Page 155 of The Stars are Dying

The hard length of him pressed to my core as my hips moved against him. He groaned into my mouth, and I shamelessly chased the pleasure. He hit my apex with every stroke.

“Astraea,” he breathed, leaving my lips to kiss my jaw, my neck. Though he’d told me he wasn’t a vampire, I couldn’t explain my urge for him to bite, feeling it was his desire too. His teeth scraped along my collar, and I moaned softly. “Not here. Butfuck,I can’t tell you everything I’ve thought of doing to you.”

“I want you to tell me,” I said. Feeling bold, my fingers released his hair to travel over his shoulders and chest.

Our mouths collided again, turning demanding like time was fragile, both of us consumed by the fear something could pull us apart at any moment and we were prepared to be defiant.

Nyte slowed our kiss, turning soft and searching before his lips trailed along my jaw, and I caught my breath. Our hearts hammered against each other’s. My thighs tightened around him with scattered desire as he planted kisses back down my neck.

I had never felt like this. Never before had I been so wholly compelled that Nyte became a need, not a want. A dangerous drug to desire, but a sweet addiction nonetheless.

“I would have waited an eternity just for this,” he said.

I shivered at the delightful gravel of his voice blowing across my skin. My palm slipped from his nape to hold his jaw. He pulled back to allow me to look over every inch of him. Though we had come this close before and it had felt exhilarating, it was nothing compared to the real feel of him. As I reached my fingers toward his scar, his gaze remained thoughtful, pinched with notes of sorrow and vulnerability.

Brushing a strand of his midnight hair, I traced the long scar from his temple over his cheekbone. “Where have you been?” I asked quietly.

“Right here,” he said, reaching for a tangled silver strand, which he tucked behind my ear. “I’ve always been right here. Waiting for you.”

My mouth impulsively leaned down to meet his. I moaned at how easily we came together, the flutter in my stomach sending me flying, and my rage of desire burned against him.

Nyte gripped me, sure and tight. When I felt a familiar pull, I tightened around him as if we would be torn apart in this void. It stilled just as fast, and when the shadows dispersed we broke apart.

I knew exactly where we were.

The bell tower.

“Why did you bring us here?” I asked, not stepping away, but my breath was stolen by the view. The sun was setting, spilling serene warm hues like glitter on the top level of the city, and this time nothing in me surged with the urgency to be somewhere I’d never wanted to be anyway.

The castle glinted darkly alluring in the distance.

Right here and now, with the sky bleeding orange and pink, I was thrilled to welcome the twilight, then nightfall. I wanted to spend every hour of the stars awakening in the arms that held me now.

“Don’t tell me you forgot where we were interrupted,” Nyte said huskily.

My eyes fluttered with the warmth of his breath across my ear.

“Because I haven’t. Not for one damn second.”

47

Nyte barely let me go. A touch to my back, a soft kiss on my shoulder, as though he thought I could turn to stardust any second. I craved it all. More than that. A desire to have his skin on mine climbed within me so strong. But he was so careful, always catching my eye as if to ask for permission before he laid his hands anywhere new.

Occasionally my eyes would prick. My nose would sting. Because this kind of affection I’d been so wrong to think I’d known before.

I stepped toward the dresser, remembering my injury with a limp that made me clench my teeth.

“Sit on the bed,” Nyte said, his voice full of an underlying wrath as he glanced at my leg. Then, meeting my eye, he brushed his soft knuckles over my bruised cheek. His silence was furious but composed.

He let me go reluctantly, and I shuffled over to the bed, perching on the edge.

Nyte maneuvered through the space, opening cupboards and retrieving a bowl, a cloth, liquor, a needle, and thread. He knew exactly where everything was.

“This place is yours…” I observed.

Nyte barely gave a sad smile at my observation as if he wanted to correct me, to say something, but he’d thought better of it. “You’re going to have to take those off.” His chin jerked toward me, and knowing the arrow wound on my thigh was his highest concern, my cheeks flushed to realize he meant my pants.

Sliding open another drawer, he retrieved a feminine nightgown. An ugly rise of jealousy stirred a protest as he came over to extend it to me.

---