Page 163 of The Stars are Dying

Nyte slammed into me with one powerful thrust that strained my toes on the ground, and I cried out. He gave a few long, slow strokes that shot sparks of pleasure through me. Then he kissed me once and let go.

He pistoned in and out of me, and I couldn’t be sure what sounds came from him or myself. Each rut of his hips driving into me over and over scattered everything I knew about myself. What built was wild and desperate, like centuries of war waging against us at once. He slipped my ankle from his shoulder, hooking it around his waist as he lifted the other.

I didn’t realize he’d moved us until I was set upon something solid. My arms slipped from his neck to plant themselves on the dresser behind me, rattling everything upon it and sending some things tumbling off when he didn’t stop his merciless thrusting. Nyte’s expression was pinched with desire and fury, watching where he fucked me hard. His thumb brushed over my apex, and I threw back my head.

“I need you to come for me now,” he rasped.

I was so damn close, and his words were as sinful as his touch.

“Look how beautiful you look wrapped around my cock.”

Stars,I was undone. Completely and utterlyhis.

“You’re squeezing the fucking life out of me.”

The cliff he pushed me toward was higher than the last. Impossibly higher, and I feared and braced for the intensity of the fall, knowing it would tumble through me. My body tensed, and my climax this time shook the stars of my world.

“Good girl. Fuck,Astraea—” He called my name with a tight grip as he released himself.

I continued to soar. Nyte’s arm hooked around my back when I couldn’t hold myself up anymore. I was flying, only to tumble back down and remember where I was.WhoI was. Pieces of me snapped back one by one, reforged with the essence of him.

Our skin was slick against each other, heated and glorious.

“Of all the times I imagined this, none of it comes close to what you have done to me,” he panted.

He lifted me off the dresser. I was still catching my breath when my back met soft sheets. Lying down brought on a sweep of tiredness, but I wanted to fight it.

“Can you promise me something?” he whispered, planting tender kisses over my collar while pulling a blanket over my cooling skin.

“Yes.”

“It was all real, Starlight. Everything we’ve been through. Everything I feel for you is real. When the dawn comes, please remember that.”

“What happens at dawn?”

Nyte lay beside me, and it was an effortless, near subconscious movement to tuck myself in close.

“We face who we are.”

I inclined my head to look at him, and I reached my fingers up to brush the lock nearly touching his eye. “We have to kill the king,” I said.

I couldn’t stop now—not when Nyte had said he could help me and this was what Cassia had wanted to achieve. But selfishly, I wanted nothing more than for Nyte to take us somewhere far.

He took my hand, planting a kiss in my palm. “There are a few more on my list,” he murmured, eyes flashing to my cheek, then my arm, then down to my covered body. “But yes.”

“I killed this one,” I said quietly, touching my cheek. “I struck another too, though I don’t know if he’s dead.”

I didn’t know what to think of how fast I’d acted. How it had been so easy that recalling the moment felt like stepping into another person’s body. Discovering these things I was capable of…

“Good,” Nyte mumbled, lips pressing to my shoulder as I lay on my stomach. “He met a faster end than he would have had from me.” His touch traced between my shoulder blades, adding pressure down either side, and I turned my face into the sheets to suppress my moan.

He stopped.

I flicked a glance up at him.

“Don’t deny me your reactions. It’s absolutely wicked.”

I smiled, so content and genuine it stopped all teasing from him. Nyte mapped my face, running a hand up my back as if to be sure I was there.

---