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“You aren’t going to lose me, Drake,” she said softly.
This time it was she who reached across the table and pulled his hand into hers while his other hand remained at her cheek, caressing her softly.
“I want to be the woman you want and need me to be. I want your authority and your control. I never want to change who and what you are because then it wouldn’t be real. I need you,” she whispered. “However and whenever you want me. However you need me. I want to be the one who makes you happy. It’s important to me.”
She was pleading with him with her eyes, and his gaze softened as his hand lowered from her face. He gathered her hands in his and laced their fingers together.
“I once told you that you would never have to beg me for anything I can give you, Angel. That still stands true. Whatever you want, whatever you need, it’s yours. I am yours,” he said in a serious voice. “Do you understand that? Do you get that? Yes, you belong to me and I am a very possessive man, but I am also yours and, Angel, you are also a very possessive woman.”
His eyes gleamed wickedly.
“I like it. I have to tell you it’s a huge turn-on to have a woman so possessive of me,” he said with a grin.
She blushed, her cheeks flooding with warmth, but she didn’t look away from him in embarrassment. There was no censure in his voice or words. No admonishment.
“Okay, so I totally admit that I would kick a bitch’s ass if she looked at you wrong,” Evangeline muttered.
Drake chuckled, a grin flirting with his lips. “Then we’re even, because I’ll kick a man’s ass if he looks at you for a second longer than necessary. Even if I can understand the urge to stare shamelessly at you. I may not blame the man for breathing and for having eyes in his head, but I can and will beat his ass for looking too long.”
She snorted. “You are so full of it, Drake. I’ll never understand what you see in me, but I’m not complaining.”
He scowled at her and shook his head in disapproval. “Now that will get your ass spanked, Angel. You don’t talk down about yourself. I’d never let anyone else get away with that shit, so I’m damn sure not allowing you to perpetuate a complete lie.”
She looked at him, flustered, with no idea what to say, so she shut up and didn’t say anything at all. But she felt a burst of warmth in her chest at the way he was so quick to call her out on talking down about herself.
He leaned over the table so that she would hear his next words. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known,” he said in a husky voice. “Now if you think I make it a habit of saying that kind of shit to every woman I meet, you couldn’t be more wrong.”
She fidgeted in her chair. Would dinner ever get here? The sexual tension between them was so thick it could be cut with a knife. She was dying to get out of public view and back to their apartment and to Drake’s promises.
His gaze swept over her face and he smiled, as though he knew exactly what she was thinking. The damn man probably did. He knew everything else.
Just then the waiter approached the table and Evangeline nearly wilted in relief. The food looked and smelled delicious, but she couldn’t keep her eyes—or thoughts—off Drake.
“Eat, baby,” Drake said with a smile. “I’ll take care of all my angel’s needs later. Promise.”
She sighed and glanced down at her plate. It was going to be a long night.
14
The ride back to the apartment was mostly silent. Evangeline was snuggled into Drake’s side, her head resting on his shoulder as she took in the twinkling lights of the city. It was a comfortable, companionable silence, not one borne of awkwardness.
She liked that they were so comfortable around one another and so at ease. Who would have thought all those weeks ago when she’d gone to Impulse to rub Eddie’s nose in what he was supposedly missing that she would be where she was now.
Her mother had always said that life was full of surprises and that it wasn’t meant to be predictable. She’d taught Evangeline from a young age to embrace each day as the gift it was because no one was ever guaranteed tomorrow.
She turned Drake’s wrist toward her so she could see the time on his watch.
“Everything okay?” he murmured. “You have another pressing appointment to get to?”
His teasing made her grin saucily up at him.
“As a matter of fact, I have a hot date lined up with some hunk I met at Impulse. I told him I’d sneak out at midnight and meet him.”
