The door opened.
Emily stood there with an armful of clothesāfresh uniforms for him and the girls, neatly folded, probably ironed knowing herāand whatever sheād been about to say died in her throat.
Because Phei was naked.
Completely.
Gloriously.
Heād forgotten, honestly. Hadnāt even thought about it. His ruined clothes were in a pile somewhere, the girls were still unconscious, and heād been standing there reviewing System notifications like nudity was just...
a state of being
.
A casual Tuesday afternoon thing.
But
Emilyā
Her eyes went wide. Like her brain had just bluescreened and was desperately trying to reboot.
And then she
looked
.
Not or a quick peek followed by embarrassed averting. She
looked
āthe way someone looks at a painting in a museum, like a
sunset she was trying to memorize
, like he was something so impossibly beautiful she needs to catalogue every detail before it disappears.
Her gaze started at his shoulders. Broad. Built. And she had made
fantasies;
being picked up, being held, being pinned.
Down to his chest. The definition there, the way his muscles moved under his skin when he breathed, the sheer
presence
of him.
His abs. God, his abs. She counted themāhe could see her lips moving slightly,
one-two-three-four-five-six,
the last forming pair too... like she was taking inventory of a treasure sheād just discovered.
The V-line at his hips. That cruel arrow pointing downward, drawing the eye exactly where it wanted to go.
And thenā
Her gaze dropped.
And
stayed
.
Phei watched her watching him.
Watched her face cycle through about seven different emotions in the span of three secondsāshock, disbelief,
hunger
, more shock, something that looked almost like religious awe, and then a desperate attempt at composure that failed so spectacularly it was almost art.
Her cheeks went pink.
Then red.
Then a shade of crimson that probably had a fancy name in paint catalogues. Something like
"Virginās First Glimpse"
or
"Oh God Itās Huge."
And still... she didnāt look away.
"Ah~"
There it is.
That reaction. The one heād been getting more and more lately. The wide-eyed, slack-jawed, brain-short-circuiting reaction of a woman seeing something her body understood even if her mind was still catching up.
Emily was a
virgin.
Sweet. Innocent
. The girl who probably blushed at kissing scenes in movies and had never seen a cock outside of anatomy textbooks, or porn she sneaked to watch.
But she was also an American teenage girl in the twenty-first century. Not
naive.
Not
sheltered.
She
knew
things, even if sheād never experienced them. Knew how to appreciate a beautiful body when she saw one.
Knew what that
heat
building in her belly meant.
And right now?
Right now... she was frozen.
Couldnāt move. Couldnāt speak. Couldnāt do anything except stand there with her mouth slightly open and her arms full of clothes sheād completely forgotten she was holding.
Well
, Phei thought, fighting back a grin,
I am literally a god now. Or close enough. Canāt really blame her for having a normal human reaction to
divinity.
Was that arrogant?
Yes.
Was it also objectively true?
Also, yes.
Heās had rebuilt him from the ground up. Had taken what heād been; the pathetic charity case everyone used to mock and forged something...
else.
Something better. Something that made women forget how to breathe just by existing in the same room.
Heād earned this body. Earned these reactions. And if Emily wanted to stand there admiring the viewā
Well.
He was a
humble
man.
A generous teenager and boss.
A man who would never dream of denying a beautiful woman the simple pleasure of appreciating art... much less Emily who was now his assistant or something.
So, he let her look.
It was a form of reward, really.
Humble, right?
Emily stood there, completely shameless, confident in every inch of himself, while his assistantās eyes devoured him like he was the first meal sheād seen in weeks.
Take your time, sweetheart. Iām not going anywhere.
She took a step forward.
Unconscious. Automatic. Like her body was moving without consulting her brain first.
Then another.
Her free handāthe one not clutching clothesāreached out. Trembling slightly. Moving toward him like it had its own agenda and Emily was just along for the ride.
Phei didnāt move.
Didnāt stop her.
Just watched with quiet
amusement
as her fingers found his stomach first.
Traced the lines of his abs with a touch so light it was almost reverent
. Her breath
hitched.
A small sound escaped her throatānot quite a moan, not quite a whimper, something in between that said her body was waking up to possibilities it had never seriously considered before.
Her hand drifted lower.
Following that
V-line.
Following the path her eyes had already memorized.
And thenā
Her fingers
wrapped around his cock.
Warm
, she must have thought. That was always the first thing women noticed. How warm he was there.
How alive
.
Her hand barely fit around him. Could feel the
weight
of it, the
thickness,
the way it pulsed slightly in her grip like it had its own heartbeat.
For one perfect moment, Emily just... held him.
Eyes wide. Lips parted. Face the colour of a fire engine.
And then her brain came back online.
"Iā"
Her voice cracked.
"This isā"
She looked down at her hand. At what was
in
her hand. At the fact that she, Emily Hartwell, scholarship student and dutiful assistant, was currently
gripping her bossās cock
in a room where two other women were sleeping off an orgasm coma not ten feet away.
"Oh my
GOD
ā"
She let go like he was on fire.
The clothes went flyingāuniforms scattering across the floor in a cascade of fabric and mortification.
The
shriek
that came out of her was something between a tea kettle and a startled cat.
High-pitched.
Desperate.
The sound of a virginās dignity making a break for it.
And then she
ran
.
Actually ran. Spun on her heel and bolted through the door like the room was full of bees, leaving chaos and scattered clothing in her wake.
The door slammed behind her.
Phei stood there for a moment.
Naked. Alone. Surrounded by the aftermath of Emilyās spectacular meltdown.
And then he
laughed.
Deep and genuine and so full of warmth it surprised even him.
God, sheās adorable.
He closed the doorāproperly this timeāand bent to gather the scattered uniforms.
Adorable and absolutely fucked when I finally get around to claiming her.
But thatās for later.
Emily had come with more than just clothes.
Sheād had something to reportāwould have told him in person if he hadnāt, you know,
scrambled her brain with his godly presence
. But sheād managed to text him afterwards, once sheād presumably stopped hyperventilating in some distant hallway.
Brian and Landon wanted to meet.
Tomorrowās challenge needed discussing. Strategy. Game plan. The actual basketball part of this whole "
challenge Marcus Heavenchild and the team to a basketball match
" situation that Phei had maybe not thought through as thoroughly as he should have.
Oops.
***
The meeting room was neutral territoryāone of those study spaces on the second floor that nobody used after hours. Brian was already there when Phei arrived, leaning against a wall with his arms crossed and an expression that said
"I really hope I didnāt just bet my reputation on a guy who canāt actually play."
Landon was nervous. Twitchy. The kind of energy that said he still couldnāt quite believe heād agreed to this.
"So,"
Brian said, cutting straight to it. "You not only challenged Marcus Heavenchild but the whole to a basketball game challenge too."
"I did."
"In front of the entire school."
"Also true."
"And you expect us to help you win."