Page 29 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

“Don’t say stupid things.” I jerked my chin to the ladder against the bookshelf. “Hold on to the bars. They will keep your hands where they need to be.”

And I didn’t give her time to answer before I slid down between her legs.

A dissonant, beautiful chord rang out as her feet struck the keys.

Her back lifted from the polished wood at the lightest brush of my lips.

That first taste was so immaculate that I couldn’t even resent the fabric that separated us.

My tongue pressed the sheet to her, tracing her folds, first on one side, then the other.

I lingered at her bud, outlining it through the sheet, before closing my teeth around it gently and sucking—a little harder, a little rougher, than I would have if I’d had the divine privilege of her bare skin. Just to make sure she felt me.

And oh, she felt me.

Her back arched, a mewling gasp slipping between her lips.

I loved this about Mische—she reacted so intensely to everything, every joy or sorrow, every pain or delight.

During sex, her pleasure radiated from her every expression and movement and muscle, mapping my path to tread.

The first time I’d witnessed it, with my mouth on her throat and her hand between her legs, I thought I would die to feel it again.

When I had finally had the chance to make love to her, I’d been patient. Systematic. I didn’t have the self-control for that now.

I ground against her, teeth and lips and tongue, my hands holding her thighs firm as she squirmed. With her next moan, fractured with want, I smiled against her in satisfaction.

“I’m glad you can feel it,” I said.

She laughed roughly, and the sound morphed to a moan as I pressed my tongue against her again, slower, deeper—teasing at the entrance I could feel through the sheet but couldn’t enter.

I yanked her closer, fingernails biting into flesh, grinding against her as if to punish us both for my frustration.

“Asar,” she gasped. Her want was maddening. It was in the note of her voice as she said my name, in every cord of her muscles as she writhed against me. Still, not enough.

“Louder,” I commanded.

And in the next stroke, Mische, ever the star pupil, obeyed. Her cry echoed from the ceilings now, loud enough to shake through the thunderclaps. I wanted her voice to scar the rafters. I wanted it to scar me.

“Good,” I said. “Again.”

I moved one hand from her thigh to assist at her slit, caressing with my fingertips what my mouth couldn’t reach. Her whole body shuddered, writhed, twisted.

“Gods help me,” she moaned. “I?—”

My eyes flicked up. One of her hands still gripped the rung of the ladder. The other had traveled down, reaching for me, as if on instinct.

I barked, “Bars, Mische.”

She returned her hands to the ladder rung, and I had to pause to admire the way she looked—her body stretched out, so impossibly beautiful even beneath that sheet that revealed every swell or dip of her flesh.

“Push against the ladder,” I said. “And scream for me.”

And then I made her come.

I buried my face between her thighs, tongue and teeth working at her bud, while my thumb slid down to knead at the wet slick of her entrance, and goddess help me, I wanted nothing, nothing, nothing more in my entire pathetic life than I wanted to slide into her.

Instead, I thrust her over that edge alone.

Mische did scream when she came, just as I told her to.

The piano keys sang along with her as her foot slipped.

Her body arched, trembled, fought against her grip on the ladder—though she didn’t let go, not even as I nipped and sucked her through every shuddering aftershock.

I seared the sound of her pleasure into my bones.

A song beautiful enough to wash away Gideon’s wails.

I found myself joining her atop the piano.

My hips fell naturally to hers like the moon to the horizon.

A wave of devastating desire fell over me as my cock aligned, through my clothing and the sheet, to the wet slick of her.

I ground against her in one slow stroke, just because I couldn’t stop myself, and her legs positioned around my hips as if to hold me there.

I held myself above her, careful not to touch her skin—torturous—and looked at her.

She still held on to the ladder, though her muscles were looser now. Her eyes were bright, lips parted. She looked so alive . Right down to the quickened heave of her chest, and the tint to her cheeks that looked almost like a flush.

She looked at me with such abject, undeserved affection. It made me think of how a sunrise I’d never witnessed must feel.

A lump rose in my throat, and I pushed it down. I leaned back, straightening.

A smile curled her mouth. She released the ladder in favor of me.

“I can do that, too,” she said, reaching for my cock through my trousers.

But I looked at this flawless, incredible woman, and I heard Gideon’s voice:

You’ll ruin her.

Through the sheet, I pushed her firmly back to the piano. “Bars,” I commanded. “I’m not finished with you.”

Her honey eyes slipped over me, seeing, as always, every complexity I didn’t reveal. But she didn’t push.

Her fingers closed around the ladder.

“Good girl,” I said. And I set back to work, painting over the bloodstains with her gasps of pleasure, as the storm wore on, and on, and on.

We did, eventually, make our way back to the bedchamber, where Mische quickly sprawled out on the bed like some kind of amorphous slime fungus, utterly spent. Luce returned from her wanderings sometime later, curling up before the fire.

But I didn’t rest.

Instead, I pored over the books I’d taken from Gideon’s office and my transcription of the glyphs I’d ripped from his mind, trying and failing not to relive what I’d done to get them.

Eventually, the storm passed. When Mische awoke, I was struck by how wraithlike she seemed, compared to the glow of her aliveness in the library. The passage of time hung a little heavier.

Somewhere in these halls, Gideon likely still lay in his bed, bloodstained and moaning, but Mische and I didn’t so much as acknowledge him as we returned to the castle under a silken, silent, endless night.