Page 42 of The Bound Zodiac

“Lucas—”

“Shh.” I pressed my palm over her mouth, playful but firm, and her eyes went wide above my fingers. “Be very, very quiet, love. There are eight men sleeping in this tower, and I’d rather not share this with any of them.”

She nodded against my hand, and I felt her smile beneath my palm. I kissed the side of her jaw, her throat, the hollow beneath her ear, and she shivered against me, a sound muffled behind my hand that went straight to my cock. I was already painfully hard, and when I rolled my hips against her, she bit down on the meat of my palm.

I hissed through my teeth. “Fuck⁠—”

She did it again, and I pulled my hand from her mouth long enough to kiss her properly, and then my hand was between us, sliding under the waistband of her pajama pants. She was already wet, slick and hot against my fingers, and the sound she made when I found her clit nearly made me come in my trousers.

I worked her with my fingers, and she rocked against my hand, her thighs trembling around my waist. Her nails dug into my shoulders through the hoodie, and I could feel her trying to be quiet, could feel the effort of it in the tension of her body, the way she bit down on her own lip hard enough to leave marks.

“Lucas, please…”

I pulled my hand free, and she whined. I fumbled with my trousers, the other arm still bracing her against the wall, and she reached between us to help, her fingers brushing mine, and then her hand was wrapping around me and the sound I made was not quiet at all.

She shushed me, and I laughed, against her throat.

“Hypocrite.”

“Shut up and fuck me.”

I pulled off her pajama pants as I held her aloft. They were on the floor in a matter of seconds. I lined myself up and pushed into her in one slow stroke, and the sound she made was worth every second of waiting.

Her head fell back against the stone, mouth open, eyes closed, and I watched her throat work as she swallowed whatever noise wanted to escape. I held still for a moment, buried to the hilt, feeling her pulse around me, feeling the bond buzz behind the walls she’d built, muffled but still there.

Then I moved. I set a pace that was punishing, each thrust driving her harder against the wall, each one pulling a muffled sound from her throat that she swallowed back down. Her legs tightened around me, heels digging into my back. Her hands were everywhere—in my hair, on my shoulders, clawing at the back of my neck. I kissed her to swallow the sounds she couldn’t hold back.

Somewhere above us, a floorboard creaked, and we both froze, breathing hard, my forehead pressed against hers. Nothing. Just the old building settling. I started moving again, slower this time, deeper, and she rolled her hips to meet me, and the friction was so good it made my vision blur.

“Lucas, I’m⁠—”

“I know.” I shifted my angle, and she choked on a sound, her whole body going rigid. “Come for me. Quietly.”

I pressed my palm over her mouth just as the orgasm hit her, and I felt it everywhere—in the clench of her thighs around my waist, in the way her body seized against the stone, in the muffled cry that vibrated against my hand. Her eyes went wide, silver blazing bright enough to cast light on the wall, and then they rolled back, her whole body shaking through it, and the sight of her coming apart like that snapped whatever was left of my control.

I came hard, my hips stuttering, my forehead dropping to her shoulder as the pleasure ripped through me like a blade. I groaned against her skin, a curse tearing out of me that I barely recognized as my own voice, and my thighs shook so badly I nearly dropped her. She pulsed around me, milking every last drop, and I bit down on the fabric of her pajama top to keep from making a sound that would wake the whole tower.

For a long moment, neither of us moved. The only sounds were our breathing in the narrow stairwell. Her thighs were still trembling around me, her fingers slack against my shoulders, and I could feel the aftershocks moving through her in small, involuntary shivers.

I pulled back just enough to look at her. Her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat, her lips swollen and parted, her eyes glassy and unfocused.

“You’re sleeping in my bed tonight,” I said.

She didn’t argue. Didn’t even blink. Just nodded, her head lolling against the stone, and let her legs drop from around my waist. I caught her before she could slide down the wall, one arm under her knees, the other around her shoulders, and lifted her against my chest. She was lighter than she looked, her body boneless and warm, and she tucked her face against my neck without a word.

I carried her the three steps to my door, shouldered it open, and kicked it shut behind us. The latch clicked, and the tower went quiet again, and the only sound left was the two of us breathing in the dark.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

JUPITER

Two weeks later

The ground was bone-white and cracked under my feet, the gravity all wrong, making my body feel too light, like the ground might give me up to the void of space at any moment. I was standing on a ridge of some cratered rock that shouldn’t have had an atmosphere, but I was breathing, and the sky above me was too dark, too deep, too many stars, with a smear of violet and silver that didn’t belong in any sky I’d ever seen.

And in front of me, enormous, filling half the horizon, was a planet. It was massive. Jupiter-sized, maybe bigger, and it hung there in the blackness like a colossal titan. Silver light poured off it in a haze, as if the whole world was made of something that glowed. Violet oceans rolled across vast continents, the color of crushed amethyst, and where the land rose up, deep emerald forests covered everything, so dark and thick they looked almost blue from this distance. Three rings of pale debris orbited it slowly, catching the silver light and scattering it in long, lazy arcs.

I knew what it was. I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew. Every cell in my body was screaming it at me, a recognition so deep it was more like memory than sight.