"Phedre."

I turned. Knowing Joscelin's voice before seeing him enter into the doorway. He stood tall in the wooden doorframe of our bedchamber, an unreadable expression upon his face. Those summer blue eyes looked silver in the moonlight. And shone.

Emotion rose in my throat. I could not say why.

In two strides he was before me. The same tender, heartbreaking look in his eyes.

"Phedre.." He tried again, whispering it this time.

Though I had gazed up on it thousands of times, his face up close in the silvery moon was nearly too beautiful to bear. Fine silvery hair, the smooth plane of his forehead, the strong and exquisite cheekbones, graceful nose like marble, and his beautiful—and I had always thought—sensual mouth. And Elua! Those eyes – clear and crisp blue, beautiful, beautiful, heavy lidded with soft lashes, gazing at me with all the love that was possible in the world.

I knew.

Without a word, I wound my fingers into his silken hair and kissed him. He stiffened, then relented under my touch. His large hand spreading over the small of my back, soft lips opening to mine, tip of his tongue answering to my plea in his mouth. I deepened the kiss. A soft groan escaped his lips, as his hand at my back pushed me, hard, into his chest. Through the thin fabric of my night dress I felt his desire, rigid and pulsing at my stomach. It was enough to make me want to beg him to take me, right then and there, fully clothed.

But Naamah had bigger plans for us.

Tearing myself away from his kiss, I gazed upon him, silencing his word of protest with a finger held against his charming mouth. Not breaking my gaze, I slid down. My fingers finding the rim of his white linen breeches, and freed him with all the grace as the foremost courtesan trained of the Night Court. I performed the languisement that night with more devotion that I had ever laid before a patron, reaching such a love for the act that it was scarcely distinguishable where my body ended and his began. Bestowing, with my lips, throat and tongue, all the unbearable and unarticulated love I had for this man. My fingers wrapped about his throbbing length, mouth caressing, nurturing, his sculpted phallus, rigid and pulsing warmth… until Joscelin, with all his Casseline self-control, moaned aloud and reached down to lift me.

With trained fingers, skilled as a warrior wielding daggers, he unclothed me; still, I heard him draw a breath at the sight of my naked form. His eyes rippled with tenderness, and beneath it, that hard edge of desire only I've been privy to seeing in his clear gaze. His phallus strained, casting a rising shadow upon the flat planes of his abdomen.

My Joscelin, for all his profound gentleness. Was not gentle that night.

In a sweeping move too quick for even my trained eye to capture, Joscelin lifted me into the air, one hand hard on my waist, the other gripping the flesh of my buttocks. Instead of finding the soft silk of the bed sheets, my back made contact with the cold, hard slab of the chamber wall, pinned in place by Joscelin's sculpted chest.

Ah Elua! My blood sang in my veins, Kushiel's crimson haze with Naamah's bright glow suffusing into one, plucking the harp of my desire to an unbearable frequency. With gasping breaths and starving tongues, we clawed at each other, sheer bursting with desire, too desperate to be expressed.

My fingers, frantic, took his phallus and set it against my nether lips. The nectar of Naamah escaping from between my folds down the tip of Joscelin's shaft. His entire body tensed beneath my hand. "Phedre-!" he growled in my ear, his hand savagely cupping my breast, and in one powerful motion— he entered me, sheathed to the hilt. We both cried out at the impact— my burning insides taking him completely, while he filled me to such an exquisite length I could scarcely breathe.

"Joscelin-" I gasped, cupping his face, tears in my eyes.

He looked at me, moisture in his own soft gaze. That look. It was love. And tenderness. And so rarely seen that I had failed to name it before – utter vulnerability.

Gaze never leaving my face, his blue eyes searched mine for permission. Even after nearly a year since Darsanga, he still waited. The gesture broke my heart. Unable to speak, I nodded, tears in my eyes.

Then he began to move. Slowly, extracting himself, inch by torturous inch, until only the spongy tip fitted against my wetness, before re-entering again, filling me with his rigid, throbbing length, until I clawed at his back, whimpering obscene pleas against his collarbone.

Thus did it continue, Joscelin Vereuill, my Casseline, my beautiful, perfect companion and warrior, sheathing and unsheathing himself into me, our hips rocking, the muscles of his arms flexed taut with supporting my buttocks against the wall. He plunged, again and again, merciless in desire yet infinite in love, until the skin of my back was rubbed raw; until Kushiel and Naamah alike enshrouded us, in perfect union, absolute love. From somewhere over our heads, I felt Elua smile.

On and on it went, the feeling of him inside me utterly overwhelming, yet never enough.

I begged and moaned and wept for him to never stop, wanting so much of him that my heart might burst from it. I do not know how much time passed, I had lost all concept of time under Joscelin's worship. Then the entire world stood still and a pressure like a boiling tide rose from within me, breaking surface between our conjoined bodies, as I heard myself scream out my climax. In another swift thrust Joscelin froze, gasping, as he whispered my name, over and over, his own seed rising and growing in magnitude of a surging spring, his hard muscles tensing rigid under my hands, at last spending himself inside of me.

Thus did we make love that night.

Afterwards he was gentle, careful to the point of apologetic. Sitting beside me as I sprawled on my stomach in the bed, he examined the minor scrapes on my back from the rough stones of the wall, brushing them with his lips before tending them with salve. To this I merely grinned, I could not help myself. I am what I am, and could not hide my enjoyment of every delicious scrape and stinging cut. When he looked up, vulnerability and shame coloring his smooth face, I almost wished we were back at the wall all night, just so I can savor that look. Instead, I reached up and kissed him. Long and hard, until his spent body began to stir once more. And thus we made an end to that argument, and more.

We lay in the silken bed, limbs entangled, the heat of our bodies emanating into the soft air. The scent of the room sweet with the aftermath of our intimacy. Somewhere in that silvery, god-blessed night, I finally slept against Joscelin's chest, supporting me as surely as the earth itself.

And did not dream.