"Tell me if you want me to stop… or now… or now." His lips brushed against hers, gentle like a bird's wing, like a tiny heartbeat, but her blood was pounding furiously. Not gentle, not now Jace.

If you're going to fall, you might as well jump.

Clary wrapped her fingers in his hair and pulled his face to hers with a moan. They were kissing like they never had, the way they had not when they first met, the way they could not after finding out their true parentage, and the way they should not have in the Seelie Court. But now there was no one watching, and no one to care, no one to mind that while she had been reminding herself for days, hours, minutes, every goddamn second that this was wrong, it felt so right, a breath after being trapped beneath the ice.

His fingers tightened their grip on her hips, digging into her skin, and she clutched at his shoulders, trying to pull him closer, so they could never part again. Why was she so stupid, and he so mean? Why had they ever fought? Why—

Jace's fingers were moving under the hem of her shirt, circling the skin at the bottom of her stomach, and she breathed out every other thought in a long sigh. He was burning, feverish really, and she grabbed at his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders.

"Get off," Clary gasped, and for a moment he looked shocked. "Did I-hurt you Clary? What—" But she removed the jacket from his arms and he quickly caught on. Her hands made it before his to the bottom of his shirt, and together they pushed it off him. Finally, Jace before her. He was so beautiful; she could not bear him being apart from her. Clary ran her fingers down his chest, tracing the smooth planes, and he brought his mouth back to hers with a shudder. They would not be gentle with each other, because neither was fragile, and Jace fell back against her into the grass.

His lips were hot against hers and she never wanted him to stop. When he broke away from her she felt the loss like a bucket of ice water poured over her body, but he moved his mouth down her neck and she fell back into his warmth, into the sensation.

Jace reached down and fitted her hips more snugly against his own; she gasped into his mouth as it returned to her own, and slung her leg over his hip.

They were too close, and now a little warning light went off in the back of her head, somewhere in the cavernous, traitorous depths, a warning with Valentine's face seeing them and understanding them, pitying his children for their love. She swiped it away and kissed Jace harder.

Jace ran his fingers up her back, higher, until his hands were under her bra.

"Is this okay?" he asked uncertainly. Jace, who was never unsure, who still did not know how much Clary wanted him.

"Yes," she breathed as he unhooked the clasp.

Slowly, he pulled his hands back down to her waist, gripping the bottom of her t-shirt and sliding it back up over her skin. His gaze was searing over each bared inch of her stomach, but under his eyes, she didn't feel self-conscious. After all, Jace was shirtless too. That thought made her giggle, and he trained his focus back on her eyes.

"What's so funny?" He murmured. That feeling of wariness stirred in her again, the warning-Don't do this to yourself, Clary. Everything will hurt more when you realize you cannot get back to this moment.

"Nothing," she replied, a catch in her throat making the word come out more throatily than she'd intended. "Kiss me again."

He fell upon her and kissed her hungrily. Clary kissed him the same way, winding her fingers back into his golden hair. They wound closer together, fighting to crawl into each other, to press more deeply, to love more. Clary's heart ached with the thought.

Breaking away again, Jace heaved a gasping breath of the cool evening air, and pulled her shirt the rest of the way off. Clary freed her arms from her bra straps and cast the garment aside, gripping Jace's shoulders with both handstand pulling him back to her.

And they continued their winding, their togetherness, pulling closer and closer, Jace gasping against her mouth and Clary moaning into his. There had never been a moment like this one, there would never be another the same. Not for them. Nothing would ever compare to this, Clary thought. I will never get Jace again.

She ignored that thought and focused on the sensation of Jace's lips against hers, his hands on her chest, her left hand twined in his soft hair and her other fingers tracing indecent, intimate patterns down his back. They were so close, too close to think, to do anything but breath each other in and hope to never let go.

His fingers found their way lower, until they gripped her hips. She moaned and rolled her hips against his, arching her back away from the damp grass beneath them. Jace tracked his fingers along her stomach, dipping down... She leaned up into him, bracing her hands against the ground beneath her to angle her body against him, when something cold hit her chest.

Clary gasped and startled backwards. "Clary?" Jace asked. She shook her head, clearing it. "Your necklace, it hit me. Just took me by surprise."

He pulled it off from over his head and set in on his shirt on the grass next to them. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "Clary..." His voice was full of something warm-bodied and low, and private. But Clary's eyes were fixed on the heap of clothes next to them. A pattern of brilliant stars, for Morgenstern, for the fallen. For her. And for Jace. But she was a child of the light, and he...

"Stop, Jace." His hand froze where it was, running up and down her arm and over her collarbone. Her voice was serious enough that he pulled back as well.

"Do you want me?"

"Of course." His eyes danced with something like relief, some levity that his voice didn't betray. "Clary, wh-?"

"Do you want me, or do you think your demon blood wants me?"

"I-"

"What if you were just a Shadowhunter? What if you had angel blood? Could you want me then?"

He stared down at her furiously, jaw working as he attempted to digest this sudden change of pace.

"That's what I thought," Clary said a minute later, when he still hadn't spoken. "There's nothing real between us for you."

"Clary, that's not what I meant."

"Oh? What did you mean then?" She spun, snatching up her shirt and trying to find her bra. Screw that-she pulled on the t-shirt over her head. "Can you tell me that you aren't broken, that the demon blood isn't the reason you feel the way you do?" Because she had angel blood, and if she still wanted Jace, she must have been a very sick angel indeed. A true Morgenstern. Once again, she almost laughed, though there was nothing funny.

"Fine." Jace grabbed at his clothes from the pile on the ground, standing as he slid on his shirt.

"Well, we're screwed," he said viciously a moment later, just as Clary finished buttoning her jacket, as if putting more layers between their skin would undue what they had a lost done. "You must have dropped my stele somewhere in the grass. Looks like we're walking." And he set off without checking to see if she followed.

Come back, she wanted to say. But she couldn't, because she had been right. He believed he was dark, that everything between them was evil. That what she felt too was not golden or lovely. That his darkness seeped between the cracks of her skin and broke something in her, something that called toward him to smash it further and be done with their goddamn morals, though she had never felt more whole than she did with him.