A Court of Silver Flames
“Something bothering you at home?” Rhys inquired, falling into step beside the High Lord.
Cassian caught Nesta’s stare as he left the room, and she grabbed her book before following them out. Feyre exited with Azriel, murmuring with a tattooed hand on his shoulder.
Cassian asked Nesta, “What are you reading today?”
“A Brief History of the Great Sieges by Osian.”
He almost stumbled a step. “Not a romance?”
“I realized after you left me The Dance of Battle that there’s a great deal left for me to learn. Last night I asked the House to give me something you might read.”
“Why?”
Nesta tucked the book under an arm. “What’s the point in learning fighting techniques if I don’t know their true purpose and uses? You’d train me into a weapon, and I’d be just that: someone else’s weapon. I want to know how to wield it—myself, I mean. And others.”
Cassian was stunned into silence as they ascended the steps, following Helion and Rhys, who chatted away at the head of their group. “You plan on leading an army, Nes?”
“Not an army.” She glanced sidelong at him. “But perhaps a small unit of females.”
She was dead serious. “The priestesses?”
“I don’t know if they’d join, but … There are others out there, I’m sure, who might. I’m immortal now, or as close to it as possible. I have nothing but time to plan far into the future.”
His chest tightened. Planning for the future. It was a hell of a good sign.
Cassian knocked on Nesta’s bedroom door at the House after dinner. She hadn’t joined him and Azriel, though perhaps it had been for the best.
The High Lord and High Lady of the Night Court had faced off against the shadowsinger this afternoon, and emerged triumphant.
Perhaps triumphant wasn’t the right word, but the argument had ended with Azriel grudgingly agreeing not to spy on Briallyn for the time being—and brooding all through dinner.
Nesta’s voice echoed through the wood. “Enter.”
He found her in bed, a book propped up against her knees. It appeared she’d gone back to romance. “No more war books?” He held up the three he had brought with him—his reason for being here. His excuse.
“Only during the day.” She sat up, gathering the blankets around her waist. “What are those?”
“More texts I thought you might be interested in.” He set them on the desk.
Nesta dipped her chin in a shallow nod, her long braid bobbing over her chest with the movement. She wore a long-sleeved nightgown, and, though there was no fire in the hearth, the room stayed warm. As if the House had noted her dislike for fires and heated it another way.
He forced himself to move from the desk, to aim for her door again.
She said before he’d reached the archway, “Was it not good for you?”
Cassian turned slowly. “What?”
A flush stained her cheeks as she lifted her chin. “Was the sex not good for you?”
He swallowed. “Why would you ask that?”
Nesta’s throat bobbed. She was … Fuck, was she really that unsure of him? “You left quickly. And didn’t seek me out again.”
I left quickly because I needed to keep some pieces of myself intact. “You’ve been focused on training.”
Her eyes flickered with something like hurt. “All right. Well, good night.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Fuck, Nesta.” He stalked toward the bed, and she straightened again, peering at him as he towered over her. “How could I be so selfish—to demand more sex from you when you’re so invested in training?”
“It’s not a demand if both sides want it,” she said. “And I just worried you … didn’t enjoy it as much as I did.”
“You think I haven’t sought you out because I didn’t enjoy myself?” When she said nothing, he braced his hands on either side of her and leaned in to whisper in her ear, breathing in her scent, “I enjoyed myself too much. I’ve thought about it for days and days.” She shivered, and he smiled against the soft shell of her ear. He loved this—seeing that icy exterior crumble, seeing how he affected her. “Have you been touching yourself at night, thinking about it like I do?”
Nesta’s chin dipped in the barest of nods, and from the corner of his eye, he spied a flash of her teeth as she bit her bottom lip. “Have those sweet little fingers felt as good as mine?”
Her breathing hitched, but she wouldn’t answer. He knew she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. He nipped at her earlobe, drawing a gasp from her. “Well?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’d have to see again.”
“Hmm.” Cassian lowered his mouth, pressing a kiss beneath her ear. His cock hardened, already aching against his pants. “Shall we do a little side-by-side comparison?”
She whimpered, and he crawled onto the bed, straddling her legs. His blood pounded through every inch of him, in time to the pulse in his cock, and he pulled away from her neck to find her eyes bright with desire.
The world quieted, and she stared and stared at him as he slowly pulled the blankets down to her waist. Her nightgown was rucked up her thighs, and he ran a hand over one of them, thumb stroking the sleek muscles building there. “Why don’t you show me how you touch yourself, Nesta? And then I’ll remind you how I touch you.” He bared his teeth in a wicked grin. “You can tell me what feels better.”
Her chest heaved, her pebbled breasts peeking through the nightgown. His mouth watered, body trembling with the restraint needed to keep from putting his mouth over them.
She seemed to read every line of his body, his desire. Her eyes glinted with molten fire. “While I … touch myself, you are forbidden to touch me.” A feral smile. “And forbidden to touch yourself.”
His skin heated, stretching too tight over his bones. “All right.”
Cassian waited for her to nestle into the pillows, but she grabbed the hem of her nightgown to pull it over herself, bunching it into a ball before chucking it to the floor.
Every thought eddied from his mind as she half-reclined there, utterly naked, those beautiful breasts peaked and waiting for him, her silken flesh near-glowing. And between her legs … She drew her knees up slightly, spreading them. Baring herself.
Cassian made a low, pained sound. Her pink sex gleamed—its heady, seductive scent beckoning. He needed to taste it, to feel her on his tongue, on his cock—
“No touching,” Nesta purred, because his hand had been drifting toward his cock, desperate for any sort of relief from the sight of her open and bare, the faelights gilding her.
His breath rasped in his throat—and then vanished entirely as Nesta slid two delicate fingers down her body. They stopped atop that bundle of nerves, circling slowly.
Her breathing turned uneven, but she watched him observe her as she made another circle, and then moved lower. A slow, torturous slide down her center before her wrist curved, and she dipped her fingers into herself.
Cassian groaned, hips bucking a bit where he knelt, and she cut him a reprimanding look. He stilled, unable to think about anything other than her two fingers as she slid them into herself again, and moaned. They emerged shining with her wetness, and he might have been panting as she plunged them into herself a third time, deep and slow.