Page 56 of Their Promise

He flew over my head in a circle and croaked, “Good hunt.”

Sometimes it was eerie how he could speak in an almost human voice like that. It had nothing to do with him being a shifter and was one hundred percent him being a raven. They could mimic sounds really well.

“Yes, it was a good hunt. Now, I need to head back to the house to shower and change.”

Flying overhead, he followed me to the house. Once at the house, he shifted and walked inside.

“Uh, what are you doing?” I asked, following him inside and up the stairs.

Once again, no one was home. What were they all working on away from home? Sure, they had several businesses, but they mostly ran themselves. It must not have been urgent or they would have told me. Right? Or were they keeping me out of it since I had asked for a hiatus between college ending and me taking my place as princess?

“I need a shower, too. So, let’s kill two birds with one stone,” he answered and stripped his shirt off with one swift pull.

Why did that shirt removal make me horny? It was smooth, but still …

“You want to shower with me?” I asked.

He looked over his shoulder at me. “That was the plan.” Without waiting for my response, he opened my bedroom door, tossed his shirt on my bed, removed his sweatpants, tossed them on the bed, and headed to the bathroom.

I stared at his naked, muscular ass as he walked away, mesmerized. He had one of the nicest asses I had seen on a man. I wanted to take a bite out of it.

After locking my bedroom door, I stripped out of my dress and undergarments, and followed him, deciding it was now or never to do the things I had always wanted to do. Plus, wouldn’t this help me figure out if they were the ones meant to be my mates? Wasn’t this part of courting?

The shower was running and steam was already rising up towards the ceiling as I entered.

Freezing at the door to the shower, I stared at his frosted outline. What if he didn’t like me? What if he found fault with the parts of my body that I already found faults with?

Mentally cussing at myself and the ridiculousness of those thoughts, I opened the shower door and stepped inside.

My eyes immediately dropped to his delicious ass now covered in water and there for grabbing.

“My eyes are up here,” he said, surprising me out of my thoughts so much I jumped.

When I raised my eyes, I found him smiling one of his rare, true smiles. “Can you blame me? You’ve got an amazing ass.”

His smile widened and he stepped to the side so I could get under the water. “Thank you for the compliment.” His eyes slowly roved down my body and back up to my face. “You are perfection personified.”

Stepping into the warm water, I put my hands on his chest and asked, “Why did you ask if I slept with Trey? Aren’t you all a packaged deal?”

“In a sense,” he said, “but I had hoped that I might be your first.”

“Is this a pissing contest between you three?” I asked with a scowl and stepped back.

He shook his head. “No, nothing like that. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Are you worried I care about them more than you?”

Turning his head away, he nodded.

Sliding my hand along his cheek farthest from me, I pulled him back to face me. “Mason, you are not less than Trey or Kayden. I havenever,everthought of you as less than them. I swear it on my mother.”

His eyes widened at my sincerity.

My eyes dropped to his collarbone where he had a tattoo that wrapped from his collarbone around his chest and down to his stomach. The tattoo was of a suspiciously familiar snake. “Is … Is that me?”

He glanced down at his chest and nodded.

My fingers traced the snake and he shuddered beneath my touch. “You got me tattooed on you?”

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