After Helena left, I dozed off for some time. But I wake up again to a darkened room, the setting sun casting its final light on the orange sky, leaving a hint of a glow on my ceiling. Then the deafening sounds of all-out construction taking place on the other side of my bedroom door picks up again. And it stretches on. Dammit, it won’t stop. Helena’s news from this morning is dastardly enough. I need silence. I'm quickly pushed past my limits. If this is Wes's way of breaking me down, he's got another thing coming.

That arrogant, ridiculously rude, profoundly presumptuous, giant, sexy fool.

Shoving back the covers, I kick my legs over the side of my bed, toes searching for my favorite bedroom slippers but finding nothing.

"I swear to God that if this incessant pounding doesn't stop, someone will have to answer to the king!"

But just as I pad barefoot on the cold granite floors and make it to a few paces from my door, I feel a presence. Someone's behind me. Before I can react, a broad, bulky arm of thick, corded muscle grips me around my waist, and my feet leave the ground as a big, beefy, now familiar hand covers my mouth and half my face.

"Hush, princess," Wes growls out in a threatening yet undeniably beautiful warning. This is the voice of the man who is quickly becoming the exception to every rule I've ever known. And as hard as I try to fight it, to fight him, I know I was utterly lost the first moment our paths crossed.

I hate it.

I love it.

I hate that I love it.

He tightens his hold around my waist, molding me to him as he turns and carries me back to the bed.

"You're going to have to be perfectly quiet if you want me to stay," he groans against a spot behind my ear. "Are you going to do that?"

I shake my head as far to each side as his steady hand will allow, relaying my refusal to cooperate.

"You're not planning to scream, are you?" he asks as a follow-up.

I nod. Repeatedly. On the surface, I have every intention of screaming, but when his hand lifts off my face, I'm perfectly quiet.

Somehow, Wes has a way of seeing right through my empty warnings. Either that. or more tragically, I am unable to disobey a single instruction that he gives.

If it's the latter, I am hopelessly lost.

"There's my good little girl."

He lowers me into the bed then straightens up to his full height. I roll onto my back, and just as I do, I notice the beams of sunlight flooding in through the vast, towering windows on both sides of my bed. They cast a golden glow across Wes's immense frame, making him seem not of this world. Like a perfectly sculpted statue of a Greek overalls-clad God come to life.

My breath catches in my throat, and I struggle to hold back, but a low moan escapes anyway.

"I take it that you like what you see, and the feeling is mutual. Let's not waste another second fighting...this...whatever this is. Now go."

"Where?" I hear myself asking.

He points to the door of my attached bathroom. "I drew you a bath. Go. Bathe. When you’re finished, come back to the room, dry yourself off and put on the high heels and tiara that I set out near the towels. There’s a bright red lipstick on the vanity too. Put it on for me like a good girl. Then, when you come back, stand at the foot of the bed, completely naked and in just those high heels and tiara, and wait for me to tell you what's going to happen next."

And like a moth to a flame, I begin to do as he demands.

But moths like me get consumed and sometimes turned to ash when they finally reach the object of their captivation.

I’m sure of one thing.

If I survive this at all, it’s going to burn.