Page 35 of King’s Kismet

“Now that I had worked things out with Palmer, he was crawling under my skin, too. I loved his smartass remarks and the way he challenged me.”

Yeah. I could see that. She was as good for Palmer as she was for the rest of us. I hadn’t seen anyone except our group—and his siblings—challenge him the way she did.

“After our conversation in the cavern, I felt so much closer to him, but I wanted more from him. I needed my mage to be the guy he was when I’d first met him.”

Oh? That was useful. Possibly. Had he really changed that much, though?

“I was hoping that since he didn’t have to hide the truth about Raguel from me anymore, well, maybe he’d be that guy again. It would only be a matter of time before Palmer had me hooked, and fuck if I wasn’t ready for my mage to show me more of the real him.”

Then she stopped, her arm hovering in front of her body like she couldn’t continue scrubbing until she washed her mind clean of the remaining thoughts.

“And Vaughn… I thought I might have puzzled his issues out, but I hadn’t had time to talk to him alone. He’d given up on his back-and-forth bullshit, and I was thinking it had to do with finding out we were mates. He didn’t know if his feelings were genuine or if the bond was making him feel those things for me.”

Fuck. I needed to talk to him and not beat around the bush. It was time for him to pull his head out of his ass. I got that he had family issues, but she was strong enough to help him deal with Vex. Gods, she could probably take the bitch out on her own.

“I understood his hesitancy, if that was the case, but I still wanted confirmation. I just needed to know what he was thinking, without prying into his private thoughts.”

That was nice of her. I used to pry into Vaughn’s mind all the time, but he’d gotten smart and figured out how to lock me out.

She sighed as the flow of water turned off. I started to leave, then thought better of it. I still had questions, even though my stomach flipped at the idea of asking her about what she’d said.

“All I’d managed to do was scrub my skin raw while I ran a mental marathon, but at least I didn’t smell like sex anymore.”

That made me smile. I ran my tongue across the bottom of my teeth, thinking about how much I liked when she smelled like sex. With me. Or one of the guys… But if I ever smelled another male’s scent on her in that manner, I would slaughter a whole town of people to find him.

I didn’t know if I’d always been like that or if her special brand of psycho had rubbed off on me.

That wasn’t contagious, was it?

“For someone who didn’t have a ton of feelings, I sure had a fucking lot of them all of a sudden. I was firmly placing the blame on my mates. This wasn’t my fault. Not entirely… or maybe it was.”

Oh, Trouble. We could share the blame. I suddenly had too many feelings that I didn’t understand, too.

“Godsdamnit,” she whispered mentally.

More forcefully, she added, “Just stop right there, Sloane. We’re not running in circles today.”

Yeah, that would be amazing. Last week, her thoughts had circled so much that they’d given me a headache.

I focused on the texture of the hair of her makeup brush to keep my nerves at bay. Was it hair? Or just bristles? I had no clue.

She stepped out of the shower, and my eyes traced the drops of water that slid down her naked body. I could feel her glaring at me, her right foot still lifted to take her next step.

I met her sharp eyes, smirking with fake confidence. My head was stuck on a roller coaster, dragging the butterflies in my stomach along for the ride.

Could I confront her?

Should I?

“Are you done talking to yourself?”

“Yes,” she drawled, covering her body with a towel. I let my face fall, and there was no faking the expression. “Don’t look at me like that, Novak. It’s like I just kicked your puppy.”

I nodded in agreement. That was a perfect assessment of what she did. “Pretty much. Take the towel off, and I’ll stop being so sad.”

She snorted at me but dropped the towel as she glided into her closet. “Did you just come to watch me shower, or did you need something?”

I jumped off the counter, leaning against the doorframe as I grinned at her and worked on controlling my nervous energy. “I came to see what you were doing, but I stayed to listen to your thoughts.”