Page 5 of Zenith Tower

“I wasn’t.”

“Liar.”

She kissed me again before I could defend myself.

Her fingers worked at the buttons of my shirt while mine found the hooks at the back of her dress. Neither of us was patient. Fabric caught, buttons slipped, and once Astra laughed against my mouth when I nearly pulled the dress over her head instead of down her body. The sound startled both of us.

Then she laughed again.

I put my mouth against the pulse in her throat and felt it beating hard beneath my lips. Her hand slid into my hair. She held me close while I kissed the dirt from her temple, the line of her jaw, the place beneath her ear that made her breath catch.

She drew my face back to hers. “Caspian.”

I knew what she wanted. I wanted it too.

The backs of Astra’s knees met the bed. She sat and pulledme between her legs, and the frame scraped across the stone beneath us. I froze, looking toward the unlocked door.

She took my face between her hands and turned me back.

I knew we might be heard. Astra knew it too. Her hands stayed on my face.

I kissed her until the room beyond the bed stopped mattering.

Her hands moved over me with none of the uncertainty of our first night. She knew where I held tension and how to make me release it. When her fingers closed around me, my head dropped against her shoulder and she smiled into my hair. I touched her in return, learning what had changed and what had not, taking my time only when taking my time made her pull me closer.

The bond stayed open between us. Fear moved through her, and her grip tightened on my shoulders. My father’s face surfaced with the memory of the formal, and I pressed my mouth to hers until it passed.

Astra rolled me onto my back and came over me, her hair falling forward around us. I ran my hands up her thighs and watched her settle above me. Her Mark showed dark against the inside of her wrist, all three lines still present.

She guided me into her.

We both stopped.

Her eyes closed, and her forehead lowered to mine. I held her hips without moving, feeling the tremor that passed through her and the answering strain in my own body.

I touched her cheek. Her eyes opened.

Astra moved first. I met her, lifting into the next slow stroke, then the next. The narrow bed shifted beneath us. Her hands braced on my chest, directly over the place where she had felt my heart beating. I covered one with mine and let her set the rhythm.

Her pace quickened. She bent to kiss me, her breath catching against my mouth each time I met her. My free handmoved between us. Her body tightened around mine, once and then again, until her rhythm faltered and she pressed her face into my neck.

I held her through it. When she began to move again, I followed her with what little control remained. The bond drew tight and bright between us. I felt her relief break through the fear, sudden enough to pull mine with it.

I came with both hands at her waist and her name against her shoulder.

For a while she stayed over me, our breathing loud in the small room. I ran my palms along her back. Her skin was damp and warm under my hands.

“We’re here,” she said.

I held her tighter.

I rolled us carefully onto our sides. Astra tucked herself against my chest, one leg caught between mine. Our clothes lay across the floor among the coat she had dropped, and both our wrists were bare.

The quiet that followed was different from the silence on the bridge. I could hear her breathing. I could feel the occasional movement of her fingers against my ribs. When I put my mouth to her hair, it still smelled faintly of the tunnel.

Astra’s body softened against mine. Her fingers drifted from my ribs to her wrist, tracing the lines there without looking at them. When she reached the green-gold line, they stopped.

She lifted her head and looked down at it.