She couldn’t move—couldn’t remember how to move. No one had ever done that to her. Made her feel like that.

It had knocked the breath from her, the thoroughness of her pleasure. Like the world could be remade in the force of what had erupted from her.

She just watched the carved, heaving muscle of his chest, his wings, his handsome face.

Nesta reached for the cock she was dying to feel, to taste, but he backed off the bed.

Cassian grabbed his shirt and aimed for the door. “We’re even now.”

CHAPTER

23

Watching Nesta climax had been as close to a religious experience as Cassian had ever had. It had rocked him to his very core, and only pure will and pride had kept him from spilling in his pants again. Only pure will and pride had made him back off the bed when she’d reached for him. Only pure will and pride had made him leave the room, when all he’d wanted was to plunge his cock into that sweet, tight warmth and ride her until they were both screaming.

He couldn’t get her perfect taste out of his mouth. Not as he washed for bed. Not as he pumped himself dry, soaking his sheets. Not as he ate breakfast. Couldn’t stop feeling the clamp of her around his fingers, like a burning, silken fist. He’d washed his hands a dozen times by the time he faced Nesta in the training ring, and he could still smell her there, could still feel her, taste her.

Cassian banished the thought from his mind. Along with the knowledge that Nesta might have felt good on his fingers, on his tongue, but it would be nothing compared to how she’d feel on his cock. She’d been tight enough that he knew it’d be paradise and madness—his undoing. And she’d been so drenched for him that he knew he’d do deplorable things to be allowed to taste that wetness again.

The Nesta who emerged into the training pit was the one he saw every morning, though.

No hint of a blush, or a sparkle in her eye to tell him she’d enjoyed herself.

But maybe that was because Azriel walked in behind her.

His brother took one look at him and smirked. Az knew. Could either scent Cassian on Nesta, or could already scent Nesta on Cassian, even from across the ring.

Cassian didn’t regret what he’d done with her. Not at all. And maybe it was the fact that it had been two years since he’d had any sort of sex, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so ridden by his own base need.

Some small, quiet part of his brain whispered otherwise. He ignored it. Had ignored it for a long time now.

“Morning, Az,” Cassian said cheerfully. He nodded to Nesta. “Nes. How’d you sleep?”

Her eyes flashed with the anger that was like kindling to his own, but then she smiled coolly. “Like a babe.”

It was to be a game, then. Which one of them could pretend that nothing had happened the longest. Which one of them might seem the least affected.

Cassian threw her a grin that declared he was in. And he’d make her crawl before the end.

Nesta merely began to unlace her boots.

He jerked his chin toward Azriel. “Why are you up here?”

“I thought I’d do some training myself before heading out for the day,” Az said, his shadows lingering in the archway, as if fearful of the bright sunlight in the ring. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

Cassian could have sworn Nesta’s fingers stalled on the laces of her boots. He drawled, “Nothing at all. We’re starting on hand-to-hand combat.”

“My least favorite,” Azriel said.

Toeing off her boots, Nesta asked, “Why?”

Az observed her, striding barefoot into the ring. “I like swordplay better. Hand-to-hand is too close for my tastes.”

“He doesn’t like getting a face full of someone’s armpit sweat,” Cassian said, chuckling.

Azriel rolled his eyes but didn’t deny it.

Nesta watched the shadowsinger with a frankness that most people shied from. Azriel returned the look with a stillness that most people ran from.

Even Feyre had been hesitant around Az initially, but Nesta considered him with the same unflinching assessment she laid upon everyone.

Maybe that was why Azriel had never said a bad word about Nesta. Never seemed inclined to start a fight with her. She saw him, and was not afraid of him. There weren’t many people who fit that bill.

Nesta said, “Show me how you two fight.” Azriel blinked, but she added, “I want to know what I’m up against.” When neither of them said anything, she asked, “What I saw in battle was different, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Cassian said. “A variation of what we do here, but it requires a different sort of fighting.” Shadows clouded her eyes, as if the memory of those battlefields haunted her. He said, “We won’t start battle training for a while yet.” Years, probably. Az was watching her as if he, too, had marked the shadows in her eyes. Cassian asked him, “You want to do a little sparring? It’s been a while since I wiped the floor with you.”

He needed to get the energy out—the lingering, addling desire from last night. Needed to burn it from his body through movement and breath.

Az rolled a shoulder, unruffled and calm, eyes glittering as if he marked Cassian’s need to expel that coiled-up energy. But Az peeled off his jacket and his shirt, leaving the Siphons atop the backs of his hands, anchored in place around the wrist and through a loop on his middle finger. Cassian did the same as he removed his own shirt.

Nesta’s stare seared him from across the ring. Cassian might have flexed his stomach muscles as he approached the chalk-lined circle. Az shook his head and muttered, “Pathetic, Cass.”

Cassian winked, nodding to his brother’s equally muscled stomach. “Where have you been exercising these days?”

“Here,” Azriel said. “At night.” After he returned from spying on their enemies.

“Can’t sleep?” Cassian took up a fighting stance.

A shadow curled around Azriel’s neck, the only one brave enough to face the sunlight. “Something like that,” he said, and settled into his own stance across from Cassian.

Cassian let it drop, knowing Az would have told him already if he’d wanted to share what had been hounding him enough to exercise at night, rather than in the morning with them. Cassian explained to Nesta, who stood a few feet outside the chalk ring, “We’ll go full speed, then stop, and I’ll break it down for you. All right?”

He needed to expunge this energy before he’d dare let himself be that close to her.

Nesta crossed her arms, face so neutral he wondered for a moment if he’d dreamed some wild fantasy last night of his head between her legs.

Shaking off the thought, he again looked to Az. Their eyes met, Az’s face as unreadable as Nesta’s, and Cassian gave a nod. Begin.

It started with footwork: a slow circling, an assessment, waiting for the other to reveal his first move.

Cassian knew Az’s tricks. Knew which side Az favored and how he liked to strike.

The problem was, Az knew all of his techniques and shortcomings, too.

They circled each other again, Cassian’s feet pounding a steady beat on the dry ground.

“Well?” he asked Az. “Why don’t you show me what all that nighttime brooding has resulted in?”

Tags: Sarah J. Maas A Court of Thorns and Roses
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