My stomach tightened in anticipation, my breasts turning achingly heavy.

I unbuttoned the rest of his jacket, fingers shaking, and peeled it from him, along with his shirt. And his pants.

Then he was standing naked before me, wings slightly flared, muscled chest heaving, showing me the full evidence of just how ready he was.

“Do you want to begin at the wall, or finish there?” His words were guttural, barely recognizable, and the gleam in his eyes turned into something predatory. He slid a hand down the front of my torso in brazen possessiveness. “Or shall it be the wall the entire time?”

My knees buckled, and I found myself beyond words. Beyond anything but him.

Rhys didn’t wait for my answer before kneeling before me, his wings draping over the rug. Before he pressed a kiss to my abdomen, as if in reverence and benediction. Then pressed a kiss lower.

Lower.

My hand slid into his hair, just as he gripped one of my thighs and hoisted my leg over his shoulder. Just as I found myself somehow leaning against the wall near the doorway, as if he’d winnowed us. My head hit the wood with a soft thud as Rhys lowered his mouth to me.

He took his time.

Licked and stroked me until I’d shattered, then laughed against me, dark and rich, before he rose to his full height.

Before he hoisted me up, my legs wrapping around his waist, and pinned me against that wall.

One arm braced on the wall, the other holding me aloft, Rhys met my eyes. “How shall it be, mate?”

In his stare, I could have sworn galaxies swirled. In the shadows between his wings, the glorious depths of the night dwelled.

“Hard enough to make the pictures fall off,” I reminded him, breathless.

He laughed again, low and wicked. “Hold on tight, then.”

Mother above and Cauldron save me.

My hands slid onto his shoulders, digging into the hard muscle.

But he slowly, so slowly, pushed into me.

So I felt every inch of him, every place where we were joined. I tipped my head back again, a moan slipping out of me.

“Every time,” he gritted out. “Every time, you feel exquisite.”

I clenched my teeth, panting through my nose. He worked his way in, thrusting in small movements, letting me adjust to each thick inch of him.

And when he was seated inside me, when his hand tightened on my hip, he just … stopped.

I moved my hips, desperate for any friction. He shifted with me, denying it.

Rhys licked his way up my throat. “I think about you, about this, every damn hour,” he purred against my skin. “About the way you taste.”

Another slight withdrawal—then a plunge in. I panted and panted, leaning my head into the hard wall behind me.

Rhys let out an approving sound, and withdrew slightly. Then pushed back in. Hard.

A low rattle sounded down the wall to my left.

I stopped caring. Stopped caring if we did indeed make the pictures fall off the wall as Rhys halted once more.

“But mostly I think about this. How you feel around me, Feyre.” He drove into me, exquisite and relentless. “How you taste on my tongue.” My nails cut into his broad shoulders. “How even if we have a thousand years together, I will never tire of this.”

Release began to gather along my spine, shutting out all sound and sense beyond where he met me, touched me.

Another thrust, longer and harder. The wood groaned beneath his hand.

He lowered his mouth to my breast and nipped—nipped, and then licked away the hurt that sent pleasure zinging through my blood. “How you let me do such naughty, terrible things to you.”

His voice was a caress that had my hips moving, begging him to go faster.

Rhys only chuckled softly, cruelly, as he withheld that all-out, unhinged joining I craved.

I opened my eyes long enough to peer down, to where I could see him joined with me, moving so achingly slowly in and out of me. “Do you like watching?” he breathed. “Watching me move in you?”

In answer, beyond words, I shot my mind down the bridge between us, brushing against his adamant shields.

He let me in instantly, mind-to-mind and soul-to-soul, and then I was looking through his eyes—looking down at me as he gripped my hip and thrust.

He purred, Look at how I fuck you, Feyre.

Gods, was my only answer.

Mental hands ran along my mind, my soul. Look at how perfectly we fit.

My flushed body was arched against the wall—perfect indeed for receiving him, for taking every inch of him.

Do you see why I can’t stop thinking of this—of you?

Again, he withdrew and drove in, and released the damper on his power.

Stars flickered around us, sweet darkness sweeping in. As if we were the only souls in a galaxy. And still Rhys remained before me, my legs wrapped around his waist.

I brushed my own mental hands down him and breathed, Can you fuck me in here, too?

That wicked delight faltered. Went silent.

The stars and darkness paused, too.

Then undiluted, utter predator answered, It would be my pleasure.

And then I didn’t have the words for what happened.

He gave me everything I wanted: the unleashed pounding of him inside my body—the unrelenting thrust and filling and slap of skin on skin, the slam of our bodies against wood. Night singing all around us, stars sweeping by like snow.

And then there was us. Mind-to-mind, lain out on that bridge between our souls.

We had no bodies here, but I felt him as he seduced me, his dark power wrapping around mine, licking at my flames, sucking on my ice, scraping claws against my own.

I felt him as his power blended with mine, ebbing and flowing, in and out, until my magic lashed out, latching onto him, both of us raging and burning together.

All while he moved in me, relentless and driving as the sea. Over and over, power and flesh and soul, until I think I was screaming, until I think he was roaring, and my mortal body clenched around him, shattering.

Then I shattered, everything I was rupturing into stars and galaxies and comets, nothing but pure, shining joy. Rhys held me, enveloped me, his darkness absorbing the light that sparkled and blasted, keeping me whole, keeping me together.

And when my mind could form words, when I could again feel his essence around me, his body still moving in my own, I sent him that image one last time, into the dark and stars—my gift.

Perhaps our gift, one day.

Rhys spilled into me with a roar, his wings splaying wide.

And in our minds, down that bond, his magic erupted, his soul washing over mine, filling every crack and pit so that there was not one part of me that was not full of him, brimming with his dark, glorious essence and undimming love.

He remained buried in me, leaning heavily against the wall as he panted against my neck, “FeyreFeyreFeyre.”

He was shaking. We both were.

I worked up the presence of mind to crack open my eyes.

His face was wrecked. Stunned. His mouth remained partially open as he gaped at me, the glow still radiating from my skin, bright against the star-kissed shadows along his.

For long moments, we only stared. Breathed.

And then Rhys glanced sidelong toward the rest of the room.

Toward what we’d done.

A sly smile formed on his lips as we took in the pictures that had indeed come off the wall, their frames cracked on the floor. A vase atop a nearby side table had even been knocked to the ground, shattered into little blue pieces.