2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

His laugh rumbled against me. Eyes closed, the wind roaring like a wild animal, I
adjusted my position, gripping him tighter. My knuckles brushed one of his wings—
smooth and cool like silk, but hard as stone with it stretched taut.
Fascinating. I blindly reached again … and dared to run a fingertip along some inner
edge.
Rhysand shuddered, a soft groan slipping past my ear. “That,” he said tightly, “is very
sensitive.”
I snatched my finger back, pulling away far enough to see his face. With the wind, I had
to squint, and my braided hair ripped this way and that, but—he was entirely focused on
the mountains around us. “Does it tickle?”
He flicked his gaze to me, then to the snow and pine that went on forever. “It feels like
this,” he said, and leaned in so close that his lips brushed the shell of my ear as he sent a
gentle breath into it. My back arched on instinct, my chin tipping up at the caress of that
breath.
“Oh,” I managed to say. I felt him smile against my ear and pull away.
“If you want an Illyrian male’s attention, you’d be better off grabbing him by the balls.
We’re trained to protect our wings at all costs. Some males attack first, ask questions later,
if their wings are touched without invitation.”
“And during sex?” The question blurted out.
Rhys’s face was nothing but feline amusement as he monitored the mountains. “During
sex, an Illyrian male can find completion just by having someone touch his wings in the
right spot.”
My blood thrummed. Dangerous territory; more lethal than the drop below. “Have you
found that to be true?”
His eyes stripped me bare. “I’ve never allowed anyone to see or touch my wings during
sex. It makes you vulnerable in a way that I’m not … comfortable with.”
“Too bad,” I said, staring out too casually toward the mighty mountain that now
appeared on the horizon, towering over the others. And capped, I noted, with that
glimmering palace of moonstone.
“Why?” he asked warily.
I shrugged, fighting the upward tugging of my lips. “Because I bet you could get into
some interesting positions with those wings.”
Rhys loosed a barking laugh, and his nose grazed my ear. I felt him open his mouth to
whisper something, but—
Something dark and fast and sleek shot for us, and he plunged down and away,
swearing.
But another one, and another, kept coming.