Page 65 of Zenith Tower

I didn’t.

She came against my hand with her teeth set in her lowerlip, her body bowing back into mine. The bond carried the pleasure through both of us, sharp enough that my cock jerked against her hip.

I kept my fingers inside her until the last contraction eased.

Astra turned her face toward mine. I kissed her, tasting the breath she had bitten back.

“Still want me?” I asked.

“Yes.” Her hand reached between us and wrapped around my cock. “Now.”

She lifted her upper leg and guided me to her. I held her hip steady as the head of my cock pressed into her opening.

“Slowly,” I said.

“For your shoulder?”

“For me.”

Astra pushed back.

I entered her an inch at a time, stopping whenever the sensation threatened to pull all control from me. She was hot and slick around me, her back tight against my chest, her hand still holding me where our bodies joined.

When I was fully inside her, neither of us moved.

The completed bond opened between us. I felt the lingering terror of the morning and her guilt for Caspian, but beneath both ran the need that had brought her into this bed: to feel me alive around her, wanting her, with no part of me already leaving.

She felt my answer before I put it into words.

“I’m here.”

Her fingers tightened around mine.

I drew back and pushed into her again.

The position kept us close. My chest moved against her back with every breath. My mouth found the place below her ear while my hips settled into a slow, deep rhythm.

Astra reached behind to grip my thigh. “Harder.”

I gave her what she asked for.

The bed shifted softly beneath us as I drove into her. The mended shoulder bore my weight. My arm stayed locked around her waist, holding her against every stroke, and still there was no pain.

I slid my hand between her thighs again.

Her breath broke. “Yes.”

I circled her clit in time with my hips. Pleasure moved through the bond in both directions, her body telling me what she needed before she could say it, mine answering until the distinction between giving and taking began to blur.

Astra’s hand closed around my wrist. The green-gold lines aligned there, hers over mine, and light spilled across our joined skin.

“Kieran, I’m??—”

Her words dissolved into a low cry as she came around me. Her body clenched hard, drawing me deeper, and the sensation carried through the bond with enough force to break what remained of my control.

I buried my face against her shoulder and came inside her.

For a while we stayed joined, her body softening by degrees within the circle of my arms. My pulse beat against her back. Hers answered beneath my palm.