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No wonder he’d kissed my forehead like I was a child.
I stared straight at his chest, too embarrassed to look up at his expression and too hard-headed to move my legs away. That would be the same as admitting how ridiculous I must have looked, right? Clinging to his body like it was a flotation device or something.
Well, at least the view was nice.
I wet my lips as I thought about flattening my palms over his chest. Leander wasn’t built like a captain, but he didn’t have to be. Everything about him was magnificent just as he was. Had he gone through military training after I left? The thought of him holding a long spear, its metal glistening with the same polished gold as his tail, made my throat feel extraordinarily dry. Well, it would explain all the muscle definition, but I’d never noticed any scars—
“Your ribs,” I gasped, suddenly remembering how I’d lifted his shirt up last night.Poseidon help me. I’d lifted his shirt, and that wasn’t all I’d tried to do. What had come over me? The plan had been to wait for him to react, but my hands were roaming before he even had a chance.
“I—I didn’t hurt you again, did I?” I went to roll away, but an arm caught me, pulling me right back into the warm impression I’d made beside him.
Had that arm been around me all night?
Leander yawned, and his legs flexed underneath me as he stretched. “There’s no way you could hurt me, Claira.” The little chuckle he added when he said my name, like there was no way I was strong enough to hurt anybody, made me want to stick a finger between his ribs.Damn cocky prince.
“Says the man who screams like a little merfry the minute someone goes to touch him—”
My face slammed forward, my voice muffling as my mouth pressed against the abyss between his hard pecs. Was he really using his muscled man boobs to try to shut me up?
“Sexually!” I finished my sentence with a loud gasp, forcing my way out of the rift for air. Leander might have ruled over everyone else here, but he’dneverrule over me. A simple “please be quiet, Claira” would have been—
A throat cleared somewhere in the space behind us. “Please make haste, Your Highness,” a voice called wearily. Like literally anything would be better than standing around listening to our pillow talk. I glanced back to make sure the shower curtain was still pulled shut.Thank Poseidon. A sigh drifted in, followed by heavy footsteps over the concrete as whoever was outside marched away.
“Were you ever going to tell me someone was standing out there?”
Leander’s chest vibrated with amusement. “That’s why I woke you. I wanted to let you keep sleeping, but I kind of need my legs, and you didn’t want to give them back.”
I glanced up to see how stupid his smug grin looked but found his entire face flushed with color as well.
Wait. Was he embarrassed?
So what if some random mer thought their prince screamed whenever someone touched him sexually? The whole warehouse had already caught him standing next to me naked. Well, nottotallynaked—he’d had a crusty old net draped over his sea cucumber—but that detail somehow made the whole incident seem worse.
“Sorry, Claira.” He let out a tired sigh that drained all the humor from his voice. “Two captains have been by already, and I don’t want to find out what my father will do if I make him send over a third.”
“Your father?” I hovered my palm over his shirt, feeling the heat radiating off his stomach. More hours had passed, and his bruise probably looked even worse now than it had last night. Untangling my legs from around him, I exhaled a slow, steady breath. “I’ll go, too.”
“You won’t,” he said stiffly, pulling the blankets back. “It’s just more of the usual whaleshit. Half the guard will be there, so you don’t need to worry. He won’t do anything too crazy while others are around to see it.”
That settled it—I’d stick around him as much as I could from now on, even if it meant listening to boring undersea politics. Just thinking about what I’d seen last night made me want to keep King Eamon cursed indefinitely. Someone that cruel didn’t deserve a throne or a kingdom. As long as I was here, I’d make sure Leander wouldn’t have to face his father alone.
I plucked at my undergarments as I sat up. A jacket wasn’t all Kai had forgotten to pack in his care package, though I was more than thankful for what he had brought. The bathing suit Barren had picked out for me was a little more revealing than I’d hoped, but anything was better than going commando. At least I knew where to find laundry detergent, and a bathing suit would probably dry faster than actual underwear anyway. Silver linings and all that. “The usual? Your father sends someone to come wake you up every morning?”
“Sometimes,” Leander mumbled, and I gawked as he casually slid a hand down the front of his pants to adjust himself. A thought immediately struck me—was he wearing underwear? Neither Kai nor Barren had thought to bring me any, so maybe underwear was still some mystery mermen hadn’t discovered? “Sometimes reckless girls with knives sneak in, prodding me in the throat until I wake up.”
“I didn’tprodyou.” I huffed, flipping my attention from his crotch to his face. A broad grin was waiting for me, and I knew instantly he’d caught me staring. Look, it wasn’t my fault his room was so small that his crotch took up a nice, bulging chunk of it. I snatched up his pillow and chucked the whole sorry lump at him, hoping it would wipe the smug look off his face when it connected. “You know I was desperate for a phone and cranky I couldn’t find one. I only came to you after I checked everywhere else first. It’s a freaking warehouse. You’d think there’d be a phone in here somewhere!”
“And there was.” He tossed the pillow right back at me, smacking me square in the place he’d kissed only minutes before. “Right in my back pocket. Checked everywhere, huh? Well, I think you need to check a little more thoroughly next time.”
Scoffing, I got to my feet. “So, next time I’m looking for something, I should check your pants first? Got it.” My arms slipped around him, sliding right into his back pockets. I wasn’t looking for a phone or anything else, but I’d seen an opportunity, and I had to snatch it.
Clearly caught off guard, he let out a cough when my fingers flexed, feeling out the shape of his firm ass. “If you’re looking for my phone, you won’t find it,” he groaned, his voice dropping an octave. Strong hands seized my hips. “But I think what you’re looking for is actually in one of my front pockets.”
With our hips locked together as they were, the bottom of my stomach could clearly feel the hard press of what he was hiding next to his front pocket. If you could call what it was doinghiding. My fingers itched to go exploring.
An impatient throat cleared outside, and we jerked, breaking apart like two kids caught by a chaperone in the middle of a hand check.
“Duty calls,” Leander mumbled, and I felt my heartstrings pulling after him as he slid through the curtain.
