My Taboo Harem!

Phei had known Sienna for years but he had never expected or even imagine her sitting on his lap with her breath unsteady and her mouth softened by her first real kiss, looking at him as if something inside her had opened and she did not yet know whether to guard it or give it.

His hand tightened gently at her waist. "Sienna."

Her lashes trembled. "What?"

He looked at her like the answer should have been obvious. "You are so beautiful."

She blinked once, slowly, then looked away at once. "No."

"No?"

"That is an unnecessary statement."

"It is very necessary."

"It changes nothing."

"It changed your face."

"It did not."

"Your ears disagree."

Her hand came up at once to cover one ear, and then she realized what she had done, her lips pressed together, and then she leaned forward and hid her face against his shoulder.

Phei’s hand stopped halfway to her back.

This was Sienna hiding in him.

His hand came down slowly and stayed there, flat, without roaming or chasing the heat still moving between them; she breathed against him, quiet and controlled, though each breath carried the faintest tremor.

"You do not have to know what to do," he murmured.

Her voice came muffled against his shoulder. "I know."

"You do not have to rush."

"I know."

"You do not have to pretend with me."

She was silent for a long time before she said, barely audible, "That is the problem."

Phei held her for a long time. Not because he did not want more. That would have been a lie so offensive even the library shelves might have objected. He wanted more. He wanted Sienna with a hunger that had grown teeth the moment she kissed him and then tried to hide in his shoulder like her own courage had embarrassed her.

He wanted the cold girl in his lap, the Ice Robot whose lips had trembled against his, whose soft little sounds still echoed inside his blood with dangerous persistence.

He wanted to lower his hands from the safe line of her back, to trace the waist hidden beneath her starlit gown, to learn how much of that aloofness would survive if he touched her the way a woman should be touched by someone who loved her.

But he held himself in check with iron will. His cock was already hard beneath her, thick and against the fabric of his trousers, pressed intimately against the curve of her ass through the layers of her star-blue gown, over her goddess crack.

Every small shift of her weight on his lap sent sparks of heat through him. He could feel the warmth of her body seeping through the silk and onto his cock too, the faint tremor in her slender thighs where they bracketed his.

He wanted to grip her hips, grind up into her, make her feel exactly how badly he wanted her — but he didn’t. He simply held her, breathing slowly through the hunger, letting her feel safe in the cage of his arms.

Sienna remained against him, face hidden near his shoulder, fingers still lightly gathered at his collar. The library’s amber light wrapped around them in quiet gold.

Her breath was warm and uneven against the side of his neck — soft, slightly shaky exhales that betrayed how affected she was.

Every so often a tiny, almost inaudible sound escaped her — a soft hum or a caught breath — as if even the simple act of being held like this was overwhelming her carefully maintained composure.

After a while, Phei lowered his voice. "Sienna."

She did not lift her head. "What?"

"You can undress me."

She went still completely:

Her entire body locked against him.

The breath against his neck paused completely for a long second before returning in a thinner, faster rhythm. Her fingers, which had been resting lightly at his collar, curled tighter into the fabric, knuckles whitening. He felt the sudden tension in her slender thighs where they pressed against his hips, the way her ass shifted the tiniest fraction on his lap as if she were fighting the urge to either flee or press closer.

Phei felt her fingers tighten near his collar. Her breath paused against his neck, then returned thinner than before.

He smiled faintly, though she could not see it. "Only my shirt."

"That clarification was unnecessary."

"It felt wise since you froze."

"I was considering."

"Very intensely."

She lifted her head at last... her fingers betrayed everything as they rested against his shirt, but hesitant.

Her lips, still slightly swollen from their earlier kisses, parted on a soft, unsteady breath. She looked painfully young and devastatingly beautiful in that moment — the ancient goddess and the girl who had never been touched like this warring in the same body.

Phei watched quietly before she lowered her gaze to his shirt, it was just her fingers that curled lightly into black cloth, her body still seated on his lap; she was not willing to tell him how much she wanted this to continue.

But she wanted it:

Cold and aloof as she was, Sienna still felt pleasure and still understood, somewhere beneath all that ancient distance and guarded pride, what making love with someone dear could mean. She knew what intimacy was supposed to be, even if knowledge had never turned into experience.

She knew the idea of it. The hunger of it. The fantasies of it.

And it would have been a lie to say she had never had them;

At least in this life.

Phei had been the source of those fantasies.

And that my friends was the part she would rather die before admitting:

It was not because Phei had become beautiful, though gods, his beauty had become a problem.

A problem with amethyst eyes, black-white authority, and a body that had been disturbing her thoughts for weeks now with increasing disrespect: It was not only because he had awakened into power, into presence women turned toward before they noticed their bodies had betrayed them.

Those things mattered. She was not blind.

Very unfortunately.

But Phei had been special to her long before his beauty sharpened into something almost divine and before women began gathering around him with hungry eyes and soft voices and before the Young Dragon became something the world would one day fear.

He had been special because of what they were supposed to be to each other.

Yes. That was part of it. But not all. Never all.

Phei had been her first love.

Actually, he had been her only lover; another thing she would have to die before confessing. Twice, if necessary.

What would he think if she told him? That the cold girl who insulted him for breathing incorrectly had loved him long before any of them understood the shape of their lives? That before Kozuki, Phei’s annoying childhood sweetheart with her place in his past, before Nastya made him vow to marry her, before all those women found their way to him, Sienna had already been there!

She knew them. All of them. Kozuki. Nastya. The others.

She knew the lines tied to him, the old promises, the new claims, the history wrapped around his life like stubborn vines. But she was the first.

But she felt the strange triumph of coming first before Kozuki did.

Petty? Perhaps. Beneath her dignity? Absolutely. True? Sadly, yes.

As it turned out, Sienna too had competition inside her heart.

Kozuki. Annoying girl. One day, when the shape of everything was clearer and the buried truths of tonight no longer had to wear silence, Sienna would rub this in her face. Tastefully. Cruelly. With excellent timing.

For now, however, she had a more immediate problem. Phei’s shirt.

Sienna drew in a deeper breath then lifted the hem.

Phei raised his arms and the shirt slid upward over his abdomen, then his chest, then his shoulders, before she pulled it free and let it fall beside them.

And then she forgot to breathe.

Phei sat before her bare from the waist up.

Sienna had known he had a good body. Obviously. Again, not blind.

She had seen enough hints through tight gym clothes, casual shirts, fitted suits and the general unfairness of existence. She had known he was lean and strong, that his body had been shaped by his real bloodline, awakening and whatever divine cruelty had decided his face had not caused enough damage already.

But knowing was useless. Seeing him like this, this close, with nothing between her eyes and the body she had imagined far too often, was something else entirely.

Her violet eyes widened, then darkened as they drank in the sight of him. His chest was broad and powerfully shaped, the muscles clean and defined under warm, golden skin that caught the amber library light in soft highlights and deep shadows. His shoulders were wide and strong without bulk, the lines of his collarbones elegant and sharp.

His abdomen was ridged with hard, carved muscle that flexed subtly with every breath he took — and lower still, the thick, unmistakable outline of his hard thing pressed against the pants straining visibly from how she sat on his lap. The sight made her flood between her own thighs, her pussy clenching involuntarily around nothing. Her blush, already deep, spread violently down her throat and across the tops of her breasts.

Sienna nearly covered her face.

His chest was strong and cleanly shaped, broad enough to make her fingers hesitate. His shoulders carried power without heaviness, his arms lean with coiled strength, his abdomen defined in hard lines that drew the amber light into shadow and made every breath he took look obscene in its own restrained way.

He looked warm. Living, he looked touchable to Sienna.