Page 160 of The Stars are Dying

“Be a damn tease.”

It was my turn to smile.

Nyte tucked a strand of silver behind my ear, irises of honey delighting in the game. I drew a shallow gasp at the water flowing over my shoulder right before he dragged a soft, lathered cloth along my collarbone. His fingers lingered on my bruised neck, his chest rising and falling with calculation under my palm.

“I’m okay,” I hushed out.

I became transfixed watching every flicker of his reaction as he mapped my body, soaking the nightgown so completely I might as well have taken it off, but this moment was too precious to disturb.

He washed the dirt from my skin and kissed the blue and purple peppering my knuckles. Then I stopped him, taking the cloth and adding more honey-scented soap. Nyte sighed contentedly, eyes fluttering, when I began doing the same to him, marveling at every imperfection and gold marking, wanting to discover the language of him I thought would be sacred to us.

“Astraea, you made your mark on me long ago and I vowed never to remove it. Even if it became my greatest punishment to carry.”

Something about his declaration flashed past to present.

Past to present.

Past to present.

I didn’t know what it meant, only that this felt right. Nyte was what I wanted, and whatever was shadowing his face with doubt I needed to erase.

I kissed him hard. Needy and wanting. He gave it all back and more. The water sloshed with my movements and how he aided my slide against his cock. Nyte gripped my ass, then my nape, tearing his mouth from mine with a groan of satisfaction, and my neck inclined as if on instinct.

“Are you sure?” he said, voice strained and unrecognizable at my throat.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

Gods, I was so close to climaxing at the thought alone, so primal and dangerous I craved it as ifIwere the one who was starved.

“Just remember you’re in control. The moment you want me to stop, I will.”

I nodded, still chasing my pleasure against him.

“Words, Starlight.”

“Yes.”

“You are in control.”

“I am in control. I want this.”

He pressed one final kiss to me, and I braced with a held breath.

Then his bite eased into my skin.

My eyes snapped open as the two lines of pain made me seize like an electric current from my neck down my arm, locking me still. It only lasted seconds before it faded away, turning to something possessive. A fire that didn’t just burn; it consumed.

Nyte drank from me, his teeth inside me reminding me of the ache of emptiness I felt below. I rocked against him harder, now frustrated with the challenge of water, but the heat and our slicked skin was so sensual I didn’t want to leave.

His groan while still buried in my neck made me whimper for the end I was just shy of reaching. Nyte’s hand fisted tightly into my soaked nightgown, strong arms crushing us together, and I held him back, never wanting to disentangle myself from the safety he shielded me with or the warmth of him that carried me.

“Nyte.” I sighed his name, so deliriously high.

His teeth sliding out of my neck made me shudder violently, breaking me out of an otherworldly trance. I wanted to do it again already.

“Fuck,” he panted. His tongue lapped my neck and a burst of trembles shot through my every nerve with the sensitivity. “Are you all right?”

I held his face, in a state of rapture as I nodded. “Far more than all right.”

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