Chapter 477: Remembering How to Breathe Two hours. Catherine Reynolds lay on the cold marble floor of her office, and the only thought her brain could form was: Two. Fucking. Hours. Her body was a map of conquered territory. Every muscle trembled with exhaustion she’d earned. Her thighs ached in ways that would make walking tomorrow an interesting challenge. Her throat was raw from screaming—actual screaming, the kind that probably that would’ve had security wondering if someone was being murdered on the executive floor. Which, in a way, she had been. The old Catherine was dead. What remained was something new, something she didn’t have words for yet. She couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. The marble floor was hard and unforgiving beneath her, but somehow felt more honest than the expensive carpet would have. This was where she’d ended up—sprawled on the ground like a discarded beauty, and discarded she wasn’t, thoroughly, completely satisfied, fundamentally changed. Her office looked like a hurricane had hit it. The mahogany desk—her mahogany desk, the one that cost forty thousand dollars and had intimidated countless competitors—was covered in evidence. Papers scattered everywhere. Her laptop on the floor, screen cracked. Crystal pencil holder shattered. The antique letter opener from her grandfather halfway across the room. And she didn’t care. She couldn’t make herself care. Eros stood near the window, and she tracked him through half-lidded eyes, watching him with the kind of attention that felt like worship and warning combined. His suit—what remained of it—told its own story. Shirt completely destroyed, buttons scattered across marble like evidence at crime scene. Fabric torn where she’d clawed at him with desperate hands. His pants were a wrinkled mess, belt hanging undone, the expensive material marked with her lipstick, her arousal, her surrender. He looked like he’d been through war. He looked magnificent and victorious. The thought should’ve carried shame. Should’ve made her feel like terrible person for what she’d just done—fucking a sixteen-year-old recruit on her first day hiring him. Professional boundaries obliterated. Power dynamics completely violated. Everything she’d spent twenty years building potentially compromised. It didn’t. She felt alive for first time in twenty-three years. And if that made her selfish, so be it. "Catherine." His voice cut through her spiraling thoughts—gentle but carrying authority that made her body respond despite its exhaustion. "Look at me." She did, and found him crouched beside her, close enough to touch but not touching yet. His face showed concern layered beneath satisfaction, and that combination did something to her chest that had nothing to do with physical pleasure. "You good?" Simple question carrying genuine weight. She laughed—shaky, disbelieving sound that hurt her abused throat. "Good? I can’t feel my legs. Can’t think straight. Can’t remember my own name for solid thirty seconds just now. Pretty sure I screamed loud enough that everyone in this building knows exactly what happened up here." {And I don’t care. I should care. I’m the CEO. I’m supposed to maintain dignity, professionalism, control. But I don’t fucking care.} "That’s not what I asked." He reached out, hand cupping her cheek with surprising tenderness. "Are. You. Good." The distinction made something crack open in her chest—not breaking, but opening. Letting warmth flood spaces that had been frozen so long she’d forgotten they existed. "I’m..." She searched for adequate words. "I’m alive. For first time in decades, I actually feel alive instead of just functional." Understanding flashed across his features, and he smiled—not smug, not triumphant, but genuinely pleased. Like her answer mattered more than his ego. "Good." His thumb brushed her cheekbone with tenderness that shouldn’t exist in someone who’d just dominated her so thoroughly. "That’s what liberation feels like. Remembering you’re human instead of just productive machine carrying brain from meeting to meeting." {How does seventeen-year-old understand what I needed better than I understood it myself?} "Age doesn’t matter when it comes to understanding desire," he said, and she realized he’d somehow known exactly what she was thinking. "Some people live sixty years and never figure it out. Others are born knowing." Catherine’s body was starting to work again—sensation returning in pins and needles that were almost painful. She tried sitting up, and her abs immediately protested, muscles she didn’t know existed screaming their presence. She made it maybe six inches before collapsing back against marble with soft "oof" of defeat. Eros moved immediately—not mocking her weakness but helping, strong hands sliding under her shoulders and supporting her weight as he guided her into sitting position against the window. The glass was cool against her back, and she realized with distant amusement that she’d started this encounter here and ended on the floor. Fitting, somehow. The descent from powerful CEO to woman begging on marble felt like metaphor for something she was too fucked-out to articulate. "Easy," he murmured, keeping one hand on her waist to steady her. "You just got thoroughly destroyed. Give your body time to remember how standing works." "Thoroughly destroyed," she repeated, testing the words like foreign language she was learning. "That’s... accurate. Understatement, but accurate." She looked at him—really looked at him—and saw things she hadn’t noticed before in her desperate need. His hair was completely messed up where her fingers had tangled. Lips slightly swollen from kissing her, biting her, claiming her. Faint flush still coloring his neck. Scratches on his back visible through torn shirt—marks she’d left, evidence of her own claiming. He wasn’t unaffected. He just carried it better. But there was something in his eyes that made her chest tighten—something that wasn’t just satisfaction at conquest or pride at proving abilities. He was looking at her like she mattered. Like her satisfaction meant something beyond just demonstrating his skills for the job. "You’re thinking too loud," he said, small smile playing at lips. "How do you do that?" She studied him with mixture of awe and wariness. "Read me so easily? Know what I’m feeling before I understand it myself?" "I pay attention." Simple answer that carried weight. "Most people don’t. They hear words but miss everything else—body language, breathing patterns, the things people’s faces do when they’re trying not to feel something." He shrugged. "I just... notice." "That’s not normal noticing," she said quietly. "That’s something else." "Maybe." His smile was mysterious. "Or maybe I just care enough to actually see you instead of just looking at you." He shifted position, sitting beside her against the window, and she felt grateful he wasn’t looming over her, wasn’t maintaining dominance now that the claiming was complete. Just sitting with her. Present. Attentive. "How do you—" She had to stop, clear throat that felt like she’d been screaming for hours because she had. "How do you know exactly what to say? How do you understand what I need before I understand it myself?" "Because I’ve been listening... like I just said..." Simple answer that carried devastating weight. "Not just to your words. To everything. Your body. Your breath. The way your voice changes when you’re lying to yourself. Most people don’t actually listen—they just wait for their turn to talk." His expression shifted slightly—warmth in his gaze that felt deeper than professional courtesy, more genuine than calculated charm. "You deserve to be heard, Catherine. To be seen. To be worshipped. That’s not transaction—that’s truth." She felt tears prick her eyes and hated herself for the weakness. "I don’t understand you. You could’ve just... taken what you wanted and left. Could’ve treated this like proving your abilities for the job. Could’ve made it clinical."