A Wife for a Westmoreland - Brenda Jackson [39]
“Yes, I have my reasons and they have nothing to do with getting pregnant by you, but everything to do with being in love with you. Do you have any idea how it is to fall in love with a man knowing full damn well he won’t ever love you back?”
“In love with me,” he said in a shocked stupor. “Since when?”
“Since I was sixteen.”
“Sixteen!” He shook his head. “Hell, I didn’t know.”
She placed her hands on her hips and her eyes sparked with fire. “And you weren’t supposed to know. It was a secret I had planned to take to my grave. Then like a fool I rushed over to your place when I heard you’d gotten hurt. And when you fell, I rushed up the stairs to help you back into bed and you wouldn’t get off me.”
He lifted a brow. His head was still reeling from her admission of love. “Are you saying I forced myself on you?”
“No, but I would not have gotten into bed with you if you hadn’t fallen on top of me. And then, when you began kissing me, I—”
“Didn’t want me to stop,” he finished for her. Her cheeks darkened and he knew he’d embarrassed her. “Look, Lucia, I—”
“No, you look, Derringer. You’re right. The thought of pushing you off me only entered my mind for a quick second, but I didn’t set out to get pregnant by you that night or any other night.”
“But you let me make love to you without any protection.” He remembered all too well that he hadn’t used a condom this time either.
“Then I can accuse you of the same thing. Trying to get me pregnant,” she all but snarled.
“And why would I do something like that?”
“I don’t know, but if you’re willing to think the worst of me, then I can certainly do the same thing with you. You had taken the condom out of your wallet last night, why didn’t you put it on?”
Derringer tensed. To say he’d been too carried away with making love to her would be to admit a weakness for her that he didn’t want to own up to. “I think this conversation has gotten out of hand.”
“You’re right. I want you to leave.”
He arched his brow. “Leave?”
“Yes. And my front door is that way,” she said as she pointed to the door.
He narrowed his eyes. “I know where your door is located and we haven’t finished our conversation.”
“There’s nothing else left to say, Derringer. I’ve already told you more than I should have and I’m ashamed of doing it. Now that you know how I feel, I won’t let you take advantage of those feelings. For me it’s even more important to protect my heart more than ever. Nothing has changed from the way you’ve always looked at me. Most of the time you acted like I didn’t exist.”
“That’s not true. I told you I was attracted to you a few years back.”
“Yes, and I honestly thought it meant something and that you were seeking me out after all that time. Now I know you only did so because you knew I was the one who slept with you that night.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment and then asked, “How did you know? I figured you wouldn’t remember anything.”
He jammed his hands into his jeans. “Oh, I remembered just fine, and you left a little something behind that definitely jogged my memory. Something pink and lacy. I just couldn’t remember who they belonged to. My security system gave me the answers I needed. I had video cameras installed outside my place last month. You were the woman I saw entering my house that evening and the same one I saw sneaking out the next morning with a made-love-all-night-long look all over you.”
Lucia tightened her bathrobe around her. “Like I said, that wasn’t the purpose of my visit. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“It had been storming that night. You hate storms. Yet you came to check on me,” he said.
That realization touched something within him. The reason he knew about her aversion to storms was because of something Chloe had once teased her about from their college days in Florida that involved a torrential thunderstorm and her reaction to it.
“Doesn’t matter now.”
“And what if I say it matters to me?” he all but snarled.
“Then I would suggest you get over it,” she snapped back.
“I can’t. I want to be with you again.”
She narrowed her gaze.