hand on her chest, over her heart. “There is only one question that matters now. Do you want to be with me, Bastien?”
“Yes.”
“Then be with me.” Celine pulled him close and pressed her lips to his with a gentle kiss. His left hand traced along her collarbone. When his fingers twined through the curls at the nape of her neck, Celine dragged him down onto the bed, luxuriating in the feel of his body against hers. In the way the cloudlike coverlet seemed to swallow them whole.
The hem of her nightshift rose as she wrapped her legs around Bastien. Then Celine gripped his shoulders and rolled until he was beneath her, her knees on either side of his hips.
Before Celine had a chance to think, she tugged her gown over her head. She knew what she wanted, and she had no plans to be coy about it.
Celine stared down at Bastien, her fingers dragging across his chest. Slowly. Deftly. He took in a sharp breath, his grey eyes darkening into drops of black ink. His fangs began to lengthen, and he closed his eyes, as if to shield her from the truth of what he’d become.
“No,” Celine said, a hand against his jaw. “Don’t look away from me. Don’t hide what you are. Beside the river, when we were attacked by the lamiak, I wasn’t afraid to see what you are. It is who you are that matters most. I’ve seen you at your best and at your worst. And you are beautiful to me in any light.”
He sat up at once, unchecked emotion in his gaze. “Thank you.” His words were a whisper. When Celine kissed him, it was gentle, the tip of her tongue brushing across his fangs with the softest caress. Bastien shuddered and drew her closer, his arms enveloping her in an embrace.
“Bastien,” Celine whispered in his ear. “Make love to me.”
In response, he pulled his tunic over his head. The feel of his skin against hers caused a spark of delicious warmth to race through her body. That same spark she’d felt for weeks in his presence. Perhaps it wasn’t safe. Fire was rarely safe. But it made her feel alive. And she was not a damsel in distress, waiting to be rescued by a knight on a shining horse.
She was Celine Rousseau. The daughter of a linguistics professor and the Lady of the Vale. The girl who had defended her own honor and fought to protect the one she loved.
Fey royalty in her own right.
Bastien’s hands brushed up her bare rib cage toward her chest. “Tell me how you want me to touch you,” he said. “Show me.”
Celine thought she would feel bashful or embarrassed. But she didn’t. Not at all. This was Bastien, after all. He’d asked her, without pride or agenda. And she loved him more for it. Celine took his hands and showed him how. Showed him where. When she gasped and threw her head back, her heart trilling in her chest like a bird longing to be set free, the whites of his eyes vanished in swirls of delicious darkness.
Her limbs wondrously heavy, Celine began to touch him as he had touched her. She pushed him back against the bed, her palms trailing across the sculpted planes of his chest and chiseled muscles of his stomach.
“Tell me what you like,” she murmured.
“If I tell you, this will be over all too soon,” he said with a wicked grin.
Celine shifted, conscious of where their bodies touched.
Again Bastien sat up, until their eyes were level. He lifted her by the hips and waited for her to move.
Celine brought them together in one careful slide, gasping at the twinge of pain and the sudden fullness. Then she pressed her lips to his, her hips rolling forward. The rest of the world faded away, and it was nothing but touch and sound and sensation.
Nothing but each other. This kiss that was a moment and a lifetime.
Celine fell back against the coverlet, her fingers grasping his arms. When she opened her eyes, the flickering lights above her glittered like stars. She lost herself in the rise and fall of Bastien’s shoulders. In the way the rhythm of her body matched his. In the feel of his strong hands as they twined through hers.
A lush warmth took shape within her, spreading through her body until she gasped his name and gripped the carved vines along the headboard and let the starlight above them fade into oblivion.