Avara POV
I settle behind the outside bar of the kitchen where Vance stands at the island with dangling kitchenware near his head. I ease onto the well-supported stool, dull pain flaring through my bottom. Vance watches with entertainment etched in his features, grinning and goofier in this moment than all of the time I have known him for.
"I'm glad at least one of us is amused," I comment dryly.
"I'd watch that tone if I was you," he cautions with a fleeting facade of seriousness before he breaks into another humored grin. "Or did someone not learn from their spanking?"
Impulse makes me flip up a hand of surrender.
"Good girl."
