My Taboo Harem!

Her gaze dipped toward Delilah’s wrist.

Delilah’s fingers curled gently around the bracelet.

The red diamonds pressed against her palm.

For one sudden moment, she could feel Phei’s hands fastening it around her wrist again. Could hear his quiet request for permission before touching even something as simple as jewelry to her skin.

May I?

He had asked before fastening the bracelet and claiming her heart officially.

He had waited before taking anything else.

"And you?" Delilah asked softly.

Yuki’s fingers shifted against the steering wheel.

"I am conducting research."

"Yuki, you are jealous."

For a few moments, only the engine and the faint whisper of tires filled the cabin.

Then Yuki admitted, "Fine. You are right."

Delilah waited.

"I suppose I am somewhat... like Elena."

Delilah’s expression softened immediately.

"You compared yourself to Elena?"

"In one specific respect."

Delilah nodded for her to continue.

Yuki breathed in slowly.

"I went on a date with Phei at the aquarium and lunch afterward. He said he wanted to thank me for helping with the competition."

"That was the official reason."

"That was the stated purpose," Yuki corrected. "There is an important distinction. Official reasons are often lies wearing paperwork."

"But it did not remain the purpose."

"No."

Yuki’s voice became quieter.

"By the end, it had become us expressing what was going to grow between us after that day. We spoke honestly. Or as honestly as two people can speak while both pretending not to notice that every pause is becoming romantic."

"And you shared your first kiss I heard."

A faint flush rose beneath Yuki’s cheeks:"Yes."

Delilah smiled. "I remember that date. We were the ones who drove him to your estate before we left."

"Yes," Yuki said quickly. "Exactly. So you remember."

"I remember how you looked the next day."

Yuki’s eyes narrowed. "How did I look?"

"Happy."

"That is vague."

Delilah laughed.

Yuki kept her dignity with great courage and little success. "Since then," she continued, "Phei and I have shared kisses, hugs and intimate touches."

Delilah’s eyebrows lifted.

"But nothing extreme," Yuki added quickly. "Nothing beyond what I wanted."

"But nothing more?"

"No."

The answer carried no simple disappointment.

It held curiosity, restraint and the faint ache of Yuki as she had been watching other relationships deepen while she remained at the edge of a threshold she had not yet decided to cross.

Delilah studied her carefully.

"Or perhaps Phei knows you are not ready to go beyond that."

Yuki remained quiet then she nodded. "Yes... like I said, I am somewhat like Elena."

Delilah looked ahead toward the convoy.

"Elena has gone farther with him than I have," Yuki continued. "She said she has shared real naked, skin-to-skin intimacy with Phei and allowed herself to be vulnerable in ways most people would interpret as readiness."

"But she has not allowed him to take all of her."

"No."

"And Phei has not pushed, I can see."

"Because she is not ready for that step yet."

Delilah nodded, she knew enough about Elena’s situation to understand the contradiction beneath the girl’s behavior.

Anyone watching Elena’s campaign to establish herself as Phei’s future queen would assume she was prepared to occupy every part of the position immediately. Elena flirted without mercy, kissed him in front of other women, marked territory with smiles and carried herself with the confidence of someone who had already selected which throne would best display her legs.

Her behavior suggested conquest but her heart still required permission.

Wanting Phei was not the issue.

Trusting him was not the issue either.

Readiness lived somewhere more complicated than desire and love. A deeply inconvenient location, apparently, accessible only through patience, honesty and several emotional traps designed by the human soul before birth.

Delilah understood that better than most because she had once been the same.

The first time she had become truly intimate with Phei, they had been in the mansion together after dinner and their lust had led them into her room, mixed with relief, hunger and everything she had carried after finally after she let him explore all of her

They had nearly done it then when she had believed she was ready.

No, she had been certain she was ready

Bur Delilah had only been desperate that day, greedy and painfully eager to become his completely seeing Maddie and Sierra, as though giving herself to Phei would seal the wounds left behind and prove that she had crossed permanently into another life.

Then Sienna had walked in.

The interruption had nearly killed Delilah through embarrassment alone. Death by younger sister had probably appeared in several family histories, though rarely under those exact circumstances.

At the time, she had wanted the floor to open and consume her.

Later, she understood; she had wanted Phei, trusted him and she would have said yes ig he wanted her virgnity.

But she had still been far from ready.

Desperation could imitate certainty with terrifying skill; the hunger for safety could wear the face of desire and the need to belong to someone could sound almost identical to the courage required to surrender oneself.

Phei had somehow known days after.

After she and Sienna moved in with him, he never attempted to recreate that moment back into existence and never reminded her how close they had come. He did not treat her earlier willingness as permission preserved forever in some imaginary contract, because only fools and monsters believed consent came with automatic renewal.

He simply remained intimate with her; kisses, touches, long nights held against him, his hand around her waist, his mouth against her forehead; moments filled with heat that never demanded heat become anything more.

Weeks passed and he waited until she could understand her desire without fear speaking through it, until she was truly ready.

Then yesterday, they had crossed that final distance together.

That patience had been present even during the proposal. Phei had already known how she felt. Everyone had. Her heart had hardly been a classified document, and Maddie would have leaked it to the press by noon if given sufficient coffee.

Still, he had knelt.

Still, he had asked and had refused to let certainty replace her choice then, later, when they finally crossed the last distance between them, it had felt like a continuation of that same question and the same freely given answer.

And more than that, she and Melissa had...

Delilah’s entire face burned.

She shook her head sharply, scattering the memory before it climbed higher and murdered her ability to sit with dignity.

Yuki noticed.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"That was not nothing."

"It was a thought."

"What sort of thought causes a woman to blush from her throat upward?"

"A private one." Delilah’s eyes widened above her hand. "Drive."

"I am driving."

"Drive with less curiosity."

Yuki laughed softly.

Delilah lowered her hand after several seconds. "Anyway," she said firmly, "the point is that Phei knew I was not ready before I fully understood it myself."

Yuki’s amusement faded into something gentler.

"Yes."

"And that is why he has not taken any major step with you or Elena."

Yuki nodded.

Phei possessed hunger enough to frighten clothing, patience enough to outwait fear and the infuriating emotional intelligence to know the difference between a woman wanting him and a woman being ready to give herself to him.

They drove in silence for a while.

Then Yuki said: "Amber is the exception."

Delilah glanced at her.

"In a way," Yuki continued. "She is not waiting because she fears Phei or doubts what she wants. She simply decided not to rush."

"She said they shared something she wanted to explore completely before they take her first time."

Yuki nodded.

"What is it?"

"No one knows."

"Maddie asked?"

"Repeatedly."

"And?"

"Phei smiled." Delilah groaned. "And Amber just smiled too."

"They are both awful."

"Phei will never tell us."

"No matter how many times we ask."

"Maddie tried bribery."

"I heard."

"Noor asked politely and that was doomed before the sentence began."

"Soraya pretended she already knew."

Yuki’s mouth curved. "Phei asked her to explain it, and she nearly walked into a wall while escaping."

Delilah laughed.

"Amber only said it was theirs," Yuki continued, "and that she wanted to understand every inch of it before crossing that final line."

There was admiration in her voice.

Delilah noticed.

"So perhaps the three of you are not truly the same."

"No," Yuki agreed. "Elena is not ready because part of her still fears what total vulnerability means. I am not ready because I have not decided what I want my relationship with Phei to become after that step. Amber may already know, but she values whatever private bond they share too much to let sex race ahead and trample it."

"And Phei waits for all three of you."

"Yes."

Yuki’s fingers relaxed around the wheel.

"That is the part people misunderstand about him."

Delilah looked at her.

"Everyone sees how shameless he is," Yuki said. "They see the way his eyes wander. The flirting. The appetite and the way beautiful women gather around him until every room begins resembling an international summit organized by desire, poor judgment and inherited wealth."

"That is a very elaborate description."

"It is accurate."

"Painfully."

"They mistake hunger for impatience."

Delilah went still.

Yuki watched the road.

"He wants," she continued. "Openly. Shamelessly. Sometimes with enough intensity to make clothing feel personally threatened. But he does not take merely because he wants. He waits for the woman herself to arrive at the same place."

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