“Come to bed. You’re exhausted,” he ordered.
My lady bits swooned at his gruff tone. I wasn’t used to seeing a more dominant side to my merman, and ooh, I liked it.
His nostrils flared as he caught my interest. “Raven, you need to sleep.”
He wasn’t wrong. The emotional overload of dealing with Willow’s weird behavior had left me with a stress headache. Despite that, my body didn’t hesitate to respond to the handsome merman sitting in bed waiting for me.
The covers pooled around his waist, drawing my attention to his delicious abs. Kai had the physique of a swimmer. Broad shoulders, muscular arms, and narrow hips. The sort of body that made thirsty witches weep. In all senses of the word.
I licked my lips.
Kai’s eyes glowed in the dim light from a bunch of flickering candles. I rubbed my hair with a towel as he watched me like a predator scenting blood in the water.
“Come here and let me do that for you,” he ordered when I picked up a brush to de-tangle the knots.
I nodded and then, with a smirk, dropped my towel, enjoying the way he inhaled sharply at the sight of my naked body. While I’d never been especially prudish about nudity, I very much enjoyed how my mates loved my curves.
Putting some additional swish into my hips, I sashayed over to the bed and threw the hairbrush at him. It hit him bang in the chest, prompting a low growl. But whereas Maverick would have probably spanked my ass with it, Kai ignored my teasing.
Instead, he patiently combed out the tangles in my hair and then used magic to dry it.
I regretted not learning that spell. Glynda had promised to teach me but then shit happened and I forgot about it.
Glynda. My heart ached for my bestie.
“Glynda will be fine,” Kai said as he put the hairbrush aside.
“Did you read my thoughts?” I gave him some side-eye.
“Everyone within a hundred-mile radius can read your thoughts, witch. You broadcast louder than Tiberius Vane at a press conference.”
Ugh. Kenji was right; I needed to get a grip on my mental shields.
“Your shields are fine, Raven. Kenji’s being mean.”
Kenji huffed loudly in my head.“I’m building your resilience in the face of adversity. Truly, it’s for your own good.”
I seriously doubted that, but whatever.
Kai lifted the covers. I crawled into bed and snuggled into his shoulder. Stars, my merman smelled good. Like the ocean on a hot summer’s day.
“You should sleep now, sweetheart.”
He was right, but my brain refused to quiet.
“I might need help to relax.” I heard Zane snort in my head, but for once he didn’t materialize in the bedroom with a kind offer toassist.
Kai cleared his throat. “What do you want from me?” All my other mates would have skipped the question and gone straight to ravishing me, but I appreciated Kai’s respectful approach.
“Um, maybe if you kiss me?” While I was definitely interested in jumping his bones, I was wary of making the assumption he felt the same way. It had been a stressful week for all of us, not just me, so he might prefer to sleep.
“I’d like nothing more than to kiss you, my sweet mate.”
“What he really means is he wants to rail you into the next realm, pet, but he’s too polite to say so.”
Kai tensed. The connection between Zane and me abruptly closed.
“I’d love it if you did that too,” I whispered, praying he’d heard Zane and that was why my incubus left the group chat.
