Cat Girl

His hand settled at her head with practiced ease, fingers spreading through her hair until his palm fit there, familiar. The motion was slow, sinuous, satisfying. It calmed him. Each pass smoothed the tension from his shoulders and steadied his breath.

She felt it immediately, awareness undeniable, comfort impossible.

He brushed the roots of her hair with his fingertips, then let his hand slide to the base of her ear. Her mi’qote ears were exquisitely finer, more exposed than humans’. Each touch sent a soft current through her despite her will. She stayed still, though the urge to lean into his palm rose sharp and aching.

Her sensitive ears twitched once.

She drew a shallow breath and, without meaning to, her tongue passed over her lower lip. It was an instinctive motion, quick and quiet, as though her body were responding to the shape of need before she could stop it.

His fingers paused for a fraction.

His thumb adjusted, tracing the curve of her ear with deliberate care. He watched the way her breath changed, the brief parting of her lips, the way her hands curled tighter in her lap as she caught herself. He observed the restraint in her tightened posture, and smirked.

“You are mine,” he said, neither soft nor cruel—merely stated.

The words pressed upon her and she held her breath, gaze dropping, lashes veiling the flicker in her eyes. His fingers tightened just enough to remind them both of the truth of it, and the pressure sent another involuntary shiver through her. She swallowed, pulse quickening.

“Does that trouble you?” he asked.

“No, my prince,” she answered, carefully.

His hand did not still. He drew calm from the motion even as she unraveled beneath it—her throat tightening as her pulse climbed, fingers curling against the silk of her robes. He observed the tension in her posture, the want she refused to voice.

“And yet,” he murmured, “you grow distant.”

He chuckled low, his thumb brushing her ear again before wrapping his hand fully around her kitty ear, soft yet unyielding.

“Would you wish to be something else?” he asked.

“Something other than mine. A lover, an equal... That there were no other women for me than you,” he added quietly, “that I chose you not because you were gifted to me, all those years ago, but because I wanted you.”

The words drew a quiet tension up her back, and she swallowed once, controlled. Desire coiled in her at once, and hope with it, dangerous, stubborn hope.

“Is that what you hunger for?” he asked. “Am I not already giving you all you could want?”

He gave her comfort in measured doses, wrapped her in fine things, kept her safe beneath his authority. He offered attention, steadiness, a place that could not be taken from her. He gave her everything that could be given, excluding himself.

Nothing else could ever be enough.

Slowly, she lifted her chin to meet his gaze. “I am what you were given,” she said. “And I will not ask to be anything else.”

His hand stilled. Then he withdrew it.

“As you wish,” he said.

But when he turned away, the calm he sought did not fully return, and when she finally exhaled, the ache of what she had refused burned far deeper than any touch he might have given.