He tightened his arms around her again, rolled to his back, taking her with him, and when they were in position, he said to the ceiling, “Fuck. If she keeps yappin’, not gonna be able to break her in easy ’cause I’m gonna have to gag her to shut her up, tie her to bed to control her, and she’s gorgeous with a great body. Seein’ her like that for me is gonna make me wanna play with her ’til she submits and I’m never gonna get any shuteye.”

“If you let me go and stop chatting with the ceiling, I can clean up, come back and you can get some shuteye.”

He let her go instantly but did it with a smile, a smile that came even if he was not at all happy at the same time he felt a warm hit his gut at learning she could make a joke.

She scrambled off him.

It had been happening.

She was hot when they were fucking.

Cute when she was a princess.

He could feel the tug but he could deal with both.

So it had been happening. Her pull. Reeling him in.

But he was keeping his head above water. Barely, with their conversation proving she could exacerbate the princess cute that he liked, make a joke, and throw some effective attitude.

What he couldn’t deal with was what happened next.

And it wasn’t her warning as she slid out of bed and walked toward the bathroom, “By the way, Sebring, so you don’t waste time or effort, I’m never going to submit to you.” Something, if he’d had the ability in that moment to pay closer attention, he would take as the challenge it was.

No, it wasn’t that.

It was her miscalculating her position when she turned on the bathroom lights.

She hadn’t meant for him to see.

But when she turned on the lights, at what he saw, it hit him like a bullet.

It was her that plunged the room into darkness that night when he’d started taking off her clothes.

And it was always her who shifted, writhed, pulled away, repositioned them if he ever got close to getting his eyes on her back.

Or touching her there.

So he knew it was a miscalculation when he caught sight of her when she flipped on the light before she closed the door because she didn’t want him to see.

Fuck, the woman was usually dressed before his dick stopped being hard.

And right then, when he got his eyes on her back, that was when he went under, lungs filling with water, sinking like a dead weight, knowing he’d have to fight to resurface.