Chapter 739: Rich Inner Life
She tilted her head. Slid a slow hand down his chest, fingertips trailing along his sternum with patient, almost idle consideration, as though she were simply enjoying the shape of him in the warm afternoon light.
"My love." Her voice had gone low and warm, threaded with that particular sparkle she reserved for moments when she intended to tease him without mercy.
"I have known you for ten years of your life and close to one and half months since you stared changing, and you have, without exaggeration, made me come more times in one day than the entire decade I spent in the Montgomery mansion combined. Counting both my marriage and my time alone with my own hand.
"There is no version of you that arrives at my door finite. You are infinite. You are an infinity I have personally measured. Do not insult my data."
He laughed — full-throated, his whole chest moving with it — and pulled her tighter against him, the sound rolling through the sunlit apartment like something bright and unbothered.
"Noted and apologised for." He laughed and kissed the crown of her head and hugged her closer.
"Good."
"For the record," he said, still smiling, "I am also infinite today."
"Are you."
"I am at —" he tilted his head, mock-thoughtful, "— operational capacity. Cassiopeia at sunrise and Maddie before breakfast. A small public humiliation at breakfast itself, which is its own form of cardio. I have, in fact, only been gaining steam."
"Phei."
"What."
"You are bragging how much you fucked your aunt and vibrant your woman and not this old woman."
"Hey! You’re not old, also I am reporting not bragging."
"You are bragging, my love, and we both know it."
"In my defence —"
"Master."
Eira’s voice arrived with the small clipped precision of a fairy who had reached the absolute limit of her tolerance and was now operating on pure, crystalline exasperation.
"— is this you describing, master, how you have already this morning fucked your Cassiopeia and your Maddie, and are presently — instead of getting your sovereign ass to the training — preparing to additionally fuck Roxanne, on what is now hour sixteen of a single day in which you have had four hours of sleep and an Original Progenitor’s unclaimed power?"
Phei’s eyes briefly closed.
"Eira... can you ever—"
"And further — may I remind you that the timer I am notionally not keeping is currently at minute fourteen, which leaves a window of operations smaller than your customary stamina permits, and if you truly intends to satisfy Lady Roxanne to her established infinite standard, you’re going to have to either renegotiate the timer or significantly compress his usual technique?"
’Fuck she’s impatient. She’ll look for all reasons to make me leave.’
It was the sound of a man being audited internally by a hummingbird-sized fairy mid-romance.
Roxanne, who could see his face perfectly and could see the strangled sound emerging from it, pulled back slightly and looked at him with concerned amusement, her dark eyes sparkling with the particular light of someone who had just discovered fresh entertainment.
"My love?"
"It’s nothing."
"You made a noise."
"It’s a — digestive noise."
"Phei."
"I have many internal regions, Roxanne, and not all of them speak to me politely."
She was watching his face very carefully now. The way she watched it told him she had picked up — over the course of two months — that this specific internally-audited expression preceded a specific category of nonsense from him, and that the nonsense was always, somehow, hilarious.
"My love."
"Yes."
"You are doing the talking-to-yourself-but-it’s-not-actually-yourself thing. The I-have-an-invisible-conscience-and-being-mean-to-me thing. You did it too after we — you know what. You stared at the air for ninety seconds and made three different faces."
"I have no idea what you’re talking about."
"You absolutely do."
"Master," Eira observed mildly in his head, "she is observant."
"Eira, please, shut up."
"She has, in fact, noticed your tell. Twice and it’s only been in single day with her. You may wish to develop a more strategic poker face for when I am yelling at you in private."
"Eira."
"I’m just saying, master."
Phei closed his eyes briefly. Opened them. Looked down at Roxanne with long-suffering patience — his internal landscape was substantially more crowded than he generally permitted his women to suspect.
"Roxanne."
"Yes, my love."
"I am a complicated man with a rich inner life."
"Mm-hm."
"And occasionally my rich inner life audits me in real time."
"Mm-hm."
"And occasionally that audit is unflattering."
"Mm-hm."
"I will be processing this in private later."
She started laughing, her whole body shook with it.
She pressed her face into his chest and howled, her shoulders heaving, one hand fisting his shirt for balance, the laugh going on so long that he could feel her wiping her eyes against the front of his collarbone.
She was bright and carefree.
"Phei —" she managed, between laughs, "— my love — you are deeply strange and I love you for it."
"I am layered."
"You are haunted by a sarcastic conscience that you talk to in front of women, and I want you to know I find it charming."
Roxanne lifted her head. Her cheeks were pink. Her eyes were sparkling. She wiped under one of them with the back of her wrist and looked up at him, still smiling that wide, effortless smile.
"My love."
"Yes."
"Go and train."
"Roxanne, I have a few minutes."
"Go." She smiled. The smile reached every part of her face, warm and untroubled. "You came. You let me see you. You kissed me. I will survive the next several hours on the strength of the kissing alone. Go. Train. Be the most terrifying boy in Paradise. Come back to me when your training releases you. I’ll be here."
He held her face in both hands. Looked at her. Let himself look, for a long unhurried beat.
"You’re sure."
"I’m sure. Did you tell Sierra about us?"
A small pause.
His eyes warmed.
"No."
"Phei~"
"I will never tell Sierra anything you ask me to keep between us, my love. Not one word. Not now. Not ever."
"That’s not what I asked."
"It’s what you meant."
He kissed her forehead.
Held her there for a beat.
"I’ll be back tonight."
"You’d better be."
He kissed her once more on the mouth — slow, warm, a promise — and then, because Eira’s portal at the corner of the room had begun to make a small theatrical cooling sound to indicate she had reached her operational patience threshold, he stepped back from Roxanne with reluctance written into every line of his body.
She stayed exactly where he left her — barefoot on the rug in her cream slip, one hand against her own chest, smile unmoved and bright.
"My love."
"Yes."
"Be careful."
"Always."
He stepped through the frost.
The portal closed behind him.
The cathedral hollow returned around him — moss-green light, primordial canopy, the patient presence of a fairy at his shoulder whose eyes were currently regarding him with the long-suffering register of a creature several thousand years older than him in a body the size of a hummingbird.
"Master."
"Yes, Eira."
"Twenty minutes."
"I am aware that it was twenty minutes."
"It was twenty-two minutes."
"You are not actually a timer."
"I am, technically, the most accurate timer in this hemisphere."
He smiled.
Stretched his shoulders.
The forest held its breath around him.
"All right," Phei said, rolling his neck once. "let’s train."
Eira’s tiny mouth curved.
The patient teeth were back.
"With pleasure, master."
