because his hand had been drifting toward his cock, desperate for any sort of relief from the sight of her open and bare, the faelights gilding her.
His breath rasped in his throat—and then vanished entirely as Nesta slid two delicate fingers down her body. They stopped atop that bundle of nerves, circling slowly.
Her breathing turned uneven, but she watched him observe her as she made another circle, and then moved lower. A slow, torturous slide down her center before her wrist curved, and she dipped her fingers into herself.
Cassian groaned, hips bucking a bit where he knelt, and she cut him a reprimanding look. He stilled, unable to think about anything other than her two fingers as she slid them into herself again, and moaned. They emerged shining with her wetness, and he might have been panting as she plunged them into herself a third time, deep and slow.
“This,” she breathed, her fingers beginning a slow, steady pump, “is what I do when I think of you every night.”
If she so much as touched him, he’d come. But he growled, “Do it harder.”
She shivered as if his words were a physical touch, and obeyed. They both groaned this time, and he found himself saying, “Please.”
He didn’t know what it meant—only that he needed to touch her.
Nesta smiled at him with feline amusement. “Not yet.”
She drove her hand between her legs again. “I imagine you taking me, over and over again. Rough, like we did before.” He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but stare at her hand, her pleasure-hazed face. “I imagine you less patient than you were the first time, just thrusting into me, all the way.” She echoed her words with a swift plunge of her fingers.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he got out, praying to the Mother and the Cauldron to maintain his sanity.
“You won’t hurt me.” Her other hand teased that bundle of nerves. “I want you unleashed.”
Cassian made a low noise of need.
She huffed a wicked laugh. “Do you want to watch me come? Or do you want to taste it?”
“Taste.” He’d beg on hot coals for one lick of her.
She spread her legs wider. “Then have at me, Cassian.”
His name on her lips was his undoing. He gripped her thighs and spread them wide, and then his mouth was on her, licking her from base to apex in a long, luxurious slide.
She moaned, louder than the first time, and he only grabbed her legs again, hooking them over his shoulders as he buried his face against her.
There was nothing gentle in it, nothing teasing. He feasted with tongue and lips and teeth, and every taste of her made the roaring in his blood rise like a mighty wave within him. Nesta ground against him, toes tickling his wings so much he had to pause for a moment to keep from coming at that mere touch. He’d teach her wingplay later. Because he wanted her to touch his wings, to learn where to stroke while he fucked her so that he’d come hard enough to see stars, to learn what places to stroke even while he wasn’t fucking her so he’d come in her hand, her mouth.
He slid his tongue into her core, release already building under his skin, in his spine. Too soon—he didn’t want to go too soon.
He made himself take a breath. Made himself pull back, pull away. The sight of her on the pillows, naked and open for him, nearly made him come.
But he removed his shirt. His pants.
Only when he was naked, kneeling between her legs, his cock jutting forward, did he say, “Do you want my fingers, my tongue, or my cock, Nesta?” He fisted the last item for her, pumping himself in a slow, nearly painful squeeze. She watched, eyes widening, as if remembering the size of him inside her.
“What of a side-by-side comparison?” she managed to say, but the haughtiness wasn’t in her eyes, not as he pumped himself again, savoring how it made her breath catch.
“Whatever you want. Whatever you need from me.” He knew those were a fool’s words, knew he offered up too much.
But she only looked at his cock. “I want that. Now.”
He muttered a prayer of thanks to the Mother and lay over her, bracing himself on his arms. “Put me inside you.”
When Nesta’s hand wrapped around him, he arched, gritting his teeth. She smiled at that, and pumped him as hard as he’d pumped himself, just this side of pain. Then