House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2) by Sarah J. Maas

“Good,” he growled against her, and as he slid two fingers into her, she did exactly that.

She bit her lip to keep from crying out, and he licked her, drawing out each ripple of her climax. She panted, dizzy with pleasure, clinging to the shelf as he rose behind her once more.

“Now be very quiet,” he whispered in her ear, and pushed inside her.

From behind, at this angle, the fit was luxuriously tight and deep. As he had last night, Hunt eased his way into her with care, and she gritted her teeth to keep from groaning at each inch he claimed for himself. He stilled when he was fully seated, her ass pressed entirely against his front, and ran a possessive hand down her spine.

The fullness of him, the size, simply smelling him and knowing it was Hunt inside her—release threatened again. Bigger and mightier than before. Her star began to glow, silvering the shelves, the books, the darkness of the stacks.

“You like that?” He withdrew nearly to the tip before pushing back in. She buried her face against the hard shelf to stay quiet. “You like how my cock feels in you?”

She could only get out a garbled yesIdopleasemore. Hunt laughed, dark and rich, and thrust in—a little harder this time. “I love you undone like this,” he said, moving again. Setting the pace. “Utterly at my mercy.”

Yesyesyes, she hissed, and he laughed again. His balls slapped against her ass.

“You know how much I thought about doing this all those months ago?” he said, bending to press a kiss to her neck.

“Likewise,” she managed to say. “I wanted you to fuck me on my desk at the gallery.”

His thrusts turned a little uneven. “Oh yeah?”

She moved her hips back against him, angling him in deeper. He groaned now. She whispered, “I knew you’d feel like this. So fucking perfect.”

His fingers dug into her hips. “All yours, sweetheart. Every piece of me.” He thrust harder. Faster.

“Gods, I love you,” she breathed, and that was his undoing.

Hunt yanked her from the shelf, pulling her to the ground with him, positioning her on all fours. His knees spread her own even wider, and Bryce bit her hand to hold in her scream of pleasure as he rammed into her, over and over and over. “I fucking love you,” he said, and Bryce cracked.

Light exploded from her as she came, driving back onto his cock, so deep he touched her innermost wall. Hunt shouted, and his cock pulsed in her, following her into that blinding pleasure like he couldn’t stop, like he’d keep spilling into her forever.

But then he stilled, and they remained there, panting, Hunt buried in her.

“No teleporting this time, huh?” he said, bending to kiss her neck.

She leaned her forehead against her hands. “Must need your power to join mine or something,” she mumbled. “Good thing you didn’t do that, though—probably would have burned the building down. But I don’t care right now.” She wiggled her ass against him, and he hissed. “Let’s go home and have more makeup sex.”

Night.

Ruhn opened his eyes, finding himself on the couch on the bridge, with Daybright seated across from him.

“Hey,” he said. He’d passed out on the sectional while Declan and Ithan argued about sunball crap. Flynn had been busy fucking a nymph upstairs.

Ariadne and the sprites had claimed Declan’s bedroom, as the male had planned to spend the night at Marc’s, and gone to sleep soon after a painfully awkward evening meal. The dragon had picked at her dinner like she’d never seen food before. The sprites had drunk an entire bottle of wine between them and spent the meal burping up embers.

How any of them were sleeping with Flynn’s escapades down the hall was beyond Ruhn.

Day drummed a flaming hand on the rolled arm of the fainting couch. “I have information for you to pass along.”

Ruhn straightened. “Good or bad?”

“That’s for you to decide.”

She watched him intently. He wasn’t sure if he’d see her after that colossal bit of weirdness last night. But she said nothing of it as she declared, “I have it on good authority that Pippa Spetsos is planning something big in retaliation for losing so much ammunition and the imperial mech-suit prototype. Ophion is fully behind her. They believe the unit that sabotaged the shipment has gone rogue, and appointed Spetsos to send a clear message to both those rebels and the empire.”

Ruhn kept his face carefully blank. “What’s she up to? Where?”

“I’m not sure. But given that her last known location was Ydra, I thought you should pass it along to your cohorts in Crescent City, lest she attack there.”

“Do the Asteri know about her plans?”

“No. Only I do.”

“How’d you learn about them?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

Ruhn studied her. “So we’re back to the distance. No more bedtime stories?”

Again, she drummed her fingers. “Let’s chalk that up to a moment of insanity.”

“I didn’t see anything.”

“But you wanted to.”

“I don’t need to. I don’t give a shit what you look like. I like talking to you.”

“Why?”

“Because I feel like I can be real with you, here.”

“Real.”