I smiled. “Me, too.”
“Not as hard as me,” he said, his expression serious.
“I fell just as hard,” I said and shook my head.
“Not possible,” he replied.
“If you think that, I haven’t been good enough to you,” I said, surprised that he thought I hadn’t felt for him the way he felt for me. “I haven’t done a good enough job showing you how hard I fell.” Then I kissed him and cupped his face with my hands. “I love you, Drake. Totally and completely.”
“I love you, Ms. Bennet. Totally and completely.”
We embraced for a few moments, and his arms tightened around me as if he couldn’t get close enough. When he finally let go, I rose up on my elbows above him and watched his face. His eyes were closed and he was smiling.
“What’s that smile about?”
He grinned more widely, but kept his eyes closed. “I want to talk to you, cuddle and do all the stuff women like after sex, but I’m exhausted.” He cracked one eyelid open and looked at me.
“You can go to sleep if you want,” I said and poked him in the shoulder. “I won’t be insulted. I’ll get up and read my Facebook feed until I’m tired enough to sleep. It’s funny but I was tired back at O’Riley’s and thought I’d want to go to sleep right away, but now…”
“Yes, you were yawning when we were at O’Riley’s, but I told you. Sex wakes women up and puts men to sleep. It is known.”
I laughed at the reference to Game of Thrones. “It is known,” I said, “but sometimes, it is forgotten. Sex always wakes me up. I won’t be long. You go ahead and go to sleep. I’ll be back once I’ve checked my email.”
He nodded and sat up, unbuttoning his shirt while I pulled on my little lace nightgown.
“Oh, by the way, there’s something I wanted to tell you,” I said, and frowned, remembering the strange woman at the bar.
“What?” Drake asked, as he stood and undressed.
“It’s probably nothing, but I noticed this woman tonight, watching the band, but she never came in and sat down. She stayed in the alcove by the washrooms. I wondered if it might be your resident. Lisa.”
Drake sat on the bed beside me, his expression dark. “What did she look like?”
I thought about her. “Tall with long really dark hair. I couldn’t see her face very clearly, but she was definitely pretty and had a nice figure.”
“What did she do?”
I shrugged, thinking I was being paranoid. “Nothing, really. She stood there and listened to the music. I thought she was waiting to use the washroom, but there was no one in it. Then she left and came back twice. Once, I thought she was looking at me but maybe I was imagining things…”
Drake said nothing for a moment, frowning. “I don’t like it,” he said. “It might be nothing, but Lisa knows I play in a band. It might have been her.” He sighed audibly beside me. “I really don’t like the idea she was there or that she saw you.”
“She’d have no idea who I am though,” I said and shook my head. “It’s not like there are a lot of pictures of me anywhere. My father is really serious about privacy and so we never made our Facebook pages public and never posted pictures of ourselves online.”
Drake shook his head. “If she wanted to find out who you were, she could do it easily enough. Maybe I better look into personal security.”
I gasped at that. “Really?” I said. “Are you that worried about her?”
“I don’t know, Kate,” he said, his voice quiet. “I don’t want to take any chances.” He turned to me, his blue eyes intense. “Maybe I’ll contact Kyle Burke, an old friend from college who’s in the security business, about arranging private security. He’s in the lifestyle, so I can tell him the truth.”
“If you think so,” I said. “I really don’t think it’s necessary…”
“Better safe than sorry.” Then he leaned closer and stroked my cheek. “You and the baby are everything to me. If anything happened to you…”
I smiled. “We’ve watched too many thrillers,” I said with a light laugh. “Things like that only happen in the movies.”
We kissed and then I went to the bathroom and cleaned up. When I was finished, I left the bedroom and went to my office where my laptop sat on a desk. I sat down and woke it up, checking my mail for anything that came in while I was out and then clicked on the Facebook icon on my desktop. I heard Drake in the bathroom running water, and knew he was having a quick shower before bed.
I read through my newsfeed and then looked over my plans for the week for my research project, and when I yawned once more, I decided to go to bed. By the time I finished brushing my teeth and washing my face, Drake was asleep.