Chapter 18: join me hao
The heat was a living thing, a woolen blanket soaked in fever. Caitlyn surfaced from a dreamless pit gasping, the sheets tangled around her legs like vines. Her skin was slick, her hair plastered to her neck and temples. The digital clock on the nightstand blared a hellish red: 3:07 AM.
Beside her, Jiahao slept on, a dark shape breathing steadily in the gloom. The solid plane of his back was turned to her, an unbreachable wall. The sight, normally a comfort, now felt like a rebuke. The room’s air conditioner hummed, but it was no match for the internal furnace that had ignited her from within.
The sweating wouldn’t stop. With a frustrated sigh, she pushed the damp sheets aside and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The polished floorboards were cool under her feet. She padded, naked, to the ensuite bathroom, not bothering with a robe. The light she flicked on was mercifully dim. She avoided her reflection in the mirror, not wanting to see the wanton, sleepless creature staring back.The tub was a massive, claw-footed monstrosity. She set the drain, turned both taps full-bore, and poured a generous glug of jasmine-scented bubble bath under the stream. The room quickly filled with steam and a calming, floral scent that did little to calm the buzz under her skin. She watched the mountain of iridescent foam grow, a fragile sanctuary. When the water was deep and achingly hot, she shut it off and stepped in, sinking down with a gasp that turned into a groan of pure relief.
The heat enveloped her, melting the strange, anxious sweat from her pores. She slid down until the water lapped at her chin, the bubbles mounding over her breasts. She closed her eyes, focusing on the primal sensation of being suspended, weightless. The tight coil in her chest began, incrementally, to loosen.
She didn’t hear him come in. The first she knew was the shift in the light through her closed eyelids, the subtle change in the air’s humidity from his presence in the doorway. She cracked one eye open.
His voice was a sleep-roughened rasp that went straight through her, settling low in her belly. She shook her head, the movement causing small ripples. “Just… hot. For no reason.”
He nodded, as if this made perfect sense. His gaze traveled over the mound of bubbles, the damp ends of her hair swirling in the water. For a long moment, he just looked. Then he pushed off the doorframe. “Scoot up.”
Her breath hitched. “What?”
“Move forward. I’m getting in.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact, delivered with that casual certainty that turned her insides liquid. She obeyed, shuffling forward in the big tub until her knees were near her chest, leaving a space behind her. She heard the soft rustle of fabric, the definitive snap of elastic. The water sloshed violently as he stepped in, his larger body displacing a wave that hit the back of her neck. Then he was settling behind her, his legs framing hers, his back against the curved porcelain.
He didn’t touch her at first. He just leaned back, his head resting on the rim, and let out a long, slow sigh. The tension she hadn’t even realized he carried seemed to bleed out of him into the steamy air. The silence was dense, filled only with the faint crackle of bubbles and the slow drip of the tap.
Then his hands came to rest on her hips, his palms broad and shockingly warm even through the hot water. He pulled her back gently, until her spine was flush against his chest. Skin to skin, water-slick and seamless. Her head fit perfectly in the hollow between his shoulder and chest. His arms came around her, one hand splayed low on her stomach, the other resting just below her collarbone. A full-body embrace.
“baby, you’re tense,” he murmured into her hair, his lips moving against the shell of her ear.
She couldn’t speak. The intimacy of it was paralyzing. This wasn’t the frantic, claiming sex of the past weeks. This was… something else. Something deeper and more disarming. He just held her. His heartbeat was a steady, soothing drum against her back. The heat of the water, the scent of jasmine, the solid, undeniable reality of him engulfing her… it was a stronger narcotic than any sleep aid. The restless energy that had woken her began to dissolve, replaced by a profound, heavy lethargy. Her muscles turned to warm butter. Her breathing slowed, syncing with his. Her eyelids fluttered, then closed. The world, with all its complicated, frightening currents, narrowed to this: water, heat, and his skin.
She was drifting, hovering on the delicious cusp of sleep, when she felt it.
The hand on her stomach began to move. Not in a demanding way, but in a slow, idle exploration. His fingertips traced absent circles over her lower abdomen. It was so casual, so seemingly unconscious, that she barely registered it as intentional. A sleepy caress. She let out a soft, humming sigh and sank deeper against him.
His other hand drifted upward from her collarbone. His thumb stroked the side of her neck, then his palm smoothed over her shoulder, down her arm. When his hand reached the water, it curved around her ribcage, his fingers fanning out just beneath the swell of her breast. He held her there for a moment, his touch possessive but gentle. Then his thumb lifted, and with a languid, feather-light stroke, it swept over her nipple.
A sharp, sweet jolt went through her. She stirred, a faint noise leaking from her throat. “hao baby…”
“Shhh,” he breathed into her hair, his voice a velvety rumble. “Just relax. Go back to sleep.”
His thumb did it again. This time, it circled the hardened peak, the touch still deceptively soft through the layer of water and bubbles. His other hand, meanwhile, had ceased its circling and now rested fully, heavily, over the thatch of curls between her legs. Not pressing. Just… covering. Claiming. A warm, inescapable weight.
Sleep, that tempting cliff, reeled back. Her awareness was now split, a dizzying paradox. Her body was blissfully heavy, her mind fogged with warmth and surrender. Yet her nerve endings were lighting up one by one, a constellation of need triggered by his leisurely, opportunistic touch. He was groping her. In the most literal sense. Taking handfuls of her sleep-soft, water-warmed flesh as if she were a pillow, a comfort object. The sheer, unthinking entitlement of it sent a shock of wet heat between her legs that had nothing to do with the bath.
He seemed to feel it, the minute contraction of her muscles. His hand over her sex shifted. His middle finger slid down, parting her folds with an effortless familiarity that stole her breath. He found her clit, swollen and eager even in her passive state, and commenced a lazy, clockwise rhythm, his touch just firm enough to make her hips twitch.
“Hao…” she whispered, her voice slurred.
“You’re half asleep,” he answered softly, his own voice thick with a sleep she knew was entirely feigned. His finger never stopped its slow, torturous circles. “Just a dream. Let it feel good.”
It wasn’t a dream. It was a violation so exquisite it blurred all lines. He was manipulating her body, stoking a fire in her core, while her mind floated in a compliant, boneless haze. His other hand finally closed fully over her breast, kneading the soft flesh, his thumb and pinching her nipple with a precision that made her back arch, pushing her chest into his hand.
He took the invitation. His touch grew more defined, more purposeful. The groping evolved into a deliberate, sensual assault. He rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, sending bolts of pure sensation straight to her throbbing cunt. His finger on her clit pressed harder, the rhythm speeding from a lazy circle to a focused, insistent rub.
Her breathing fractured. Little gasps punctuated the steamy air. She was fully awake now, prisoner to the sensations he was orchestrating, but she kept her eyes closed, clinging to the pretense he’d offered. Just a dream. It allowed her to be wanton, to let the soft, desperate sounds fall from her lips without shame. To push her hips down against his clever, tormenting finger.
“That’s it,” he coaxed, his lips against her ear. His voice had shed all traces of sleep, becoming dark and liquid with intent. “Just take it. Let me make you feel good.”
He slid a finger inside her. She was so wet, so ready, it slid in to the knuckle without resistance. A low, guttural groan vibrated through his chest and into hers. “Fuck, Caitlyn. You’re dripping. Even like this.” He began to pump it slowly, in and out, the water creating a slick, obscene sound each time his hand moved. His thumb kept working her clit.
She was unravelling, quickly, helplessly. The warmth of the water, the solidity of his body caging hers, the relentless, intimate penetration—it was too much. Her hands, which had been limp at her sides, came up to clutch at his thighs anchored on either side of her. Her head fell back against his shoulder, her mouth open, panting.
“Please…” The word was a wrecked sigh.
“Please what?” He added a second finger, stretching her beautifully, the stretch a bright, perfect counterpoint to the frantic pleasure building at her apex. “You’re not even awake enough to ask for what you need. Don’t worry. I know.”
His fingers curled inside her, finding a spot that made her cry out, a sharp, shattered sound that echoed off the tiles. He hammered against it, his pace turning ruthless, his thumb a relentless beacon on her clit. The orgasm gathered her up with terrifying speed, a tsunami built from weeks of suppressed tension and the raw, psychological shock of his tender violation.
It broke over her with a force that stole all sense. Her body bowed, rigid, as a silent scream locked in her throat. The pleasure was searing, absolute, wringing every muscle in a series of violent, pulsating waves. She shook in his arms, her cunt clenching rhythmically around his driving fingers.
He held her through it, his arms like iron bands, his mouth on her neck, teeth grazing her skin as she convulsed.
He held her through it, his arms like iron bands, his mouth on her neck, teeth grazing her skin as she convulsed. The waves of her climax seemed to go on forever, draining the last vestiges of conscious thought from her mind until she was nothing but a pliant, shuddering weight against him. He worked her through every last pulse, his fingers gentle now, stroking inside her until she went limp with a final, exhausted sigh.
The water had cooled around them. The bubbles were mostly gone, leaving a scum of iridescent film on the surface. Her head lolled back on his shoulder, her breath still coming in soft, ragged puffs. The frantic heat that had woken her was gone, replaced by a deep, full-body languor that felt closer to a trance than sleep. She was aware of him, of the hard length of his erection pressed against the small of her back, but it felt distant, a fact without immediate urgency.
He shifted behind her, the water sloshing. He withdrew his fingers from her with a soft, wet sound that made her cunt twitch weakly in response. He brought his hand up, resting it on her thigh under the water, his fingers glistening. He said nothing. He simply held her, his own breathing gradually slowing.
She floated. Time lost meaning. The edges of the room blurred. Her eyelids were so heavy. The afterglow was a thick syrup in her veins, pulling her back down toward that dark, quiet place. It would be so easy to just… let go. To let the last three weeks—the constant, dizzying push-pull of shame and desire, the secret soreness between her legs that was a badge and a punishment, the way he’d looked at her that morning after he’d used her sleeping body—just fade away in the warm, silent water.
She was mostly asleep when the movement began. A slow, unconscious undulation of her hips. A seeking pressure back against him. It wasn’t a blatant grind. It was subtler, a sleepwalker’s motion, a primitive rocking against the solid muscle of his thigh where she was perched.
Jiahao went very still behind her. His hands, which had been drifting in idle patterns on her stomach and thigh, stilled. He was listening. To her body. To the silent language it was speaking in its half-dreaming state.
She nuzzled her cheek against his collarbone, a soft, distressed sound leaking from her throat. It was the same sound she’d made in her bed weeks ago. The sound of loss. Her hand, lying limp in the water, twitched. Her hips rocked again, a little more purposefully this time, sliding back against the rigid proof of his arousal.
“Caitlyn.” His voice was low, a rumble she felt in her bones.
She didn’t answer with words. Words were beyond her. They were on the other side of a thick, warm haze. Instead, she arched her back slightly, pressing the full, soft curve of her ass more firmly against him. A silent, somatic plea. Her legs, which had been tucked, fell slightly open in the water, an invitation written in the languid language of near-sleep.
He understood. He always understood the things she couldn’t say.
One arm banded around her ribs, just under her breasts, locking her firmly to him. The other hand gripped her hip, his fingers digging in to the soft flesh, steering her. He adjusted his position beneath the water, his legs shifting. She felt the blunt, hot head of his dick nudge against the cleft of her ass, then slide lower, through the sensitive folds already slick from her climax and the bathwater.
He didn’t enter her. Not yet. He just held himself there, a insistent, tantalizing pressure at her entrance. A promise. A question.
A ragged breath shuddered out of her. Her head tipped back further, exposing the vulnerable line of her throat. Her entire body was a single, taut line of silent need. She pushed back, a tiny, desperate jerk of her hips, trying to impale herself on him.
He chuckled, a dark, warm sound against her ear. “So greedy. Even like this.” His hand on her hip kept her from taking what she wanted. “Use your words, baby. You have to ask.”
But she couldn’t. The haze was too thick. The need was a physical knot in her belly, too urgent for syllables. All she could manage was another broken whimper, another futile push against his restraining grip. Her cunt wept around the tip of him, a fresh rush of warmth mixing with the bathwater.
“Can’t even talk, can you?” he murmured, his lips brushing the rim of her ear. “Just a sleepy little thing, begging with her body. Pathetic.” The insult was a caress. It melted into her, feeding the hunger. “Tell me what you want.”
She turned her head blindly, her lips finding the stubbled skin of his jaw. She kissed it, a clumsy, soft press. Then her mouth opened against him, her tongue tracing a faint, wet line. It was a wordless answer. A surrender.
It was enough.
His control snapped.
The hand on her hip shifted, angling her perfectly. The arm around her ribs tightened, crushing her to him. He didn’t slide into her. He plunged.
He drove upwards into her with a single, powerful thrust that forced the air from her lungs in a shocked, silent gasp. He was huge, and she was so relaxed, so open from her orgasm, that he buried himself to the hilt in one seamless, devastating motion. There was no resistance, only an overwhelming, breathtaking fullness that seemed to stop her very heart.
“Fuck,” he growled, the word torn from him. His body locked, impaling her deeply. “Jesus Christ, Caitlyn. You take it all. Even when you’re not even here.”
She wasn’t. She was somewhere between dreaming and waking, a creature of pure sensation. The feel of him, rooted so deep inside her, stretching her to a perfect, burning limit, was all that existed. Her walls fluttered around the intrusion, a riot of conflicted signals—overwhelmed, possessed, euphoric.
He began to move.
He set a relentless, driving pace from the first stroke. There was no gentle buildup, no seeking rhythm. This was a claiming. The water churned around them, sloshing over the sides of the tub onto the tile floor with a sound like applause. Each brutal thrust drove her forward, then his arm would haul her back onto him, the force punching soft sounds from her throat—uh, uh, uh.
Her arms flailed briefly, then her hands found the edges of the tub, her fingers scrabbling for purchase on the slippery porcelain. She held on, her body bent over the water, a vessel for his use.
He fucked her with a punishing precision, each plunge of his hips a deliberate conquest of the territory he now considered his. The water resisted, then parted, then sloshed in chaotic waves that mirrored the turmoil he was stoking inside her. His grip on her was absolute, one hand a steel band across her ribcage, the other fisted in her hair now, pulling her head back to expose her throat.
"Look at you," he snarled, his breath hot and ragged against her wet skin. "Look at what you make me do. Begging for it in your sleep, now taking it like a goddamn doll in the water."
She couldn’t look. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her world reduced to the slam of his body into hers, the slick, wet slap of skin, the groan of the tub against the wall with every drive. The fullness was beyond anything. It was an invasion that rewritten her boundaries, each thrust carving a deeper space for him inside her physically, memorially. Her cunt was a fevered, clutching sheath, already oversensitive from the orgasm he’d wrung from her just minutes before. Now, the sensation was a brighter, sharper agony of pleasure, a friction so profound it bordered on pain.
"You’re clenching like a vise," he grunted, angling his hips. The next thrust hit a place that made her see white behind her eyelids. "Yeah. There. That’s the spot, isn’t it? The spot that makes you forget your own name."
"Please," she gasped, the word barely audible.
"Please what?" He didn’t slow. He hammered into her, his pace unrelenting. "You’re not even coherent. You’re just a wet, willing hole. My hole. Say it."
She couldn’t. Her throat was locked. She shook her head, a feeble denial that only made him fuck her harder. His hand in her hair tightened, a sharp, clarifying pain.
"Say it, Caitlyn."
"Yours," she sobbed, the admission ripped from a place of pure, defiled truth. "Your hole."
A ravaged sound left his chest, a growl of pure triumph. He released her hair, his hand sliding down her slick stomach, through the tangle of curls, finding the swollen bud of her clit. He pressed the heel of his hand against it as he fucked her, the dual assault relentless. "Again."
"Yours!" she screamed, the sound raw and shattered. "It’s yours, it’s always been yours, please!"
"I’m gonna fill you up," he gritted out, each word a labor. "Gonna pump my come so deep into you there’s no washing it out. You’ll feel it for days. You’ll smell me on you."
His words weren’t a promise. They were a prophecy, spoken against the sweat-damp skin of her neck as his hips pistoned into her with a force that threatened to crack her pelvis against the porcelain. The water was a chaotic element now, sloshing over the rim with every drive, soaking the bathmat, puddling on the tile. It diluted nothing. The scent of sex, of her arousal and his impending release, rose thick and primal in the steamy air, cutting through the last ghost of jasmine.
Caitlyn’s mind had shattered. Coherent thought was impossible. She was a canvas of sensation: the brutal, the biting grip of his hands, the cold air on her shoulders where the water had receded. Her fingers, white-knuckled on the tub’s edge, were the only anchor in a universe reduced to this punishing rhythm. Each impact sent a shockwave through her, a blend of agony and ecstasy so intense it felt like annihilation.
“You feel that?” he grunted, his voice ragged with effort. “You feel how deep I am? I’m in your guts.”
She could only moan, a broken, continuous sound. Her body was learning a new geography, mapped by his invasion. The place he touched inside her wasn’t a spot. It was a raw nerve, a core of being she hadn’t known existed, and he was striking it with merciless accuracy. Her cunt was a slick, clenching fist around him, trying to milk him, trying to absorb him, every involuntary spasm a plea for completion.
“Gonna come,” he warned, the rhythm stuttering, growing frenzied. His control was fraying. The deliberate, punishing pace dissolved into something more animal, more urgent. The slaps of wet skin grew louder, faster. “Gonna fill this greedy cunt until it overflows.”
“Do it,” she gasped, her voice a rough stranger’s. She pushed back against him, meeting his frantic thrusts, forcing him even deeper. Her head twisted, her cheek pressed against the cold tub rim, her eyes staring wildly at the waterlogged ceiling. “Hao, fuck—”
He growled, a sound of pure animal triumph, and redoubled his efforts. His hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her cries, making her his silent, willing vessel.
She tore his hand away, sucking in air. The command tore from her, not a whisper, but a raw, defiant scream that echoed off the tiles. “Breed me! Fill me up, fuck me pregnant!”
The effect was instantaneous, electric. A convulsive shudder ripped through him. His entire body locked, bowing over hers, a stifled roar erupting into the damp hair at her nape. His grip on her became bruising, absolute, merging them into a single, straining entity.
She felt it. The hot, sudden pulse deep inside her. A vivid, liquid claim. The first jet was a shock of warmth, the second a flood, the next a seemingly endless surge. He pumped his release into her with a frantic, jerking rhythm of his own, twitching violently as he poured himself into her depths. It was an obscene, intimate violation, a branding from the inside out.
A second, harder climax detonated within her, triggered by the sensation of being filled, by the filthy, perfect rightness of her command and his obedience. It wrecked her silently, a seizure of pleasure that locked her muscles and blurred her vision into grey static. Her cunt clenched and rippled around him, milking him, demanding every drop.