Claimed

Chapter 41: Practice

Sophia's POV:

Watching Darius through the mirror was the amusing highlight of my day. He reached past me to restart the tutorial and I'd never seen a person so focused. Brows furrowed, eyes squinted, one hand on the back of my head and the other braced on the counter. His fingers drummed against the counter as he watched the video.

"Maybe we should... I don't know," my shoulders lifted in a small shrug, "give up on—"

"No."

Shoulders slumped, I leaned back in my chair and fiddled with the end of my dress.

Darius's eyes widened and he pointed at the screen. "That's what I was doing wrong! Fucking finally, Goddess."

He paused the tutorial and moved behind me, separating my hair into sections again. I tilted my head back and he growled. I ignored it.

"It doesn't have to be this hairstyle," I said. "Seriously, I just thought it was cute but it's way too much work for a freaking dinner. Save it for our coronation, or for the mating ceremony tomorrow night."

"I'm not a fucking quitter." He set his hand on my head and tilted it forward so I was facing the mirror again. "I've got this. I know what I was doing wrong now."

Sighing, I rested my hands in my lap. On the other side of the wall, I heard a door open and close, then a shower came on. I rubbed my hands over my thighs thinking about Ben in the shower, right next door to me.

"Keep it in your pants, Soph, Goddess."

I glared at Dari through the mirror but it was no use. Too focused, his eyes never left my hair as he worked it into the elaborate half-up, half-down style I saw online. Tess introduced me to a site called Pinterest and I may have lost too many hours on it.

Luckily, Darius had been helping me fix my hair since we were kids.

"I heard you weren't alone last night," I said, crossing my ankles. "And by heard I mean I literally heard."

"What's it called when you listen in? Watching is Peeping Tom, so what's listening in?" He asked, briefly breaking his concentration to give me a teasing glare.

"Eavesdropping?"

"Too innocent. I'm talking specifically about what you listened in on."

"Okay, it's not like I wanted to." I narrowed my eyes at him. "You're just loud."

He cracked a smile. "If you were really listening in, you'd know I wasn't the loud one last night."

"I tried to tune you out, but you were so loud a human would've heard."

"Again, it wasn't me." He held his hands up in surrender. "It was all her."

"Oh, so you weren't the reason she was loud? What'd you do, just watch her take care of herself after you failed to?"

He leveled a glare at me and I slapped my hand over my mouth to conceal the laugh. Bracing his palms on the back of my chair, he leaned over my shoulder. "Do you want your hair done or not?"

My best innocent smile came forward and I batted my eyelashes at him. "Yes, please."

Rolling his eyes, he returned to working on my hair. "You know, when you try to play innocent no one buys it. It's like when you're around a bunch of kids and they're loud as fuck and then all the sudden, everything goes quiet. No one's relieved at the silence, they're suspicious."

I set my hand over my chest and feigned offense. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying behave."

I snorted. He groaned and stopped what he was doing. Our eyes met through the mirror and I grinned. "You should never say that to me."