Her skin tightened, becoming almost painful as she went molten and throbbing between her legs.

“Nesta.”

A note of pleading had entered his voice. He was trembling—the door behind him rattling with the force of his deteriorating self-control.

She looked then. Below his waist. At what strained against his pants.

Her head emptied out, and there was only him and her and the space between them.

Cassian let out a growl, the sound a plea as well.

She made herself say, “This stays out of training—and everything else. This is just sex.”

Something shifted in his expression, but he said, “Just sex.”

This was sure to be a mistake, sure to be something she paid for, suffered for. But she couldn’t bring herself to deny him. Deny herself. Just for tonight, she’d allow it.

So Nesta met his eyes again, took in every trembling, restrained inch, and said, “Yes.”

Cassian lunged for her, a beast freed of its cage, and she barely had time to twist toward the edge of the bed before his lips were on hers, devouring and claiming.

Deep purring sounds vibrated from his chest through her fingers as she clawed off his jacket, his shirt, ripping through the fabric. He tore his lips from hers only long enough to pull his shirt away, the fabric snaring on his wings before falling to the floor. Then he was on her again, climbing onto the bed, and she spread her legs for him, letting his body fall into the cradle between her thighs.

She couldn’t stop her moan as he drove his hips into hers, the leather of his pants sliding against her. He plunged his tongue into her mouth, the kiss like a brand, one hand sliding up her bare thigh, tugging her nightgown with it. When he reached her hip and still had found no underwear, he hissed. Looked to where he pressed his hardness against her and realized that only the leather of his pants separated him from her wetness.

She was shaking, and not from fear, as he took a trembling hand and slid her nightgown higher. Pulled it up to her navel and then stared at her, bare and gleaming, pressed against the bulge in his pants. His chest heaved, and she waited for that brutal, demanding touch, but he only leaned down and pressed a kiss to her throat.

Tender, coaxing. Cassian pressed another to her shoulder, and she shivered. Shivered more as he dragged his tongue over the spot. He kissed the hollow of her throat. Licked it.

He slipped the straps of her nightgown down her arms. Kissed her collarbones. With each kiss, he pulled down the neck of her nightgown further. Until his breath warmed her bare breasts.

Cassian let out a sound from the back of his throat, from his gut. Like some sort of starved, tormented creature. He stared at her breasts, and she couldn’t breathe under that burning gaze. Couldn’t breathe as his head dipped and he wrapped his lips around her nipple.

Nesta arced off the bed, a breathless sound rupturing from her.

Cassian only repeated the movement on her other breast.

And then raked his teeth across the sensitive peak before clamping down lightly.

She moaned then, tipping her head back, thrusting her chest up toward him in silent plea.

Cassian let out that dark laugh and returned to her other breast, teeth grazing, teasing, biting.

She strained her hands toward him, toward where he’d gone still between her legs. She needed him—now. In her hand or her body, she didn’t care.

But Cassian only pulled away. Pulled up, and knelt before her. Surveyed her spread beneath him, her nightgown a bunch of silk around her middle, everything else bared to him. His own feast to devour.

“I owe you a debt,” he said in that guttural voice that made her writhe. He watched her hips undulate, and braced his large, powerful hands on either thigh. He waited for her to signal that she understood what he intended. What she’d dreamed of for so long, in the darkest hours of the night.

In a choked whisper, she said, “Yes.”

Cassian gave her a feral, purely male smile. And then his hands tightened on her bare thighs, spreading them wider. His head lowered, and all she could see was his dark hair, gilded by the lamps, and his exquisite wings, rising above them both.

He didn’t waste time with gentle touches and tastes.

Parting her with one hand, he dragged his tongue clear up her center.

The world fractured, re-formed, and fractured again. He cursed against her wetness, and he reached down with his other hand to adjust himself in his pants.

He licked her again, lingering at the spot atop the apex of her legs. Sucking it into his mouth, teeth nipping, before he withdrew.

She arched, unable to stop the moan breaking from her throat.

Cassian’s tongue ran downward in an unhurried sweep, and he pressed a hand to her abdomen, stilling her, as he slid his tongue straight into her core. It curled into her, driving deeper than she’d expected, and she couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but luxuriate in it, in him—

“You taste,” he growled against her, making his way up again toward the bundle of nerves in short, teasing licks, “even more delicious than I dreamed.”

Nesta whimpered, and he flicked his tongue there. Her whimper turned to a cry, and he laughed against her and flicked his tongue again.

Release became a shimmering veil, just beyond her grasp but drifting closer.

“So wet,” he breathed, and licked at her entrance, as if determined to consume every drop of her. “Are you always this wet for me, Nesta?”

She wouldn’t allow him the satisfaction of the truth. But she couldn’t think of a lie, not with his tongue pumping in and out of her, coaxing her toward but still denying her the pressure and relentless pounding she so badly needed.

Cassian snickered, as if he knew the answer anyway. He licked her, his silken hair brushing over her belly, and looked up to meet her gaze.

As their eyes locked, he slid a finger into her.

She cried out, and he trailed a hand from her thigh to hold her open again as he licked at that spot while his finger pumped in and out of her in a teasingly slow rhythm.

More—she wanted more. She undulated her hips against him, hard enough to drive his finger deeper.

“Greedy,” he murmured onto her, and withdrew his finger nearly to its tip. Only to add a second finger as he plunged back in.

Nesta let go entirely then. Let go of sanity and any pride as he filled her with those two fingers. He sucked and nibbled, and release gathered around her like an iridescent mist.

Cassian growled again, given over to whatever need drove him, and the reverberations of the sound echoed into places of her that had never been touched. In and out his fingers slid, stretching and filling, all while he tasted and savored.

Nesta rode his hand, his face, grinding into him with abandon.

“Holy gods.” Cassian’s teeth grazed against her. “Nesta.”

The sound of her name on his lips against her most sensitive place sent her mind scattering into eternity.

She bowed off the bed with the force of her climax, and he became ravenous, fingers pumping and pumping, tongue and lips moving against her, like he’d devour her pleasure whole. He didn’t stop until she’d collapsed against the mattress, until she was limp and reeling and trying to piece her mind back together.

The slide of his fingers out of her left her empty and aching, the removal of his tongue and mouth from between her legs like a cold kiss.

Cassian was panting, still hard as he rose up and stared at her.