Under an Endless Moon (Moonlit Ridge, #2)

by A.L. Jackson

Then I wound my arms under her thighs and dove in. Tongue diving into her cunt, pushing in as deep as I could go all while trying not to come undone from the taste of her. Nails sank into my shoulders, digging deep and holding on as I dragged my tongue through her slit and lapped up to that sweet, swollen nub. “This…this. Don’t stop.” She was rasping it as she struggled to get closer, her hips bucking off the table in little jerks. I ate her up, rumbling, “Don’t intend to stop until I hear you screaming my name, Little Moonflower.” I used my shoulders to keep her legs propped open, and I let my hands glide around her hips so I could spread her pussy with my fingers. Exposing all her glistening, perfect heat. I sucked at her clit, licking her into a frenzy, before I went back to dragging my tongue through her folds. “Otto, please…I want…” “Know what you need. Promise you I’m not going to leave you hurting. Going to make you feel good. So fuckin’ good.” “Yes…so good…I…”

“Look at you,” he murmured. “A fucking goddess standing over me. You have any idea, Raven, what seein’ you like this does to me?” “I hope it’s half of what you do to me.” His chuckle was raw as he reached out and squeezed my bare hip. “Don’t think you have the first clue. The first clue of what I want to do to you.” I lifted my chin. “Do it.” He winced. “You know we aren’t going there.” I slowly eased down onto my knees in front of him. I didn’t care that I was kneeling on hard concrete. Those blue eyes flared. A battering of waves on an endless sea. “What do you think you’re doing?” His words were rough, scraping over me and sending another rush of desire coursing through my center. Over his shorts, I curled my hand around his cock the best that I could. He was hard. So hard and big that a tremor rolled my throat. It’d been dark earlier, and I hadn’t gotten to take him in the way I’d really wanted to. I wanted to see him the way he’d just seen me. “Raven,” he warned.

My tongue swept across my bottom lip. “I want to taste you.” A guttural sound of restraint rolled in his chest. “Think it’s best to leave well enough alone, don’t you?” “Is it?” “Think you’re playing with fire.” “I want to stand in it.” I tugged at the waistband of his shorts. “Let me taste you.” That fire blazed. “Not sure you know what you’re asking for.” “Show me.” I let a little of the vulnerability seep into my voice.

A darkness that flashed through his features. His voice went gruff as he reached out and ran the pad of his thumb over my lips. “You want me to fuck this hot little mouth?”

“Yes. I want you to fuck my mouth. I want you to show me what it means when you say you like it rough.”

He reached out and dragged the pad of his thumb down by my lips before he pushed it inside. Hard and deep. My belly twisted as I sucked. It was a precursor. A warning. I wasn’t sure. The only thing I knew was I wanted more. I wanted to see him. Experience him. Have him. I edged up enough so I could hook my fingers into the waistband of his shorts. I started to wiggle them down, careful of his wound as I tugged them free and he stepped out of them, though I was basically knocked senseless the second I freed his dick.

He was massive, his giant cock bobbing as it strained for the sky. Thick and obscenely long, the purpled head bulging and dripping at the tip. My stomach toppled over, and my tongue stroked over my lips as a flash of heat pitched through my bloodstream. “Careful with the way you’re looking at me.”

“I can’t look away.” “You want it?” I knew he meant it as a warning as he fisted himself, stroking all the way down his length and back to the top. “Yes. I want it. I want it everywhere.” A groan rolled out of him. “Tryin’ to wreck me. Tryin’ to ruin me in every way.” I wrapped a shaky hand around the base of his cock and leaned enough that I could lick across the tip. Otto jolted forward. “Raven, fuck.” “Like that?”

“You couldn’t do it wrong, Moonflower.”

“Show me,” I told him. Desire licked out of him as he gazed down, eyes hot and his body hotter. “Show me how you like it,” I begged. I could feel the flashfire of heat rush through him. “You sure?” “Yes.” For a moment, he hesitated, wanting to protect me the way he always had, so I tipped my head up at him and said, “I’m not breakable, Otto. And if I was, I’d want you to be the one to break me.” “Sweet fuckin’ moonflower.” He pressed the tip of his dick to my lips. “Open.” His tone filled with a command, and I obliged, parting my lips. He pushed the tip inside. “Suck it,” he grunted. I did, sucking his head before I swirled my tongue around it and started licking him the way he’d been licking me. “Fuck yes, Raven. Now take me deeper.”

My mouth was stretched so wide I finally got a little sense of what pleasured pain might mean. He fisted a hand in my hair, and the words gritted from between his clenched teeth. “Just like that. Take it deep.”

I barely got half of him into my mouth before he hit the back of my throat, and I rumbled a garbled semblance of his name around it. “Good girl,” he choked. “Such a fucking good girl with my cock stuffed down your throat. Like you were meant to do it.”

“You have any idea what it’s like to have you like this? On your knees with that sweet, dirty mouth wrapped around my cock?”

He grunted when he hit the back of my throat. “So fuckin’ good. Just like that. Take it like you mean it.” He did it again, a little harder that time. “My sweet moonflower. You want me to dirty you? Wreck you? Ruin you?”

“This mouth. This dangerous fuckin’ mouth and this sweet fuckin’ soul. What am I supposed to do with you?”

“So good, baby.” He grunted each word as he started to fuck my mouth in long, desperate strokes. His hips snapped as he jutted forward, and the hard, packed muscles of his stomach flexed as he worked us into a disorder. It felt like a claiming. That’s exactly what I wanted it to be. A claiming. I wanted him to take me. Own me.

I curled one hand tighter around him as I let the other wander up to the tattoo, and I brushed my fingers over the statement, hoping he could feel the statement of my own. I love you. I love you. I always had. Probably long before I’d really understood what it meant. An agonized sound rolled through his body, and a second hand dove into my hair, the man lifting me higher by both hands as he surged into my mouth. Guiding me exactly where he wanted me as he muttered, “Moonflower…baby…what have you done to me?” He pushed himself deeper than he’d gone before, a hand at the back of my head drawing me forward. I swallowed around him, taking everything I could. That was all it took, and he shattered. A roar of pleasure ricocheted through his garage as his cock throbbed and pulsed in my mouth. He poured and poured, grunting and groaning as I sucked him clean, making sure that I eked every last drop of pleasure out of him, too. He slowed then stilled, and I carefully eased back to stare up at the man who’d always been everything to me. The one who’d made me feel safe. The one who’d seen me in a different light than anyone had before. The one I’d always been willing to sacrifice for. The one I’d do anything for.

His thumb came to trail along the edge of my mouth. “You’re fuckin’ perfect, Raven Tayte. So goddamn perfect. You got me wrecked.” But he was the one who’d wrecked me long ago.

need to know how you’re feeling. If I pushed you too far?”

“No, Otto. I wasn’t

afraid. I know you would never hurt me. Know that you never could hurt me. I wanted it. I want it. I want to feel you in every way.” “Afraid I can’t give you what you’re looking for, Raven. Can’t give you what I see playing in your eyes.”

“Because you don’t want to, Otto? Because you really don’t see me the way I see you? Or because you’re the one who’s afraid?”

“Because I’m no good, Raven. Because you don’t know who I really am. Because you’d be disgusted if you knew.”

“Because yes, Raven, I’m terrified of hurting you.”

There was no forgetting Raven Tayte because no matter how painful it was, this woman was carved on my heart and written in my soul.

“Are you crazy? Have you seen the way that man looks at you? He goes completely rabid. I think he has to restrain himself from tossing you over his shoulder and carrying you to his bed every time he sees you. I honestly don’t know how River doesn’t know or hasn’t noticed. Otto’s entire being shifts whenever you come into the room. You’re his gravity, Raven.” In emphasis, she squeezed my wrist. “I promise you, this is not one-sided.”

“Only thing I want is for you to feel safe. To be safe,”

“Is it, Otto? Is it the only thing you want?”

Couldn’t seem to stop myself from treading farther and farther into this depravity. Her hair was piled on her head, twisted up in some kind of braid with a bunch of tiny white flowers poking out of it. Her delicate neck exposed. A magical sprite who’d taken possession of my mind. I eased up until there was only an inch of space separating us, and I leaned in so my mouth was close to her ear. “You wear this dress on purpose, Little Moonflower?”

She arched back. “Yes.” “You like teasing me? Tempting me?” She rocked back, her ass hitting my cock that was stone, and she barely peeked at me from over her shoulder. “Is it working?” “Clearly.” “That’s what I thought,” she murmured. I buried my face at the back of her neck, then rumbled, “Fuck,” as she ground herself against me. My hand moved of its own accord, riding up below that dress where I splayed my hand over her bare bottom. She whimpered, and I groaned, my mouth at her ear. “We need to get home, Raven.” We needed to get out of here before I lost my mind.

“What are we toasting?” she asked. “That you’re here. That you’re safe.” “I think what we should really be celebrating is that you’re still standing.” “Of course, I’m still standing, darlin’. It’s going to take a whole lot more to take me down than some candy-ass fucker who goes runnin’ scared. Tossing out threats like the night is going to keep him concealed. Going to end him. Make sure he is no longer a threat to you.” I just laid it out. It wasn’t like she wasn’t fully aware of what was coming for the bastard. “I never believed for a second that you would let anyone get to me.” “I won’t. I promise you I won’t let anyone get to you. Promise I’ll stand in the fire.”

“That’s what I want, Otto. I want you to stand in the fire with me.”

“Thought we discussed that we were going to forget about what happened last night and this morning?” Raven leaned into the bare connection, her voice going raspy. “You know that I can’t, even if I wanted to. And you’d be a liar if you said you didn’t want it, too.” Keen eyes flashed with the challenge. “What fuckin’ man wouldn’t want you, Raven? What man wouldn’t want to get lost in this fuckin’ perfect body? Wouldn’t want to get lost in these eyes?”

“Who wouldn’t want to get lost in this kind, magnificent, brave heart?” She tipped up her chin. “I don’t want any of those men.” “Fuck, Raven.” It was a last-ditch effort that only served as a call. “Tell me you don’t want me,” she demanded. I had her hoisted in my arms and propped on the island before I could even make sense of the movement.

“I’m not what you need, Raven.” It fucking hurt saying it.

“I know exactly what I need,” she refuted.

“Don’t you see? I’m no good. No fuckin’ good. I can’t be the one to hurt you. I can’t.”

rocked back in surprise when her hands suddenly shoved against my shoulders. Girl a flame. A fire. She slid off the edge of the counter and onto her feet. Appearing so damned tall, a force of nature, spite and determination in her stance. She shoved me again.

“Don’t you dare tell me what I need, Otto Hudson. Don’t you dare. And don’t you dare try to convince me that you’re not a good man because that’s a lie, too.” Clenching my jaw, I forced myself to move across the kitchen from her. Searching for a way to put an eternity between us all while wanting to erase every inch that could ever separate. “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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“What I feel for you is endless, Raven Tayte. So, you want me to tell you ex...

“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...

Moisture blurred her eyes, and her delicate throat bobbed as she swallowed, and there was absolutely nothing I could do. No restraint left. No barrier high or wide enough that could hold me back. I stormed across the space se...

The ground trembled as Otto swept me off my feet. A grunt ripped up his throat as I wrapped my legs around his waist and curled myself around his big, beautiful body. “Otto,” I whimpered, and in a flash, he had one arm locked around my waist and the fingers of his other hand tangled up in the twist I had in my hair. His mouth crushed against mine in a landslide of desperation. His lips demanding and his tongue beseeching. In a passion and need so intense it crashed through my veins. The same way as his. A life-beat that pounded through our beings. I thought I’d known it all along. Sure that I’d felt the yearning locked tight within him, but I’d never been able to sense the magnitude of it until right then. “Love you, Raven,” he mumbled against my mouth, his hand twining tighter in my hair as he carried me across the kitchen and toward his bedroom. “Love you so much. I can’t keep it back any longer.” “Don’t. Don’t keep it back. Don’t keep it from me.”

“Won’t. Won’t ever again.”

“You’re mine, Raven. Always have been.”