Chapter 1499: Awe-struck

"Yes. Can we become one at last?"

Phei didn’t answer right away. He simply looked at Catrina, at the shy hope in her eyes and the way her fingers had tightened around his as if she was afraid he might change his mind, a slow smile spread across his face.

"Yes," he said softly. "At last, my love."

Catrina let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for weeks.

Then, before he could rise, she leaned forward and kissed him, quick and warm and a little clumsy. When she pulled back, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright with something that looked suspiciously like a plan.

"Not here," she whispered.

"I didn’t think so."

"Give me thirty minutes." She rose from the couch and smoothed her dress with hands that weren’t quite steady. "Then come to my room."

Phei raised an eyebrow. "Thirty minutes?"

"Thirty." She hesitated, then added, very seriously, "Don’t be early."

"Why would I be early?"

Catrina gave him a look that said she knew him far too well, then turned and slipped away through the crowd. She glanced back at him once over her shoulder before she disappeared, and the look she gave him in that single moment, nervous and certain and full of promise, stayed with him long after she was gone.

Those were the longest thirty minutes of the Young Dragon’s life.

He tried to rejoin the party. He really did. He made conversation, he laughed in the right places, and he even managed to hold a full discussion about something he would never remember afterward. But his thoughts kept drifting down the hallway and up the stairs to a closed bedroom door and whatever Catrina was doing behind it.

More than once he checked the time.

More than once he caught himself starting toward the door and had to turn around.

"Don’t be early," she’d said.

He was not early.

He was exactly on time, which he felt deserved some form of recognition.

The hallway outside her room was quiet, Phei stopped before her door and stood there for a moment, his hand on the handle, his heart beating a little harder than a man who had faced gods and monsters had any right to admit.

He opened the door and stepped inside.

Phei had expected Catrina’s bedroom to be quiet.

He had not expected it to feel so intimate that closing the door behind himself seemed to remove the rest of the world.

The latch settled with a soft click, and everything beyond the room became distant.

Warm amber lamps glowed beside the bed, and their light spilled across cream-colored sheets, antique wood and pale curtains that breathed gently beneath the evening breeze. The balcony doors had been left slightly open and carried cool air through the room together with Catrina’s perfume, that familiar floral sweetness he usually caught only when she leaned against him or buried herself somewhere beneath his chin.

Tonight it filled the bedroom.

It filled his lungs.

Phei stopped with one hand still resting against the door when he saw her.

Catrina sat sideways upon the carved chair beside her bed, one hand braced delicately against the upholstered seat while the other rested upon her thigh. She had obviously been waiting for him, although the moment his eyes settled on her, some of the courage behind that decision immediately began to betray her.

’Gods.’

Her dark hair had been gathered into a loose updo that looked carefully imperfect, black curls pinned high while several softer strands escaped to frame her cheeks and brush the elegant line of her neck. A tiny silver butterfly glittered among her hair whenever she moved. Long earrings trembled beneath her ears.

Her lips were painted a soft, warm red, glossy enough to make Phei’s attention settle there for several extremely unproductive seconds; his gaze descended.

And whatever remained of productive thought quietly packed its belongings and left.

Catrina wore black satin and lace.

The thin fabric began around her chest and fit close enough to lovingly follow every soft curve before it narrowed around a waist Phei had already discovered fit dangerously well beneath his hands. From there her hips flared out wide and round like the curve of a cello, and the satin poured over them with a smooth dark sheen, clinging to their sway with every small shift of her body before it ended high along her thighs beneath a delicate border of black lace.

Her legs were almost entirely bare, long, smooth and warm beneath the amber light, one crossed slightly behind the other as she sat there waiting for him.

The back of the dress was considerably worse.

’Or better.’

Phei had temporarily lost the moral framework necessary to decide.

Almost all of Catrina’s back had been left bare. Only a handful of narrow black straps crossed the smooth expanse of skin and met above the small of her back before the satin descended over the round curve of her hips. Her shoulders were uncovered, her spine exposed almost completely, and every tiny movement changed the way the warm light travelled over her body.

There was nothing vulgar about it.

She looked soft. Femininely reserved and warm.

With her personality Phei knew she had spent far too long deciding exactly how she wanted the man she loved to see her when he entered her bedroom.

Phei’s throat moved.

Catrina’s lips twitched: "You’re starin so much love."

"I am."

She blinked, apparently having expected at least the dignity of denial but Phei did not possess any. His gaze marveled over her again, slowly enough this time that the blush beginning along Catrina’s cheeks spread down her neck.

"Phei..."

"Give me a second."

"For what?"

"I had thoughts when I came in."

She tried not to smile. "And?"

"You murdered them."

A little laugh slipped from her, warm but nervous, and Phei finally moved away from the door.

His steps were slow... Catrina watched him approach, and the closer he came, the more obvious her nervousness became. Her fingers curled slightly against the chair. One bare thigh pressed against the other. Her breathing had already become just a little too careful for someone determined to appear calm.

Phei stopped directly before her.

Up close, she was devastatingly breathtaking and hard to look away from.

The satin shaped her body beautifully; it held close around her chest before it drew inward beneath it and followed the soft curve of her waist. Her skin carried that faint warm glow people only possessed beneath bedroom lighting, and the perfume resting against her throat was considerably stronger from here.

Phei’s eyes lowered again.

Catrina followed them. "You’re doing it again."

"I know."

"Shameless."

"Look at what you’re wearing."

"You don’t like it?"

There was enough uncertainty beneath the question to make him finally look back into her eyes.

Phei’s expression softened. "No."

Catrina’s face fell immediately.

But his hand slid around her waist and pulled her gently forward.

His mouth found hers. The tiny offended sound she made disappeared into the kiss.

Phei kissed her slowly; one hand rested firmly against the narrow warmth of her waist while the other came up to cup her cheek. There was hunger in him, plenty of it, but he kept it beneath gentleness and let his lips move over hers with patient pressure while Catrina’s surprise slowly dissolved.

Her fingers found his chest, his shoulders. By the time she finally relaxed against him, she was kissing him back with a softness that carried considerably more feeling than technique.

Phei drew away barely an inch.

"I do not like it, I love it!" he murmured against her lips.

Catrina breathed against him.

"Asshole."

"I panicked."

"You don’t panic."

"You weren’t dressed like this the last time I checked."

She tried to glare at him but Phei kissed her again, longer this time and deeper in feeling.

Catrina’s fingers tightened against his shoulders as his hand moved from her waist to the exposed skin of her back. His fingertips traced slowly between the thin straps and followed the delicate line of her spine before they spread across the small of her back.

Her entire body shivered; a soft breath escaped against his mouth.

Phei immediately felt the change between them.

Something warm settled into the kiss.

The teasing remained, but beneath it came that quiet pull they had both been circling for far too long. Catrina leaned closer until there was barely any space left between them, and Phei became acutely aware of the soft press of her body against his, the warmth that gathered between them and the way her breath changed every time his hand moved.

His mouth left hers.

Catrina inhaled sharply when his lips touched her cheek instead, her jaw, beneath her ear.

Her head tilted instinctively. Phei kissed the delicate skin there and felt her fingers slide into his hair.

"Phei~" There was already a tremor in his name.

He kissed lower, the curve of her neck, her shoulder; the small hollow above her collarbone.

Catrina’s eyes closed as Phei’s hands moved slowly around her body; one traced the bare length of her back while the other settled at her waist before it drifted over the curve of her hip.

Her breath caught and Phei paused there.

His palm rested against her hip through the thin satin and fit against the curve as naturally as though he had been meant to hold her there.

Catrina opened her eyes.

The look she gave him made the room feel several degrees warmer.

Phei’s thumb moved once over her hip: "You’re trying to kill me."

Her lips parted in a small smile. "With a dress?"

"With everything."

’That blush again,’ he loved that blush.

Phei bent and kissed her shoulder once more, slower this time, then followed the exposed line toward her upper back. Catrina’s hands remained in his hair while his mouth moved over skin usually hidden beneath dresses, shirts and the ordinary modesty of daytime.

Tonight she had given him all that bare warmth deliberately.

And he treated it like something precious.

Each kiss landed separately; to her shoulder, the smooth skin between the straps, the curve beside her shoulder blade to the back of her neck. Phei’s fingertips traced the same path afterward each trace was full of pleasure; they never hurried, and they learned her slowly through touch until Catrina’s breathing had lost whatever careful rhythm she had brought into the room.

"Mmm~" A little whimper escaped her when he kissed beneath her ear again.

She immediately pressed her lips together.

Phei smiled against her skin. "Was that you?"

"No."

"Of course."

"Don’t start."

"I’m being serious."

"You are smiling."

"I can be serious and delighted."

Catrina tried to push his shoulder. He caught her hand and kissed her palm. Phei turned her hand over and kissed the inside of her wrist too, to her knuckles, each small gesture unexpectedly tender after all that simmering want.

Catrina watched him.

Something in her expression softened enough to hurt.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Tell me."

"You’re making this difficult."

"What?"

"I wanted to seduce you."

Phei glanced deliberately over the black satin. "Mission accomplished."

She laughed under her breath. "I mean properly."

"That sounds ominous."

"I had everything planned."

"Everything?"

Catrina’s face immediately reddened.

Phei grinned.

"Yes," she muttered. "And then you came in and started looking at me like—"

She stopped.

"Like what?"

Her eyes lowered: "Like I’m already yours."