Page 102 of Zenith Tower

“That was not the instruction.”

Astra caught my face between her hands. “I want you, Jonah. I came back because I want to be here. If that changes, I’ll tell you.”

I believed her. My hand stopped shaking against her collar.

I kissed her again and opened the rest of her dress.

We did not hurry. Beyond the door, stewards still occupied the junction, and Marrow was likely composing the report that would condemn all of us by morning. None of that required us to fumble buttons or tear fabric. I drew the dress from her shoulders and let it fall around her feet.

Her shift followed. She lifted her arms, and I pulled the linen over her head with one hand. Her hair caught at the collar and spilled loose when the fabric cleared it.

I had remembered her naked on the salle mats more often than discipline permitted me to admit. But I had never seen her like this, with the completed bond carrying every unguarded part of my response to her and returning hers.

Astra stood between my knees, bare and flushed from my attention. I put both hands at her waist.

Pain pulled through the injured arm. She felt it through the bond and reached for the bandage.

“Don’t,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed.

“I’m not pretending it doesn’t hurt. I’m asking you not to stop touching me because it does.”

She considered that, then rested her palm against my chest.

“You’ll tell me if it gets worse.”

“I will.”

I drew one breast into my mouth.

Her breath left her sharply. My hand spread over the other, thumb passing across the nipple until it tightened. She gripped my shoulder and arched closer, giving me more of her weight.

The bond carried her pleasure as warmth rather than instruction. I did not need it to tell me what she liked. Her body did that plainly: the shift of her hips, her fingers tightening, the small sounds she made when my tongue moved over her again.

I kissed down the center of her stomach.

Astra looked at the floor, then at my arm. “You are not kneeling on stone with that injury.”

I turned us toward the bed before she could continue. She sat at its edge, and I lowered myself onto the folded blanket in front of her.

“Better?”

“Marginally.”

I put my mouth against the inside of her knee.

Her legs opened.

The scent of her reached me when I moved closer. She was already wet, the inner skin of her thighs warm beneath my hands. I kissed one side, then the other, feeling the muscles tighten before my mouth reached where she wanted it.

“Don’t tease me.”

I looked up.

Astra’s hair had fallen over one shoulder. Her cheeks were flushed, and one hand gripped the blanket beside her. She held my gaze as I put my mouth on her.

Her head tipped back.