Zita had claimed she wanted input about the wedding ceremony from a fellow human. Bastian suspected it was a goodwill gesture towards Dusk, but I noted she’d only asked after I’d killed Robin. From what I’d heard, she was… unusual. Maybe killing a man made me more interesting in her eyes.
Bastian’s grip tightened, and I raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t declining cause offence to Dawn?”
His shoulders sank. “You’re right. You’re getting too good at fae politics.” But his smile belied his grumbling tone, and he pushed my hair back, bending close. “Far, far too good,” he said against my skin, lighting up my nerves.
I tilted my head to one side, letting him kiss my neck, each touch somewhere between ticklish and exquisite. “What time is this meeting?”
“We have time.” He nipped the point between shoulder and neck, making me jolt with pleasure. “Barely.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t, then.” But I reached back, fingers threading through his thick hair. “We wouldn’t want to be late.”
“Mm-hmm.” The sound rumbled into me as he removed the brush from my grasp and placed it on the dressing table.
He sucked over my pulse, and it was a struggle to get out my next words. “It would cause offence.”
“Your clothing offends me.” He slid the night-coloured dress off my shoulder. “Too much of it,” he growled and bit my earlobe as he palmed my exposed breast.
I stared in the mirror, both watcher and watched, cheeks flushed, eyelids half closed as I let my head fall back on his shoulder.
“You like to see this almost as much as I do.” He smirked, catching my reflected gaze.
With that smirk, I should’ve expected it, but when he pinched my nipple, it still made me cry out and arch.
Need flooded me, raw and hot.
“I do. It’s like I’m really seeing myself.” My voice came out husky, not quite my own… or maybe it was entirely my own, just freed from a weight I’d carried too long. “When you’re touching me, no one else’s rules exist.”
“Good. Fuck their rules.” He ran a canine down my throat, right above the vein. It could’ve been a threat—from anyone else it would’ve been. But here, now, him—it was a demonstration.
However vulnerable I made myself in his hands, I was safe.
And that mattered. Good gods, how it mattered.
Since Robin’s attack, we’d kissed and cuddled in bed, but I’d been too exhausted—and perhaps rattled—for anything more. Now, though…
I slid the other side of my dress off my shoulder and held his gaze. “You’d better get on with it, Bastian. Tick-tock.”
His eyes narrowed, and he huffed a laugh over my skin, making me shiver. “Whatever my lady wishes.” He grabbed a handful of hair and angled me for a deep and dizzying kiss, while his other hand kneaded and teased my tits until I squirmed, thighs pressing together.
When he pulled away, his eyes were dark, only thin rings of silver irises visible. “On your feet.”
I obeyed, letting my gown pool on the floor.
“Perfect.” He pulled the chair back, and over my shoulder, I caught him grabbing the hem of his shirt. “Eyes forward, ember.” There was a rustle of clothing, and I tried to see what he was doing in the mirror, but my body blocked the view.
I bit my lip, anticipation buzzing over my naked flesh. The purple stains covered my fingers and hands, entirely. I had more control now, but I still didn’t trust myself to touch anyone but him. Perhaps this was a good idea—letting go before the meeting.
“Now, come here.” His gravelly tone, sudden in the silence, made my breath catch. Then, after long moments standing without anything but the cool air touching me, his hands wrapped around my hips and sent goosebumps chasing over my skin. He pulled me back a step. “Sit.”
“But—”
I half fell into his lap, his shadows catching me, and landed with his hardness pressed against my entrance.
He held me at that teasing point, my back on his chest. With his shadows taking my weight, I couldn’t even sink down onto him, and I gave a frustrated little huff at the fact.
His low chuckle reverberated into my back. “Haven’t I told you before about patience?”
I managed to circle my hips over his tip, moaning at the pressure so close to entry and yet not quite. It raked through me, making my breaths come harder, faster. “We don’t have time for patience.”
“I don’t care,” he growled in my ear. “We’re doing this properly this time. Me, not my shadows. Look.” His shadows tilted the mirror so I could see myself suspended over him, his shadows dimpling my thighs as they lifted and parted them. His length stood ready, my wetness coating its tip. The steel of his piercing glinted, coiling my anticipation tighter.
Just as we’d been at the inn, but his cock instead of one made of shadows. This was what he’d imagined that false night, and now we could make it real.
He’d thought of me, just as I’d thought of him. My heart kicked up in speed.
“Please, Bastian.” I bit my lip, holding his gaze in the mirror.
Groaning, he reached between my legs. “You and that word.”
His middle finger circled my clit, and as I let out a blissful “Oh,” he pulled me onto his dick.
His teasing had me wet, but his thickness still stretched me in the most delicious way, and I arched into it, taking more and more.
Watching him disappear inside me, knowing we were joined in a way beyond simple fucking, only drew me tighter. I whimpered when his piercing rubbed against my inner walls, lifting me closer to the bright joy we found together.
Once he was fully buried in me, he kissed my cheek. “Even better than I imagined. You’re so perfect, love.”
With his praise, I could only pant, gripping the edge of the chair as he played me. My pussy clenched around him, the fullness building my pleasure higher, faster—almost unbearably so.
“I… I can’t…” I tried to lift off him a little to ease the rising pressure, but he clamped an arm around my waist and held my thighs with his shadows.
“Oh, I think you can. I can feel you’re close.” Dark tendrils spread over my breasts, teasing my nipples. He grazed his lips over my shoulder, and tremors ran through me. “Stop fighting it, love.”
All at once, he bit my shoulder and his shadows tightened around my nipples, and he broke me apart.
He groaned as I cried out and arched in his hold. Every part of me tensed and shattered, bright and fractured into perfect shards of bliss.
Yet he didn’t let up, and a second climax chased the first, their edges blurring as I broke around him, muscles contracting, while the rest of me burst into oblivion.
“There. Such a good flame, burning for me so brightly.” His tongue lapped over the place he’d bitten, and his shadows soothed the tight peaks of my breasts.
He shifted his grip, bringing my thighs together and looping his arm under my knees so I was bundled against him. It brought me even tighter around his dick. “Now you get a little reprieve.” He lifted me up until his piercing slipped out, glinting with my wetness, and my eyelids fluttered at the intensity of it.