Page 114 of This Shattered Star

“That is not an answer.” His hand shifted, no longer cupping my jaw but holding it firmly instead, fingers lightly pressing into my cheeks as if they could dig the words right from my mouth. “I need a yes or a no. Do you oppose?”

Hot, pulsing need unfurled low in my stomach.

“No. I do not oppose.” Without breaking eye contact, I undid the first button of his shirt. Then the next.

“Say it again.”

“I. Do not. Oppose.” Each punctuation ended with another button undone.

It was when I reached for his belt that whatever had been restraining him shattered, and then he was upon me.

His lips captured mine almost desperately.

He let me push both his vest and shirt off his shoulders, until he stood before me, bare from the waist up. My dress fell not a moment later, pooling at my feet.

It was effortless, the way he scooped me into his arms, the way my legs wrapped around him as he laid me onto my bed. Even more so was the way he tore the remaining scrap of silk from my body, only to replace it with his fingers.

Not once did his lips leave mine in the process. It allowed him to capture each moan, every whimper as he worked me. Through the haze of sparks and fire, I heard the faint clink of metal, and then he retreated for all but a moment before he was upon me again.

There was no time to mourn the loss of his fingers, as he lined himself up with my entrance, the sweet friction ofhimenough to wring another wave of sweltering pleasure through my core.

Kodhan was not a patient man, that I knew. It was why it surprised me when he took his time pushing every inch ofhimself right where I needed him. Until he was fully seated. And then he began to move, inciting a shuddering breath from us both.

I could see the edge I’d fallen from—that same one he’d shown me back in the tower—when he pushed one of my knees up to my chest, deepening the angle of his thrusts. I could see it when it felt as though a string had been pulled taught, right in my middle, as he picked up speed, meeting each writhe of my hips.

Still, it refused to let me fall.

Kodhan’s gaze sharpened. He knew. So he pulled back. And flipped me.

His hands found my hips and lifted them just enough for him to fill me again. “Hold on to the post, love,” he whispered against my shoulder.

There wasn’t a star in the sky that could’ve convinced me to disobey him. So I reached up, grabbing the bedpost with both hands.

Instantly, he moved again, and I wanted to scream at him for asking me to doanythingthat required a modicum of strength, because all of my muscles either seized or melted into tiny pinpricks of hot static.

More.“Kodhan,” I whimpered, “I need…”

“I know.”

He reached down to where we were joined.

Andthatwas when the edge slammed forward. Wave after wave of heat blasted me over the crest of it. His name poured from my lips with a cry, along with a slew of half-incorrigible curses and moans as he did not stop his relentless pace, not for a second.

Only when another gust of heat swept me up in its embrace, this one sharp and soul-shattering, did he falter, riding that same heat with a groan that sent my toes curling, that had goosebumps lifting along the length of my spine.

I let go of the post just when a crackle of blinding fire soared through the air.

Porcelain shattered. Burning wood and smoke permeated the air. But I didn’t care.

I would have let it all burn, I realized, fingers curling into the sheets, if it meant that I could have this very moment.

The only thing that mattered was the gentle press of Kodhan’s lips against my shoulder. The careful way he lied next to me, gathering me to his chest with another feather-light kiss to my forehead. The small circles he drew across my back while I fought to calm the thundering beat of my heart. Not that his was any calmer, though the steady hammering against my palm was a welcome reassurance that he washere.Alive.

That nothing, or no one, could take him from me.

I couldn’t see anything, not when I was tucked so closely to him. But I knew that the shadows had retreated. Proof of it lay in how my chest felt lighter, my head clearer.

I had to tell him. It would be unfair if I didn’t, considering what we’d just done. And the way his arms tightened around me led me to believe that he was under the impression that I would disappear like sand through his fingers if he dared to move an inch.