billowed in the air, and his hands ran lower, gliding down over both my hips as he slowly rocked me against him.

His cock jerked where we were connected, and licks of pleasure lit up between my thighs.

The achy need inside me grew heavy, and my mouth went dry.

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 want you to 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.

“I just need to know that you won’t regret this, Raven.” Otto reached up and brushed his fingers through my hair, eyes brimming with sincerity. “I need to know that things won’t change between us. Need to know I’ll always be your favorite person the way you’ll always be mine. Can’t stand the idea of anything coming between us.”

Maybe we were both fools for thinking we could maintain who we’d always been, but as far as I was concerned, everything had changed anyway. When he’d walked in on me, and I’d bared myself to him the way I had. The way I didn’t cower or hide but instead had continued, silently begging him to join me.

Tonight had been my breaking point when he’d asked about my book. The culmination of everything I’d tried to keep tapped.

My truth exploding from my mouth because I was so finished pretending. So sick of holding it in.

There was no going back on this.

“I would never regret a second spent with you, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to like you even better after you touch me. You’re about to take favorite to new levels.”

Somehow, I found the tease, my lips pulling up on the side, though that smile was completely obliterated when Otto suddenly flew up to sitting.

He wound a hand up in my mess of hair that I’d let down when I’d come to bed, and he jerked my face close to his, our lips almost touching.

His other arm banded around my waist, keeping me plastered to his chiseled front, and my legs were wrapped around his waist and tucked up close to his cock.

I gulped around the thickness in my throat. I’d imagined what he’d be like so many times, sure just from the brutal size of him that he’d be huge.

But this…this was so much more than I’d dared to imagine. The enormous press of him where he slowly rubbed himself against my center.

“Definitely, definitely my favorite person,” I wheezed as I dug my nails into his shoulders.

He grinned. Grinned this salacious smile that tumbled through me like a dream.

Warmth and light.

Freedom.

That’s what this was.

The letting of my chains.

“We’re gonna see if we can discover a few more favorites for you, darlin’.”

Then he softened. “But if you get scared or nervous or uncomfortable, I need you to say it. Will never forgive myself if I take it too far, so I’m going to do my best to take it slow.”

“I’m not sure I can handle slow.” I wiggled on his lap.

He grunted a gluttonous sound. “Don’t worry. I’m going to make my moonflower come. Right now. Going to watch her blossom in the night. Can’t wait to watch you glow.”

I let go of a shallow breath, and the fire spread as he began to grind against me.

Achingly slow as he watched me carefully, searching for any signs of distress.

A vibrancy raced beneath my skin, and I rocked myself against him. Sparks lit at the contact. Tiny flickers of bliss that flamed just beneath the surface.

Otto studied me, his chin just lifted as I rolled over him, his breaths shallow grunts as he gazed at me like he both wanted to protect me and set me free, one hand still twisted tight in my hair as if it was the only thing keeping him controlled.

“You good with that?” he asked in that rumbly voice.

I ground harder against him. “I need more.”

A chuckle rolled through him as he yanked me closer against him. “Eager girl. Don’t rush it. We’ve got all night. I’m going to take care of you.”

The problem was, I wanted to rush toward this feeling that was taking me over all while finding a way for it to never end.

His mouth came to my ear, and his voice dipped into a gruff command. “Get up onto your knees.”

Tingles spread through my body. Flames that licked as I complied.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

Playing into my fantasies.

Otto tipped his head back to gaze at me as I swayed on my knees, and my heart beat so erratically I wasn’t sure my chest could contain it.

Breaths harsh and jagged.

His arm unhooked from my waist, and that hand smoothed across my lower back before his fingers slipped around to knead into my hip.

“Never have seen anything more gorgeous than this, Raven. Looking up at you. Lit up by the moon. Stealin’ my breath. Fuckin’ with my head.”

I let my fingers play along the sharp edge of his cheek before I drifted them over his lips.

“It’s my breath that’s gone. Seeing you like this. Touching this face that has followed me into every dream. Being with the only person who could ever save me from the nightmares. The only one that ever made me feel safe. The one who made me sure I wanted to discover what it is like to be taken. Completely and fully.”

His hand glided farther around to the front, and his knuckles brushed the top of my thigh before he pressed his fingers between my legs. He just barely rubbed me over my cotton shorts, never taking his eyes from mine as he did.

I jolted forward on a rasp.

“You good?” he asked.

“I’m not afraid.”

I’d never been with him.

He shifted and dragged my shorts and panties aside.

Cool air rushed across my lips, then heat seared through me when he dragged the tips of his fingers through my folds. “Otto.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Every yes.”

He smirked, though it was almost pained as he nudged my legs wider, and his tongue stroked out across his lips as he dragged his fingers through me, back and forth, a fraction deeper with each pass.

His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Fuckin’ drenched.”

I wheezed, holding on tighter as he started to push his fingers inside me. Desire whipped my insides into a frenzy.

A torrent of need that flooded the room.

Banged at the walls and bashed at my consciousness.

A tornado of greed spun with the faintest flickers of nerves at the disbelief that this was actually happening.

That I was being…touched.

And I wanted it.

Oh God, how much I wanted it.

He let go of my hair and looped that arm around my waist, holding onto me as he slowly…so slowly…pressed two big fingers into my pussy.

A tremor rocked through me. An earthquake of sensation that tumbled and rolled.

Leaning in, he ran his nose along my neck, and he inhaled as if he were trying to draw me all the way inside.

Take me in.

Consume me.

His words vibrated through me when he murmured, “So fuckin’ tight. Wet and tight and needy. Do you shove that toy deep into this needy pussy when you fuck yourself thinkin’ about me?”

I didn’t think it was even a question. It sounded like a claim.

Lightheadedness swept through me as my head swished back and forth.

I felt half detached. Half grounded.

I could feel him everywhere, though it didn’t feel like it could ever be enough.

He brushed the pad of his thumb over my clit.

The most embarrassing sound crawled up my throat as I clawed at his shoulders. “Oh God, Otto.”

“Listen to you, my name on your tongue. Wait until I have you shouting it.”

“I need…”

“Know what you need. I’m going to give it to you. That’s what this is all about.” He started sweeping the pad of his thumb over my clit.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

“Showing you the way you deserve to be touched. The way you deserve to be adored. The treasure you are.”

Pure electricity.

“I think it’s working,” I told him.

A dark chuckle rumbled in him as he dragged his fingers out.

I nearly cried until he pressed them back in, harder that time, and he swirled his thumb as he did. “The things I want to do to you, Raven Tayte.”

“I want you to. I want you to have me in every way.”

Affliction gripped his expression. “No, baby. We’re not gonna go there. I’m going to show you that you can be touched. Show you that you don’t have to be afraid. Then you can make that choice with a man who deserves you.”

I wanted to argue, but all thoughts left me when he started driving his fingers in and out of me in deep, long strokes, his thumb rolling in time. With each thrust that feeling grew. The sensation crawling out from the secreted places where I’d kept my need for him hidden.

Shrouded and concealed.

I started grinding against his hand. Pleasure building to a breaking point, battering at my insides to get out.

Every cell inside me quickened, and I begged, “Harder.”

I refused to be shy or subdue what I needed. Not with him. Not when I had this chance.

A squeal ripped out of me when I found I was suddenly on my back, laid out on his bed, my legs spread wide as the man hovered over me, eyes wild in the night.

“Fuck me, Raven, what are you trying to do to me?” he grunted.

Everything.

I wanted to do everything he’d done to me to him.