“But you didn’t.” He could not help himself. He reached out to touch the brilliant wave of hair that fell across her shoulder.
Kenna watched his fingers curl in her hair. She could not breathe or move as he stroked the feather-soft ends.
“I was going to wake you when I came here. I had not meant to watch you sleep,” Rhys said huskily. “But you seemed so peaceful. You didn’t move or make a sound. I never knew until you sat up how tortured your thoughts were. Do you usually wake up screaming?”
She nodded, unable to speak as his hand stilled close to her breast. The comforter seemed no protection at all. She could feel the heat of his hand through it.
“I wish I could make it different for you, Kenna.” His hand dropped away abruptly. “I must leave.” He turned to go and was halfway to the door when she called to him.
“Am I a cold woman, Rhys?”
Rhys stopped, uncertain he had heard correctly. At his side his fingers curled into white-knuckled fists but he did not face her. “What did you say?”
Kenna was already regretting her question and the mad impulse that made her voice it. It had been at the back of her mind since she discovered it was not her brother in her bedchamber, but she had never expected to speak the thought aloud. She looked at Rhys’s back, the taut broad shoulders and the still, expectant posture, and wanted to call back the words. It was obvious she had taken him by surprise, even embarrassed him, to say nothing of the humiliation she had heaped upon her own head. She worried her lower lip, saying nothing, and waited for him to continue on his way.
Kenna’s silence forced Rhys to turn toward her bed as nothing else could have. He saw the way her teeth caught her lip, the uncertainty in eyes that seemed impossibly large for her face. “Kenna?” He spoke her name gently.
The question tumbled out again. “Am I a cold woman?”
Rhys covered the distance to her bed quickly and sat beside her, taking her hands in both of his. When she tried to pull away he would not let her. “What makes you ask such a thing?”
That he had not answered her question immediately made Kenna feel as if he were playing for time, searching for a way to spare her. “I don’t know,” she lied. “Sometimes I think I am not as other women,” she said, echoing Victorine’s words. “I don’t think I would suit any man.”
Not any man, Rhys thought. I don’t want you to suit any man. Only me. “So you think you may be cold, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“I could tell you you’re wrong, but then you rarely believe anything I tell you. Why should this be different?”
“You’re right, of course. It was silly of me to ask you.”
“I could show you. All you would have to do is feel.”
“You mean—” But she had only to look at his darkening eyes to know what he meant. “It would be wrong.”
“Would it?” He doubted anything would be more right but he refused to pressure her into something she would regret.
“Yes.” But there was no certainty in her voice.
“Very well.” Rhys released her hands and began to edge off the bed.
Kenna caught the sleeve of his jacket. “No. Don’t leave. I want to know. I must know.”
“Why ask me, Kenna?”
“There is no one else,” she said simply.
Rhys had not thought the truth would cut so deeply and he nearly winced with the pain Kenna unwittingly inflicted. He touched her chin with his hand, lifting her face to him. “You haven’t so much as a sliver of ice in your body. Let us leave it at that.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’ve kissed you, Kenna. I know. And so should you.”
“But you left me.”
“I am not such a libertine as you think. On occasion I have a gallant streak. I did not leave you because I found you cold. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“Then show me,” she said. “Now.” As an after-thought, she added, “I demand it.”
