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It’s not like when I was younger, waking up to wet shorts. It’s just that I begin stirring, the scent of her hair still thick in my nostrils, and I feel how soaked she is. I awaken in stages, rocking my hips into her as my eyes open. It’s dark. Pitch-black, how Lex likes it. It should bother me that I won’t be able to go back to my room later and see it on the monitor, but it doesn’t. When I shift, feeling how sticky we’ve become around my cock, it feels like a secret.

Because she’s awake.

Verity makes a small, throaty sound, wriggling against me, but doesn’t try to tug out of my grip. Maybe she awoke when the first surges of cum began to fill her. My cock can never give her enough. I went to sleep holding her, and I wake up in the exact same position, only now she’s full of me. It feels important, heavy, as if our bodies are saying ‘this right here, don’t move a muscle’.

She disturbs the silence with a ragged sigh. “We missed dinner.”

My cock is already half-hard again, swelling inside of her cum-soaked pussy. I skate my lips up her neck, whispering, “Are you hungry?”

If she hears the reluctance in my voice, then she can’t possibly understand it. It’s not that I’m unwilling to get out of bed. It’s that Iamwilling. I’m sleepy and warm, clutching her against me, and Verity Sinclaire could snap her fingers right now and have me racing to the kitchen to make just about anything.

In my whole goddamn life, a moment has never felt as perfect as this one.

“He’ll be mad,” she says, not answering my question.

Shrugging, I pull her closer. “Let him.”

I don’t tell her that the dinners are probably more of a chore for him than they are for us. That they’re an illusion—the pretense of giving her a choice, keeping her complacent. Which Prince will it be this week?

There’ll come a day when he makes that choice for her.

Better I do it first.

* * *

“She didwhat?”Dorian Baxter is visibly caught between outrage and laughter. “Didn’t you just buy that car?”

The whole locker room has turned to Tommy Wright, who looks exactly like a guy who just got his new Porsche keyed by his girlfriend. “That’s not even the worst part,” he fumes, pulling on his pads. “She dumped everything in my closet into the river. My whole wardrobe. The baseball card collection my grandfather left to me. All my shoes.” He growls in frustration at a problematic strap. “All over some bullshit.”

“At least she talks to you,” Loeffler grunts, tying his skates. “Mine won’t even answer my texts.”

Wicker shoots me a tense look, and I keep winding the tape around my stick. I don’t need my brother to tell me that Verity’s little revenge stunt before storming out of the spa is causing waves. I can feel their pissed-off stares drilling into us—I have since we got to campus this morning. Maybe I could feel bad for them if I hadn’t spent the night curled around my Princess, emptying my balls into her, but hey.

Not my fault.

At least, that’s what I keep reminding myself during practice. It gets a little difficult when every scrimmage ends with me being battered against the glass by our pissy D-man. Wicker skates past me just as Coach blows the whistle, jaw tight.

“Keep your cool,” he mutters.

“One more hit from him,” I say, spitting out my mouth guard, “and I’m going to bury my skate in his fucking throat.”

PNZ being pissed at us isn’t even something new. Wicker and I were Ashbys long before we were Princes, so we’ve been dealing with bitchy Royals since high school. Guys who wanna put us in our place. Assholes who thought we weren’t good enough for the name, let alone the Purple Palace. Becoming Princes created a social shift that was never natural or expected.

But it’s still a problem.

The only thing that makes it worth it happens that night when I stalk down the hallway to her bedroom, Effie’s cage rattling with every step.

When I push through the door, Verity is already in bed, blankets pulled up to her chin. She doesn’t look at me for very long, her green eyes landing on the cage, but something behind them brightens.

“Oh.” She scurries to sit up. “You’re bringing her to sleep here?”

“Yes,” I say, placing the cage on the dresser. It’s covered with a sheet. “She’s been a goddamn terror all day, and she’ll be worse if I leave her alone another night. You can say hi to her in the morning.”

From behind the sheets comes Effie’s soft coo. “Gentle, gentle.”

Verity’s jaw drops. “Oh my god, she sounds like me.”

“All the fucking time,” I mutter, pulling off my shirt. Effie doesn’t hear many feminine voices. That must be why she’s latched onto Verity’s, because it’s new and interesting. I make sure the sheet is secure before unbuttoning my pants and shoving them, boxers and all, down my legs.