The Ugly Luna He Never Saw novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Lamps Down
In the lodge Niko finds her scars with his thumb, calls them warm skin, and takes her apart with his mouth until she asks him to stay.
The lodge was one huge room of dark pine, with a stone fireplace and a bed the size of a boat.
Niko closed the door behind us and the whole building went quiet.
I stood in the middle of the floor with my hands wrapped in my sleeves.
"You don't have to do this tonight," I said.
"Do what?"
"Pretend." My voice came out thinner than I wanted. "You saw them. You heard them."
He crossed to the lamp on the nightstand and turned it down until it was a little honey-coloured coin on the wood.
"I heard them," he said. "I heard you, too."
"I'm not talking about what I said."
"I know." He came back and stopped in front of me, so close I had to tip my head all the way up. "You breathe different when you're lying to yourself. It's very loud."
My face went hot.
"Hood," he said, low.
I pushed it off.
Grey hair spilled down my back to my waist.
He lifted a handful of it, rubbed it between his fingers, and lowered his face into it.
He breathed in, and a shudder ran through his whole big body.
"Cedar," he said against my head. "I've been smelling you through the wall for six years."
"The kitchen wall?"
"Yes."
"You never said a word."
"I couldn't think of a single one that was good enough."
I laughed, a cracked little sound that surprised me.
His mouth found my temple.
He kissed the line of my hair, then the corner of my eyebrow, then my cheekbone, slow.
His lips reached the first scar.
I flinched all over.
He stopped.
"Does it hurt?"
"No."
"Then what is it?"
"It's ugly," I said. "You can say it. Everyone does."
His thumb came up and rested on the ridge of it, from my eye to my jaw.
"It's warm," he said. "It's a little rougher than the rest. It curls up at the end where your mouth is."
His thumb moved down and pressed at the corner of my lips.
"That's all it is, Tuuli. It's skin that happens to be yours."
I didn't have an answer for that.
I grabbed his flannel with both fists and pulled his mouth down onto mine.
He kissed, slow and thorough and not asking permission.
His beard scratched my chin, his tongue slid against mine, and the hum under my breastbone climbed up my throat until it was a sound.
He caught the sound in his mouth and groaned.
His hands went under my hoodie and spread across my bare back, each one almost wide enough to cover it.
"Off," he said.
I dragged the hoodie over my head.
The lamplight was low and gold and I didn't care.
His big hands went to my breasts, heavy in my plain cotton bra, and he thumbed the nipples through the fabric until I arched.
"You're so soft," he said into my neck. "God, you're soft everywhere."
"I'm not small."
"I noticed." He bit the side of my throat, not hard. "I've been noticing for six years."
The bra came off.
My jeans came off, and then my underwear, with him on his knees to get them over my boots, which he unlaced first and pulled off.
I stood naked in a stranger's bedroom with my belly and thighs and scars and nowhere to hide.
He looked up at me, and his gaze stayed at about my collarbone.
"Bed," he said.
I sat on the edge, and he pushed me back with a hand flat between my breasts.
He kneeled between my knees and put both hands on my thighs.
They spread for him, and I felt the air on how wet I already was.
He heard me gasp.
"There it is," he said, and his voice was rough now. "I've been wondering what that sounded like."
He leaned in and licked me from the bottom to the top, one long slow stroke, with his tongue flat.
My hips came off the mattress.
"Fuck."
"Mm."
He did it again, and then his mouth closed around my clit and sucked, gentle, then harder, while two thick fingers pushed into my pussy and curled.
I grabbed his head.
His scalp was smooth and hot under my palms.
"Niko. Oh my God."
"Say it again."
"Niko."
He groaned against me, and the sound went through my whole body.
His tongue circled, his fingers rubbed, and I could hear how wet I was, a slick filthy noise that should have made me ashamed.
It made me want more.
"You taste like the lake in summer," he said into my thigh. "You sound like it, too. Every time you breathe in, you shake. Do that again."
I did, because I couldn't help it.
"That's it. Good girl. Just like that."
The pressure built low in my belly, faster than it ever had on my own.
I rocked up against his mouth, shameless, my heels digging into his shoulders, and he pushed me right to the edge and held me there.
"Please."
"Please what?"
"Make me come."
He sucked my clit between his lips and ground his fingers deep, and I broke apart with a cry that bounced off the pine ceiling.
My thighs clamped around his head.
He didn't let go.
He worked me through it, licking me slowly, until the last aftershock left me limp and shaking and laughing helplessly at the rafters.
He rose, wiping his beard with the back of his wrist, and lay down beside me.
His chest was rising hard.
There was a very large erection pushed against my hip through his jeans, and he made no move to do anything about it.
"Tomorrow," he said. "I want to take my time with you."
I rolled onto my side and put my palm on his chest, over his heart.
It was pounding.
"Stay," I whispered. It surprised me.
"I wasn't going anywhere."
I pressed my face into his shoulder, and without thinking I began to hum.
A tune my mother used to sing, with no words.
Niko went absolutely still.
"That one," he said hoarsely. "That's the one. I've heard it through the wall every night you scrubbed the pots, for six years."
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