Page 183 of The Reckoning of Starlight

They stayed there, joined and motionless. Starlight shimmered across Jassyn’s shoulders while Lykor took stock of the sheer fullness inside him, unfamiliar enough that he scarcely dared move around it.

Jassyn lowered his forehead to Lykor’s. “Do you need more time?”

Lykor’s fingers tightened at his waist. “If you’re trying to make me beg, at least have the decency to admit it.”

Jassyn’s mouth brushed Lykor’s, the kiss unsteady with all the restraint still wound through him.

Jassyn eased back slowly. Heat receded first, then the cooler passage of metal, and a sound tore from Lykor’s chest that belonged on a battlefield.

When Jassyn sank into him again, Lykor’s hips rose from the mattress.

Metal shifted through that smallest movement, and Lykor discovered how little distance Jassyn needed to make sensation change entirely.

He caught Jassyn by the back of the neck and dragged him down into a kiss. Jassyn groaned into his mouth, the sound ringing through Lykor like struck iron.

Jassyn withdrew just enough to make Lykor feel the loss. Then again.

The rhythm built between them, and Lykor’s body turned treacherous almost immediately—clenching when he withdrew, lifting to meet him when he returned. He lasted only a handful of strokes before his legs locked around Jassyn’s waist and hauled him deeper.

The next thrust struck differently. Lykor’s head fell back into the mattress, his body locking around the pleasure before a curse ripped free.

“There.” The word came out shredded. “Whatever you just—don’t stop.”

Jassyn’s drove into him again at the same angle, with more force this time. Lykor’s hands searched blindly for purchase—headboard, sheets, Jassyn’s shoulders—his talons scoring whatever they found.

The careful pauses vanished. Jassyn’s fingers dug into Lykor’s waist, the arm braced beside his head shaking. Another thrust struck that place. The next followed before the pleasure from the first had finished tearing through him.

Each stroke left Lykor’s length harder against his stomach, slick at the head, the untouched ache there sharpening until Lykor finally closed his fist around himself.

He managed one rough pull before Jassyn snatched his wrist and pinned it to the mattress.

Green vines lashed between them, cinching around Lykor.

Jassyn’s eyes widened as the restraints bound Lykor’s arms.

Shoulders forced flat. His flesh recognized the posture first. Cold marble. Iron at his wrists. Nowhere to move. Violence surged through him, every instinct reaching for fangs and shadows.

Instead heat punched low in Lykor’s gut as Jassyn remained over him, still buried deep, staring at the vines.

“Leave them,” he growled.

Jassyn’s expression darkened into something Lykor recognized an instant before his hand closed around Lykor’s length.

The first stroke wrung out a snarl. Jassyn’s thumb swept over the head as his hips drove forward, and Lykor bucked into the stroke, taking Jassyn deeper with him.

Pleasure gathered low and vicious, tightening with every thrust and every pull of Jassyn’s hand until Lykor could barely hold himself inside his own skin.

Jassyn’s rhythm quickened, hips and fist driving Lykor toward the edge from both directions at once.

Then Jassyn leaned down, amber eyes snaring him, and breathed against his mouth, “I love you.”

The meaning crashed through Lykor before pleasure did. Pain had taught him to brace for every wound, to survive by becoming colder than whatever struck him. Jassyn’s words gave him nothing to fight.

Heat tore loose and climbed his spine.

Then Lykor detonated.

Frost erupted across the headboard, ice splitting through carved wood. Lykor’s release pulsed over Jassyn’s fist, his body tightening hard around him again and again.