Her knees wavered and he felt it; the slight buckle, the softening, the structural failure of a girl whose legs were forgetting how to hold weight because his hand was on her hip and his voice was in her ear and every cell in her body was rerouting power from standing upright to the urgent business of feeling.

His hand beneath her chin shifted, his fingers slid into her hair; gentle, threading through the strands at her temple with the kind of care that made her want to weep, his palm cradling the side of her head like something precious and breakable.

He tilted her face toward him until her mouth was inches from his.

Close enough to kiss and she could feel the warm fan of his breath across her swollen, parted lips; not kissing her was its own exquisite cruelty of a deliberate withholding that made her whimper again, higher, needier, the sound vibrating in the charged sliver of air between them.

"I know," he said softly.

Her eyes flew open. Glassy. Wet.

"I know you’re soaking wet right now, Cat."

His words landed in her stomach like something detonating.

Her whole body flushed — not just her face, her chest, her throat, but a wave of scarlet heat that spread across every inch of visible skin and sank deeper, igniting the already slick folds between her thighs until she could feel the fresh rush of wetness soaking through her panties and clinging to the insides of her legs.

’He knows I am dripping and my thighs are leaking... wait, is that making sense?’

Point was, Phei knew the nightie was the only fragile barrier between him and the evidence of exactly how badly she wanted him, and he was standing here saying it out loud in that low, warm, devastating voice while his hand traced her hip and his fingers threaded through her hair and she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think, she could only feel —

"I know you want to let go," he continued, his thumb stroking a slow arc behind her ear that sent shivers cascading down her spine. "I can feel it. Your whole body is begging, even if your mouth can’t find the words yet."

"B-Boss — I — please — I need —"

"What do you need?"

"I need — more — please — I can’t — it’s too —"

His hand left her hip and trailed back up across her stomach — slow, pressing, his palm flat against the warmth of her through thin fabric, the heat of him sinking in like a second heartbeat — then higher, his fingers tracing the delicate underside of her ribs, the fragile architecture of bone beneath soft skin.

His touch was so close to where she needed it and so deliberately not there that a sob caught in her throat, her nipples aching so fiercely against the nightie that the fabric felt like torture.

"Too much?" he asked.

She shook her head frantically. "Not — not enough — Boss, please —"

"Please what?"

"Please touch me — more — I’ll do anything — just —"

Her voice broke and the fragments scattered into the golden light like shrapnel, each one carrying a different shade of desperation — Boss, and please, and more, and sounds that weren’t words at all, just the raw wet vocabulary of a girl whose body had been lit on fire by a man who was using nothing but his fingertips and his voice and the devastating patience of someone who understood that the waiting was the pleasure.

His hand settled on the side of her neck with his palm warm against her throat, not pressing, not squeezing — just there.

His thumb rested against the pulse that hammered beneath her jaw, feeling every wild beat, every desperate surge, counting the pace of her want by the rhythm of her blood.

The simple act of holding her life in his hand while he spoke to her so softly made something inside her unravel further; she could feel her own heartbeat against his skin, how fast and frantic it was, and the knowledge that he could feel it too — that he was measuring her desire in real time — sent another helpless rush of slickness between her thighs.

"Do you feel that?" he murmured. "Your own heartbeat?"

She nodded. Tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. Not sad tears — overwhelmed tears from sensation exceeded capacity and the body had to release pressure through whatever valve was nearest.

"That’s how much you want this." His thumb pressed against her pulse — gentle, warm, possessive. "Your body already knows. Your body decided a long time ago. The only thing still catching up is your voice."

Catrina broke.

Her body fell forward into his chest. Her arms wrapped around his torso with her face pressed into the hollow of his neck — the same place Maddie had been drooling an hour ago, now occupied by a trembling girl pressing her wet eyes and her open mouth against his skin while her body shook and her hips ground forward against him and her fingers clawed into his bare back.

"Please," she breathed against his throat. "Please, Boss, I can’t — I want you so much it hurts — please just take me — I’m yours — I’ve always been yours — please —"

The words poured out of her in a broken stream — half-sob, half-confession, hot and damp against his skin.

She was pressed flush against him now, her body molded to his, and he could feel everything — the wet heat of her breath, the desperate grip of her fingers, the warmth radiating from between her thighs where she was soaked through the nightie and pressing herself against his leg with the shameless, grinding need of a woman who was past dignity and past composure and past every single wall she’d ever built between herself and wanting.

The slick evidence of her arousal left a damp patch on his trousers where she rocked against him, and the knowledge of it — that she was marking him with her desperation — only made her grind harder, her hips moving in small, helpless circles as if her body were trying to crawl inside his through sheer need.

Phei’s arms closed around her. Held her. Steady. His chin resting on her head. His hands firm on her back. Letting her shake. Letting her cling and her grind against him if she needed to while she pressed her tear-streaked face against his neck, letting her body say everything her mouth was still scrambling to articulate.

Then — when her breathing slowed by a fraction, when the shaking eased just enough for her to hear him — he spoke.

"Do you want me this much, Cat?"

She nodded against his chest. Frantic. Desperate.

"I can’t hear a nod."

A whimper.

"Use your words. One sentence. Tell me what you want me to take."

Silence. Breathing. The wet sound of her lips parting against his neck. Her fingers digging deeper into his back. Her whole body gathering itself — pulling courage from his heartbeat, from his warmth, from the steady unyielding presence of him holding her while she found the words that would change everything.

She pulled back; just far enough to look up at him, her face flushed and tear-streaked and ruined and more beautiful for the ruin, her eyes dark and bright and holding his with the ferocious, trembling conviction of a girl who had decided that if she was going to be brave she was going to be completely fucking brave.

"I want you to take my virginity."

Every word. Complete; her voice shaking but whole, each syllable landing between them like something forged in heat and carried through fire to arrive here, in this golden room, in this golden morning, in the three inches of charged air between her mouth and his.

Phei looked at her.

His thumb found her cheek and wiped the tear-track there slow and gentle, the pad of his finger following the silver line from beneath her eye to the corner of her jaw.

Something shifted in his gaze. Not heat — though heat was there, banked and patient and burning steady. Something deeper that looked, from this close, very much like pride.

"Good girl," he said softly.

Catrina’s knees gave out.

He caught her.

His arms were already there, already strong and sure, already lifting her as though she weighed nothing at all.

One of his arm slid beneath her knees, the other cradled her back, and he held her against his chest like something he had been waiting his entire life to claim; her head fell against his shoulder, her breath still coming in shattered little gasps, her fingers still curled into his skin even as her body went soft and pliant in his hold.

He could feel the wet pussy through the nightie where it pressed against his stomach, could smell the sweet, musky proof of her arousal, could feel the fine tremors still running through her like aftershocks.

And in that moment — with this brave, broken, beautiful girl trembling in his arms and the words she had finally spoken still hanging in the golden air between them — Phei allowed himself one small, dark, utterly satisfied smile.

’Some surrenders,’ he thought, ’are worth every second of the wait.’

****

A/N: Thank you for waiting...