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“I don’t want to hurt you, either,” I say softly. “I’m afraid of what will happen tonight.”

“You won’t have to choose. I promise.” He brushes his thumb over my cheekbone, still touching me as if I’m made of spun glass instead of mud and blood and steel.

It’s a promise he can’t make, but I love him a little in this moment for the clear intention in his words. Because he does mean it. Nero’s expression is all open honesty and my name written in desire.

I bite my bottom lip, shivering when his gaze shifts to focus there. I’ve slept with a number of people over the years, but no one has ever looked at me like he does, as if he might die if I stop touching him. There’s no artifice, no flirty teasing about the depth of his lust. He wants me. Needs me, even.

In the end, he leaves the decision to me. I have no reason to trust him, to believe that if I stepped back and climbed out of the bath, he’d respect it and let me go. All the same, I know it to be the truth. That, as much as anything else, is why I slide my hands up to his shoulders, my fingers skating over the scars that pepper his pale skin, and cup his neck. I apply the smallest pressure and he bends like a reed against a strong wind, lowering his face to mine.

Still, he doesn’t close that last little distance between us. Giving me the choice. Allowing me to lead. As if there was ever going to be a different destination from the moment he smiled at me as we shared our first sunrise.

I kiss Nero.

There are sure to be certain compositions of the Cinque that the city finds more favorable than others. It would be best if some old gods—the Tower, the Devil, or the Moon—are not allowed to gain power during the twenty-two years between Tarot Trials. Of course, we cannot interfere, but it’s still worth noting.…

—EXCERPT FROM THE MAJOR ARCANA: A TREATISE ON THE HISTORY OF THE OLD GODS

CHAPTER THIRTY

NERO TASTES LIKE the ending of things. My world crumbles at the edges as he pulls me closer and kisses me back as if he’ll never get another chance to experience this. Maybe we won’t. I could die tonight. He could, though it’s less likely. Gods, we both could.

This is a mistake, but I’ve never met a beautiful mistake that I didn’t want to make mine. It hasn’t worked out even once before, and this won’t work out, either. I don’t care.

He releases me for a bare moment, but only to grip the backs of my thighs and lift me so I can wrap my legs around his waist. I thought I was prepared to feel his body against mine, but there’s no preparing for this. He’s all lean strength and carved muscle and he holds me effortlessly as he devours my mouth. It’s overwhelming. I’ve never felt so alive.

I dig my hands into his hair and tug his face into the exact angle I need to devour him right back. He moans against my lips, the sound threaded with a need so profound it steals my breath from my lungs.

If I’d been foolish enough to imagine kissing him, to desire more, I couldn’t have anticipated this. He’s been so restrained since the moment we met. Even the little slips are just that—little slips. This is something else altogether.

He lifts me higher, dragging his mouth down the column of my throat to my chest. We’re both wet from the bath, slick from the oil of our massages, but his grip never wavers. He nips the lower curve of my right breast and then takes my nipple into his mouth.

Now it’s my turn to moan and writhe for him. It’s been so long since I’ve been touched with desire instead of violence. Greed blooms inside me, a demand to take and take and take, because this opportunity will never come again. It shouldn’t be here now, but that warning is washed away as Nero shifts his grip a little and the tips of his fingers brush my cunt.

We both freeze. I thought we’d passed the point of turning back, but I was wrong. It’s here in this moment, him staring up at me with those deep eyes gone black. He licks his lips. “Kestrel?”

“Don’t stop.” I roll my hips, trying to guide him to touch me more firmly.

He only hesitates a beat. Then he’s moving, walking through the water to the edge of the bath. He sets me there and pushes my thighs wide. And then he just … drinks in the sight of me as if he wants to memorize every moment.

I’m doing plenty of looking on my own. He’s fearsomely beautiful with his broad shoulders and carved chest. In the flickering candlelight, my gaze finds the same thing my touch did. Scars. So many, many scars. I barely noted them when we stood in front of each other, but now they’re all I see. Slashing lines across his chest and stomach, some of them so large it’s a wonder he survived. There’s a patch on his left hip that looks like a burn, but I can’t be sure. “Nero—”

“I want to taste you.” He sinks down to kneel on the bench carved into the bath and trails his fingers up the insides of my thighs. It feels almost like reverence, but that can’t be right. This is just sex. Ill-advised, reckless sex.

He dips his head to cover my cunt with his mouth. Any space for thinking, for talking, disappears at the first slow slide of his tongue. My head falls back and I whimper. My hands go to his hair so I can tug him up to my clitoris. “Here. Please. I need…”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. He kisses and sucks and finally lands on the rhythm that has my breath going choppy and little moans slipping free on each exhale. Pleasure winds tighter and tighter, overwhelming me, turning me into a whimpering thing, begging for him not to stop. Nero doesn’t. He grips my thighs and holds me wide as he drags me over the edge into an orgasm that bows my back and washes away every bad thing that’s happened to me. At least for a few seconds.

It’s not enough. I need him inside me and I need it now. I pull his hair, too hard. “Come here.”

Nero obeys, eyes wild and the bottom half of his face wet with my desire. I kiss him again, delighting in the taste of myself on his tongue. Even though my legs are still shaking, I’m the one to push him to sit on the edge. I nearly fall when I shift to straddle him, but he catches me easily, keeps me from making a complete ass of myself.

A quick glance at his face shows none of the amusement that would dampen my desire. Only need. So much need that it could swallow the world and still crave more. I can’t give him the world. I can’t even give him a full night. I can only give him this moment. It will have to be enough.

He’s long and thick against my palm where I grip him. “Yes?”

“Yes.” The word comes out tormented, as if I’ve reached down his throat and wrapped my shaking fingers around it.

I rise to notch him at my entrance. Even with my orgasm slicking the way, he’s wide enough that it’s not an easy fit. He presses his forehead to mine as I fight my way down his length, breathing far harder than he ever did while fighting me that first night.