Cursing under her breath, wings tucking in tight, Emerie lifted the blade in near-perfect form and sliced at the ribbon.
The white silk fluttered and bent around the blade. And absolutely did not slice in two.
“Let’s all admit we knew that would happen,” Emerie said, teeth bared as she slashed the sword again. The ribbon danced harmlessly away.
Cassian clapped her shoulder. “Looks like I’ll see you at training tomorrow.”
“Asshole,” Nesta muttered.
Cassian laughed and took the sword from Emerie, and—in the same breath—spun, swiping low and even.
The bottom half of the ribbon fluttered to the ground. A perfect slice.
He grinned. “At least I can cut the ribbon.”
Nesta didn’t forget that parting shot. Not as they finished training for the day, and certainly not when she dragged Cassian down the stairs, straight to his bedroom, need bellowing in her veins.
Cassian apparently felt the same, as he’d scarcely spoken these last few minutes, his eyes blazing bright. They only made it as far as his desk against the wall before she’d grabbed him—right as he’d pushed her down onto the wooden surface and stripped off her pants.
Bent over the desk, her bottom half entirely exposed, Nesta ground her aching nipples into the wood surface, savoring the brutal crush. Her jacket, her shirt, her boots—all stayed on. In fact, her pants were only pushed down to her ankles, restricting her movement further. Leaving her utterly at his mercy.
And as his cock at last sank deep into her, the two of them groaned. He stood behind her, one hand braced on the desk, the other clenching her hip as he pulled out nearly to the tip, then pushed back in slowly. Nesta writhed.
“I could fuck you for days,” he said against her sweaty neck. She moaned into a pile of papers. “I’m fucking soaked with you,” he growled, and the hand at her hip slid around to tease the apex of her thighs.
At the first taunting stroke, she breathed, “Cassian.”
He pounded into her at a steady, deep pace. The liquid slide of his cock into her sounded obscenely through his otherwise silent bedroom. His balls brushed against her, tickling her with each powerful thrust. “Harder.” She wanted him imprinted on her very bones. “Harder.”
“Fuck,” he exploded on a breath, and pulled back from where he’d braced himself. “Hold on to the desk,” he ordered, and Nesta stretched to grip the edges just as his hands landed on her hips. His thighs pushed into her own, spreading her further—as wide as she could go—and he gave no warning before his hands tightened and he unleashed himself.
Exquisite, punishing thrusts slammed so deep he hit her innermost wall, and her eyes rolled back into her head at the sheer bliss of it. He became savage, unrelenting. She might have been sobbing at the pleasure, the sheer size of him, so large there would never be any getting used to it. Every unrelenting push had her inching against the desk, the wood and papers teasing her breasts, and she nearly wept at that, too.
Cassian’s fingers dug into her hips so hard Nesta knew she’d bruise, loved that she’d bruise. He shifted his stance, and his cock plunged even deeper, rubbing against that spot, and the sounds that came from her weren’t human or Fae, but something far more primal.
“Fuck, yes,” he snarled at her abandon. “That’s it, Nesta.” He accentuated each word with a savage thrust. “Do I feel good to you?”
She whimpered her confirmation, then managed to say, “I like it when you ride me hard. Every time I move and my body is sore …” She had to fight for words. For control. “I think of you. Of your cock.”
“Good. I want my cock to be the only thing you think about.” His pace faltered as he licked up the column of her neck. She could hear the taunting smile in his words as he whispered, “Because your pretty little cunt is the only thing I think about.”
At the words, his foul language, her toes curled. But she wouldn’t let him win this one, not when this had somehow become a competition for who could make the other come first, so she whispered, “I love being so covered in your seed that it leaks out of me for ages afterward. I love feeling it slide down my thighs and knowing you left your mark in me.”
“Fuck,” he blew out, his pounding wild now, so unchecked only her hold on the desk kept her feet on the ground. “Fuck!”
Cassian came with a roar, and at the first pulse of his cock spurting deep into her, she climaxed, screaming loud enough that he clamped a hand over her mouth. She bit down on his fingers, and he kept moving in her, spilling himself over and over. Until his seed was again running down her thighs, until he slid his fingers through a stream of it and brought it up to that spot at the apex of her sex. “You have no idea what you just started,” he whispered in her ear, smearing his wetness there, rubbing into her sensitive flesh with idle circles.