My Taboo Harem!

Several women nearby felt a sudden warmth low in their bellies, a flush rising up their throats, thighs pressing together without conscious thought. Zara near the bar suddenly found her drink very interesting and turned away, her face reddening.

Dravenna felt it most clearly and her jade eyes sharpened.

Her body did not collapse into primitive submission; she was powerful, far too powerful, too proud, too old in experience and dangerous in spirit to be reduced by a passive pressure like some giggling girl with no spine.

But she felt him.

Phei saw it in the tiny pause of her breath.

The near-invisible tightening at her exposed waist, the way the silk over her breasts rose a fraction faster with each inhale, the subtle shift of her hips as if her body remembered exactly how it had felt to be pulled against him.

The Young Dragon was not asking now but asserting himself.

Dravenna smiled; she loved this side of him.

"Not a relationship that I would know of," Phei said, voice low. "And I am part of that family, no?"

Her smile did not change, but he knew she understood.

He was not only flirting but digging, into her, Sienna and the many secrets the Ryujin Tiamat family hid from him and whatever old connection that made her appear tonight. Phei’s pursuit of what had been hidden from him by his family had not stopped just because a woman showed up in a dress that made his blood argue with his brain.

Dravenna leaned in slightly.

"Should I be on my way, then?" she asked. "Since I was not invited."

For a moment, no one spoke.

"Nonsense," he said, all charm and tempting again. "Do not take my words so seriously, Dean."

Just like that, the unfurling weight of his presence folded back into him.

Conversations resumed and bodies relaxed.

Dravenna watched him with new interest.

Elena, who had shifted just far enough to avoid being crushed between whatever that was, lifted one hand and fanned herself with exaggerated delicacy:

"For a minute there," she said, "I thought I was watching divorced lovers meet for my custody hearing."

Phei turned to her.

Elena’s dress tonight was dark and fitted; the fabric hugged her slender figure with deceptive softness; Little Virgin Succubus indeed. There was nothing vulgar about her but she had the dangerous beauty of a girl who could look innocent while making men invent sins. Her waist was narrow, her hips softly shaped beneath the fabric, her lips curved with mischief she pretended was intelligence.

The dress clung just enough to prove innocence was usually a styling choice, not a fact.

Phei slid to her side and pressed a kiss to her cheek and held her in his arms feeling the slimness if her waist and her entire body pressed on him. Its been so long since he was alone with just her since that morning in her room.

"Elena," he murmured, "you wound me. Divorced lovers? I would never let a woman this beautiful divorce me before the first proper scandal."

Elena’s eyes flicked to him, amusement glowing. "You are impossible."

Dravenna’s gaze narrowed at them.

"Get a room," she said.

Elena turned toward her aunt with a smile too sweet to be harmless. "Aunt, is that jealousy I sense?"

"Dream on," Dravenna said with a laugh.

Phei looked at Dravenna, then back to Elena.

"Should I steal her?" he asked, voice low enough to curl around the words. "Or is stealing the hot aunt before the niece bad manners?"

Elena’s smile faltered for half a second.

"It is not for free," she whispered.

Then, because she was far more dangerous than her soft face suggested, she rose onto her toes and pressed a quick kiss to Phei’s lips and not shyly.

Then she slipped away before he could answer, leaving only the faint scent of her perfume and the sight of her dress moving over her hips as she walked back toward the others.

Dravenna’s voice came beside him.

"Beautiful, isn’t she?"

Phei did not look away immediately. "Very."

"Careful. That one is more dangerous than she looks."

"I know." He turned back to Dravenna. "She is an Ashford after all."

Dravenna’s smile lifted. "Good answer."

"Not my best."

"No?"

"No." Phei let his gaze travel over her again, slower now, because pretending not to look would have insulted them both. "My best answer is that I still think one of the hottest woman in this room is the one pretending she did not dress like that to start a private audience with me. That ivory silk is doing things to your body that I should be doing instead. It clings to your breasts like it’s trying to memorize the shape of them, then falls away just enough to show me that waist I already know the feel of. And that slit..." His voice dropped. "Every time you move, it flashes a leg like it’s begging me to slide my hand up it."

Dravenna’s expression did not break but her eyes changed.

Then it vanished beneath jade pride.

"You flatter too easily."

"No. I admire accurately."

"Do you?"

"That gown is not flattering you, Dean. It is losing." He stepped closer again, but this time without the heavier force of his aura. Just him. Voice. Eyes. Hunger. "It tries to look divine and ends up advertising your beauty."

Dravenna’s lips parted slightly. Barely. But Phei saw the way her chest rose faster beneath the silk over her breasts tightened for just a second.

His smile turned darker.

"And your back," he continued, voice lower. "Leaving it bare like that; your beautiful silver hair over naked skin. And you think I wouldn’t have strange ideas of what I could do with my hands and mouth given our history."

Dravenna’s fingers tightened around the small purse in her hand.

Then she laughed softly. "You have become even more shameless."

"I was always shameless."

"No," she said. "You were hungry and lustful but now you added new things to it."

Phei’s gaze dipped to her mouth.

"Then perhaps I can have become both; both your body and mind?"

Dravenna held his stare, proud and still, but the air between them thickened again. Not with dominance this time; with memory, office make out and denied endings; a promise never fulfilled; she who had stepped too close once and then vanished and dragon who had waited until waiting began to feel like foolishness.

"You said you would call," Phei said.

Dravenna’s eyes cooled, but not enough. "And you waited?"

"I did."

"Poor boy."

His smile sharpened. "Not anymore."

Elena, safely away now, watched from beside Jade with open fascination. And she was not the only one keeping private score of it — across the lounge, the watching had become its own quiet event. Maddie had abandoned an entire conversation mid-sentence to lean against the bar and observe with the focus of a scholar witnessing history. Yuki had drifted close enough to hear and was failing to hide her delight.

Even Cassiopeia, who watched everything as threat first and entertainment never, had let her gaze rest on the pair a beat longer than security required, which from Cassiopeia was practically applause.

Amber whispered, "This is worse than the birthday."

Jade murmured, "No. This is better."

Gianna nodded faintly. "Much better."

*

Dravenna tilted her head. "You sound upset."

"I am not upset."

"Then what are you?"

Phei leaned in:

"Done being polite."

Dravenna’s lashes lowered for one breath.

When she looked back up to meet his eyes, her jade eyes gleamed; there was the Dragoness of Paradise not the Dean:

The dragon; proud, dangerous, tempted, and furious that temptation had a face she wanted to touch again.

Seeing that, Phei smiled: "I need to talk to you in private."

"How direct."

"I am improving."

"Improving or getting worse?"

"Depends how much you enjoy or fear being cornered alone with me."

Dravenna laughed softly. "And where exactly did you have in mind?"

Phei’s gaze moved around over the penthouse, Dravenna followed his glance, then looked back at him.

"It better be concealed enough," she said, lifting her chin. "I would not want the others to hear you being scolded."

Phei’s stepped closer, just enough for the space between them to become almost indecent.

"Scolded?" he repeated.

Dravenna smiled.

"Isn’t that what teachers do to difficult boys?"

Phei looked down at her mouth.

"Careful, Dean," he said softly. "I stopped being a difficult boy the moment you forgot to call."

Her smile held as Phei offered his hand but it was not a gentleman’s performance; rather a command wrapped in courtesy.

Dravenna looked at it, she seemed to hesitate.

Not because she feared him:

Because she knew that taking his hand meant admitting the game had changed.

Phei waited, predatorily.

And when Dravenna finally placed her fingers in his, the heat that passed between them was not romance but unfinished business between them and the promise that the moment they were alone, that ivory silk was going to learn exactly how little patience the Young Dragon had left.