Page 180 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Lykor gritted his teeth. “You’re enjoying this far too much.”

Jassyn’s pupils narrowed to draconic slits for less than a heartbeat before he blinked them round again.

Lykor caught it anyway.

The councils saw Jassyn’s composure, heard his measured voice, watched cool logic carve catastrophes down to something everyone could survive. Lykor got this. The male who’d knelt on a woven rug and taken him into his mouth, whose dragon-bright eyes now betrayed the strain in his control.

Lykor shoved himself farther back on the bed and hauled Jassyn down with him. Jassyn braced a hand beside his head, the other closing around his shoulder. Lykor caught his mouth with more force than accuracy, teeth knocking before the kiss found purchase. Jassyn pressed closer, one knee driving into the mattress between Lykor’s thighs.

Lykor dragged his palm up Jassyn’s back and caught on linen.

Linen.

Concealing the unmistakable shape of Jassyn’s arousal.

Dark satisfaction pulled at one corner of Lykor’s mouth. Jassyn hadn’t escaped his own torment unscathed, and had been wound just as tight.

But he was still dressed. Still civilized while Lykor sprawled naked under him with his thighs spread and his body already conspiring for another surrender.

Unacceptable.

Lykor snatched the hem of Jassyn’s tunic and hauled it upward. His knuckles scraped over warm skin, over ribs and the taut line of Jassyn’s side. Jassyn shuddered into the kiss, hips pressing down in a rough grind before he broke away long enough to let the fabric clear his head.

Lykor chased his mouth at once.

He caught Jassyn’s lower lip between his teeth and bit until Jassyn’s breath hitched. Jassyn slid his hand into Lykor’s hair, fingers tightening at his scalp.

Lykor caught Jassyn’s waistband with his talons. Jassyn lifted into the pull, and the clothing slipped from his hips in one rough sweep, baring the long line of his legs before tangling at his ankles. Lykor kicked everything to the floor.

There.

Better.

Starlight skimmed Jassyn’s sun-browned skin, traced the lean planes of his body, and silvered the scar across his cheekbone.

Lykor’s violence, written across the only person he’d sunder realms to keep alive.

His claw rose before he could stop it, his thumb brushing the scar’s ridge, talons curling carefully away from Jassyn’s jaw. Jassyn didn’t flinch, turning his cheek into Lykor’s palm.

Lykor’s chest clenched around a hurt he couldn’t strike. He drew Jassyn back down into a slower kiss, tenderness threading through it in a way that would’ve frightened him weeks ago.

Then skin met skin, and the shock emptied Lykor’s lungs. Heat flooded every place their bodies touched—chest to chest, thigh to thigh—until scarcely any air remained between them.

Illumination glowed from the piercings studded along Jassyn’s arousal, bright and cold against the dark.

Lykor knew what the jewelry meant, hating the hands who’d forced it there. His grip tightened at Jassyn’s waist, anchoring himself against a violence that had nowhere to go.

Jassyn made no move to hide himself. He pushed closer instead, his cock heavy against Lykor’s thigh, wanting him with a certainty Lykor would never make sense of.

Lykor’s hand dropped between them and closed around Jassyn’s length. He stroked him once, learning the shape and weight of him against his palm. Jassyn made a rough sound above him, and it stripped the last coherent thought from Lykor’s skull.

He wanted to hear it again.

We don’t have to stop.

Jassyn’s words returned, quiet as a door left open.

Dawn would drag them back to the Aetherveil, to a king tightening his noose around whatever future remained. Lykor had already given survival most of his life. If tomorrow killed him, tonight he would choose something for himself.