Page 33 of Greed: The Savage
Fully restored, Thornwick drew himself up.
Raising the back of his hand, Thornwick rapped his knuckles along the center of the door’s panel and waited.
When there came no answering call, he grinned.
Given the late hour she’d been working last night, she was likely dead to the world. He’d save a lecture for another time.
“Wakey, wakey, Addien,” he called. Same as yesterday, but with none of the bite.
Silence rang in the corridor.
Restive, he pounded at the door. “Are you in there, Addien?”
If he’d learned nothing else yesterday, his fierce little minx deserved the benefit of the doubt.
“Perhaps you require some assistance dressing.” He intended that as a jest based on their disastrous first start.
Want settled heavy in his veins. His breath came sharper, faster. To steady his hungering for the enthralling creature on the other side of the panel, he gripped her brass doorknob hard.
“Oi, Thornwick!”
Fuck.
Thornwick, caught flat-footed, turned.
Delilah smirked. “I can promise you, Thornwick, you’re the last person Addien wants to keep company with, let alone have dress her.”
Heat formed under his collar. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
It was a genuine question, one he really should know the answer to.
“You’re slipping, Thornwick. Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to know everyone’s schedule?”
It appeared Delilah was of shared opinion.
Her retort lacked the sting and strength of a certain wild sprite who had him tied up in knots. He found himself curiously missing his usual sparring partner. Something in Delilah’s question reached him.
“…aren’t you the one who’s supposed to know everyone’s schedule…?”
Thornwick narrowed his eyes.
“Where is she?” he asked bluntly.
“Do you want me to do your work for you?” With a wintry laugh, Delilah sauntered off.
Thornwick frowned and considered the hall in both directions. He had already made a number of miscalculations where the minx was concerned. He’d arrived at faulty assumptions. With that belated discovery in mind, he considered the opposite place of where he’d expected to find her.
Cursing roundly, he turned quick on his heel. Of course, bloody hell. And only because he was alone and wasn’t in the unpredictable chit’s presence did he allow himself a wry grin.
Sure enough, as he made his way belowstairs, he heard her.
Thornwick slowed his steps. Or it sounded vaguely like her.
Those slightly smoky but definitively feminine tones of hers he recognized all too well. But never had he heard them…like this.
“It’s worse!”
Addien’s lamentations were followed by a loud, booming laugh. That deep rumble of amusement was nothing like the gravelly, ill-used, barely discernible expression of Thornwick’s limited mirth.
