"Well, it's a good thing you didn't."
"Why?"
"I would have been obliged to kill him."
He spoke with too much conviction to be jesting. Something inside her warmed at the thought that he wanted no one else to touch her. Close behind the warmth came fear. Is this how her father had been with her mother? Possessive?
Yet even now there was a marked difference. Drake did not say he would kill her, or even hate her. He said that he would kill the man.
She sighed. It was all very confusing. Much more so than contracts and ledgers, even ledgers that did not balance.
He walked over to the chest and pulled out a nightrail, his big, very male body unlike any Thea had ever seen. Returning to her, he laid it on the bed and then started tugging at the ripped gown she wore.
She slapped his hand away. "What are you doing?"
"Unless you want your maid to know exactly how you spent the night, you had better put on a new sleeping gown."
"I can dress myself."
His roguish smile surprised her. "I know, but I will like helping."
"Oh." This passion business had much more to it than she had originally thought. "Very well."
She put her arms out, to make it easier for him to pull the gown off. He laughed.
She frowned up at him, feeling at a disadvantage. "What?"
"You look like a small child about to be dressed." She was about to be dressed. How was she supposed to look?
He pulled her gown off and stilled. She looked up and sucked in her breath at the heat in his eyes.
"Perhaps you should finish the task," he rasped, stepping away from the bed with the white lawn of her ripped gown foaming over his muscular forearm.
She shrugged into the new gown and wiggled until it decently covered her and then turned her gaze back to Drake.
He looked pained and out of sorts.
Perhaps she hadn't pleased him as much as he had pleased her. How was a lady supposed to find such a thing out? Sucking her bottom lip between her teeth, she thought how best to phrase her inquiry. Bluntness usually worked admirably.
"Um, Drake—"
"Surely after the intimacy we have just shared, you could call me by my first name," he said, interrupting her.
What difference did it make what she called him? She had more pressing things on her mind. "You may be right, but that's not important right now."
"And what is important?" he asked, his tone sardonic.
"Did I please you?" She bit her lower lip, waiting for this answer.
His dark molasses eyes warmed. "Ah, Thea…" He reached out and touched her cheek. "You pleased me more than I can say, but if you are asking whether or not I found completion, the answer is no."
"Oh." How was she supposed to interpret that response? She drew her knees up to her chest. "I'd like to complete you." She wanted him to feel the same overwhelming sense of Tightness she did at that moment.
"I want that very much, too, but now is not the time." He leaned down and kissed her softly, first on her forehead, and then tilting her face up with his forefinger under her chin, he pressed a gentle salute to her mouth. "Good night, Thea."
"Good night."
She watched him walk out of the room, her body still pulsing from what he had made her feel. "You won't ignore me again, will you?"