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“And…how are you measuring this, exactly?”
Her exasperated tone demanded a visual assessment and he turned, finding her perfectly… unreadable.
She gestured to him with a hand. “I’m not exactly…seeingany symptoms in you either,” she muttered.
“I just told you I can’t look at you while talking about it.”
“Well…I haven’t even told you my symptoms because I’m too nervous. I mean that’s kinda the same thing.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s the same thing,” he said.
“But it’s still a symptom,” she argued.
“A very minor one, I’d say.”
She gave an exasperated breath and angle-eyed him. “What is your point? You’re mad that I’m notshowingmore symptoms? Maybe I’m just better at hiding them?”
“Maybe you could be better at telling me so we can assess the situation and come up with a plan of action to navigate this.”
“Okay, fine,” she sputtered. “You kissed me and I…I liked it and was surprised,” she added. “At how…fun it was.”
“Wow,” he muttered, getting her sharp hazel eyes on him.
“Now what?” she cried. “I’m not that great with words, sue me.”
“Soyoulikedit while Ilovedit. You thought it wasfunwhile I thought it was the most thrilling thing I’ve ever experienced. I’d say our symptoms areverydifferent. But I’m glad yours are so muchless, that means at least one of us can be an anchor of untouchable strength.” He gestured at her. “Andyou find this funny. More evidence you’ve managed to escape the fires of this pleasure hellscape. I hope you’re up for lessons.”
“Lessons?” she asked, fighting back a smile.
“You’ll need to teach me how to accomplish this.”
She looked down at the notebook in her lap with a little laugh. “Ever hear the term fake it till you make it?”
He searched his slang database then realized it was straight forward. “I haven’t but understand what it means.”
She nodded. “That’s my trick,” she muttered. “Whatever is hard to do, I do it like it’s easy. Whatever I’m not sure about, I speak as though I’m sure about it. Whatever I can’t do, I find a way to do it.”
He faced her fully and crossed his arms over his chest, studying her. “What exactly are you faking?”
She gave a laugh and aimed her red face right at him. “Really? You don’t know?”
“I should remind you I have zero—” Her hand shot up stopping him.
“It means I’mveryaffected byallof it and I’m faking that I’m not affected because that’s what we need to do, we need to make it out of this…fiery pleasure-scape as you so accurately called it, and accomplish the goal.”
“The goal,” he muttered as his mind rearranged all her actions in the past fifteen minutes under this new information.
“Yes, the goal. Show the other Kings you don’t need to be romantically involved to level your powers up. That a mere friendship can accomplish that. Then you felt the need to kiss me and…for the life of me, I cannot rememberwhyyou needed to do that now because I can’t stop thinking about thekissor the fact that you’ll be doing itagainand if it affected me so much while practicing, what will it do next time?”
He watched her shoot off the couch and pace with her arms crossed next to it.
“We’re so screwed,” she muttered, glancing at him. “I don’t know how we’re going to do this.” She shook her head. “All I know is wecannotkiss again, I can’t take that.”
“It’s just pleasure,” he reminded her, his blood hot just fromtalkingabout that kiss and the scheduled one and that she’d faked how much she liked it. “I just need them toseeit once.”
She shot out a laugh. “That’s how all addictions start. Just one. Then before you know it, you can’t sleep or you can’t see the other person speak because you’ll look at their mouth and relive what it felt like when it wasallover yours and then your brain will quit working, you’ll get stupid,” she reminded, “and probably do something very very dumb like…kiss him whether he wants to or not.”
“Stop,” he gushed, turning as her words brought on an erotic storm. “You’re painting a picture, Darby.”
