Page 41 of Tall, Royal and Grumpy

I was floating high above the clouds. Drugged on a heady feeling of elation having had beyond the best time with Kai.

The hours I spent with him felt like a blissful dream. So good, that at times I worried they really were just a figment of my wild imagination. That I would wake up and find myself sprawled in a cold bed in the middle of the night with nothing but the realisation that none of it had been real.

Because honestly? Some moments were so surreal it truly felt like my imagination was getting the better of me. Moments that injected me with dose after dose of hope he might—not immediately, but maybe soon—reciprocate my feelings.

Now I was filled with the kind of giddy delight that stole away any sort of tiredness or worry.

After a walk around the palace where Kai showed me a few places I hadn’t been, we ended up on the ground floor of the library, where all the tables and chairs were along the back.

Kai was sitting in the chair on my right while I was sitting atop the table surface. He looked sexy in his navy hoodie, loose grey pyjama bottoms, and glasses combo. With a book in his hand and his strong, thick thighs spread, he ever so slightly brushed the side of my bare calf.

“I haven’t heard of half of these fables ever,” I said, flicking through the red bound book in my lap.

“I doubt most of Touma’s citizens have either,” Kai said, nodding at the book. “They are old, pre-Zorro’s Rebellion fables that were lost with the people who told them, so they’re not very common to hear anymore. They’re not the most interesting of stories either.”

“No, they are not.” I chuckled, skimming over a fable called, A Bag of Sand. “I think I preferred the book of Post Rebellion fairy tales.”

I glanced behind me to pick up the previous bound book I had been reading, but the number of books that were piled around the table took me by surprise. “Wow. I didn’t realise we’d pulled this many books from the shelves.”

Kai nudged his glasses up his nose with a finger. “Not we. You. You were handing them to me while you were babbling away.”

My spine shot straight as a defensive blush tore through me. “I don’t babble!”

The dimple in his right cheek made the quickest of appearances. “Yes, you do.”

“I do not. I just…”

His expression hardly changed but amusement shone in his blacker than black eyes so damn bright, I would’ve had to be blind to miss it. “Babble,” he offered with a raise of his brows.

I scowled, but I could feel my mouth betraying me. “No. I just talk quickly. And if my talking was bothering you so much, why didn’t you tell me to be quiet?”

“I never once said that it bothered me.”

Right. He hadn’t.

I struggled to swallow around that acknowledgement, and I didn’t know what made me do it, but I knocked his thigh with my leg. “Still, I don’t babble.”

His lashes dipped to his leg or mine and up to my face. “You do.” He nudged my leg with his thigh.

His touch sent a sledgehammer through my chest, but I knocked him back. “I don’t.”

“You do.” His dimple made an appearance against the late-night shadow on his jaw as he pushed my leg again.

He was smiling, soft and small. His eyes glowing like stars. And maybe it was more of a smirk, but it was real and natural and effortless. Stunning.

And for me. Or at me. But for. Me. His first real smile.

First a laugh and now a smile. Are you sure this isn’t a dream, Esmeralda?

I was almost tempted to pinch myself to test if it was or not. I opted for the better option of knocking Kai’s leg again. Nope, he was real. Real, and warm, and rock-solid, and perfect. “I don’t.”

Kai let out a breathy huff and kept his sturdy leg against mine, searing his imprint into my skin permanently. “Okay, you don’t.”

There was a moment. One, ten or a hundred seconds where our stares mingled. By the end of it, my cheeks were aching from how hard I was smiling.

Kai was the first to break away, clearing his throat. “I’ll put some of the books away.”

“I’ll help.” I shuffled forward on the table as he stood up from the chair.

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