Page 178 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Lykor froze beneath it, crimson eyes bright and unfocused. The uncertainty on his face finally made sense. He genuinely had no idea Jassyn wanted him to keep moving into his mouth.

Jassyn hummed around him and hauled Lykor forward, urging him to finish the movement he’d stopped twice before.

Lykor’s fingers knotted in Jassyn’s curls, his gasps turning rough and broken as his hips finally moved. The first thrust came hard. The next faltered halfway through.

Jassyn locked his hands behind Lykor’s thighs and drew him forward, taking the motion into his mouth. Muscles bunched against his palms with every drive of Lykor’s hips. He pulled back when he needed air, then closed the distance again whenever Lykor tried to retreat.

He opened his throat and took more of him. Lykor’s hips stuttered against his hands. Another fractured sound escaped above him.

Then Lykor shoved at his shoulder.

“Wait.” His voice broke around the word, rough enough that Jassyn barely caught it. “I’m going to—”

Jassyn stilled as the unfinished warning hung naked between them, Lykor’s gaze fixed on his.

Without looking away, Jassyn drew him deeper until the crown pressed into the back of his throat. Then he swallowed around him.

Whatever remained of Lykor’s control vanished. He snarled as his hips drove forward, then bucked again as release pulsed hot across Jassyn’s tongue. His body locked, all that practiced endurance useless against pleasure.

Jassyn held him through every helpless thrust, every tremor through his thighs, until the grip in his hair loosened.

Only then did Jassyn pull away. Lykor’s legs buckled, and Jassyn rose in time to catch him. He slipped an arm around Lykor’s waist and guided him until the mattress struck the backs of his knees. Lykor dropped heavily onto the bed.

Jassyn stayed between his legs, his own body still aching, Lykor’s taste lingering on his tongue. He spread a palm over Lykor’s chest, the frantic beat of his heart striking into Jassyn’s hand.

Lykor reached for him, pulling him closer. “Let me—”

“No.” Jassyn caught his wrist and shoved his hand to the mattress, covering it with his own. He leaned down until their faces were level. “You don’t have to give me anything. Rest for once.”

Lykor’s mouth parted, but no answer came, and Jassyn let the silence linger long enough to enjoy the improbable fact that he finally found the limit of Lykor’s arguments.

He pushed him back against the bed, and Lykor went boneless across the sheets, all that lethal strength gone slack.

Jassyn reached for his Well, scraping at dregs. Essence kindled along his fingertips and pooled, waiting.

“Say the word,” Jassyn said, “and I’ll mend you.”

“Save your strength.” Lykor bristled, propping himself up on his elbows. “I don’t need healing.”

Jassyn’s mouth twitched. Lykor clearly hadn’t followed the implication, and Jassyn let himself enjoy being one step ahead of him for once. “I know.”

He leaned closer, crimson light suspended between them, its heat brushing Lykor’s skin without sinking in.

“I meant we don’t have to stop.”

CHAPTER 47

LYKOR

Lykor’s breath hadn’t returned to him.

He lay flat on his back, strength leeched from his limbs, the ceiling turning slowly overhead. Jassyn stood between his thighs with one palm spread over his chest, crimson light gathered around his fingers, that quiet mouth still curved at the edge like he hadn’t just…

“I meant we don’t have to stop.”

Lykor had endured twenty years in a mad king’s prison. He’d stood outnumbered while battlefields collapsed around him and kept enough sense to kill whatever came next.

But this was where his mind chose to die.