Church Folk - Michele Andrea Bowen [27]
Her push was like a couple of ice cubes dumped down the back of his shirt. "It seems as if we got a bit carried away," he said, raggedly. "I never meant to . . . I . . . just . . . couldn't help myself."
"We got carried away?" Essie said indignantly.
Theophilus stepped back and looked at her. He was not about to let her stand there and pin all of that kissing, hugging, and sighing on him. He knew that she had been giving just as good as she had gotten.
"Yes, Essie," he said matter-of-factly. "We got carried away— you and me, me and you."
"Well," she said, as if she was trying to dismiss that reality. "You were getting too familiar-acting with me."
Theophilus decided not to push the point. He realized that she was uncomfortable with her own response and that she had little experience with men. Yet she was a deeply passionate woman. Those clothes, the way she put on makeup, and that walk drove him crazy. And, pressed against her, he had sensed a deeper current of desire in her than he had ever dreamed was there. The thought of being the only man ever to know that passion was almost enough to make him want to marry her. Marriage. A shiver ran up his spine that was so strong it made his shoulders twitch.
"What's wrong with you?" Essie asked.
"Felt a shiver."
"Must be your conscience bothering you."
Theophilus leaned against the counter that faced the kitchen sink, folding his arms across his chest and crossing his legs at the ankles.
"I bet you'd just love for me to have a whipped conscience about now. But I don't. And I'll tell you something, Essie. If you think I wanted you, you're right—I definitely wanted you. And it's a good thing your mama is in this house or else I would have been hard pressed not to take this further."
Essie pointed her finger at Theophilus, wagging it back and forth as she said, "And I guess you think that I was just gonna stand there and let you go as far as the high heavens, huh?" She put her hands on her hips, leaned back on those big legs, and was about to say some more when Lee Allie walked into the kitchen.
Essie looked at her mother and clapped her hand to her face, thinking, "Lord, have I just lost my mind? I've been all up on this man, right in my mama's kitchen."
Theophilus, who had heard Lee Allie's bedroom door close when she had first left the kitchen, had been so caught up in kissing Essie that he had forgotten to listen for her return. He didn't want Lee Allie to think that he was trying to disrespect her home. He looked down at himself, grateful for no telltale signs, not realizing that his passion was boldly imprinted, like a great big sign, all across his face.
Lee Allie almost laughed as she watched Essie and Theophilus trying to act all normal and polite. She could have told those two she was definitely born before yesterday and that there was nothing like unnatural silence to alert a mother that hot-and-bothered kissing was going on in her home. Instead she frowned at Essie, whose embarrassment was making her angry at Theophilus.
"Essie Lee, why you huffing and puffing like you gettin' ready to start a fight?"
She looked at Theophilus. "Reverend, you'll have to excuse her."
"I'll do just that, Sister Lane. Essie and I were having a serious discussion and things got heated up a bit while we were talking. Didn't they, Essie?" he said with a smirk that dared her to contradict him.
Essie couldn't believe him. And if she thought she could have gotten away with it, she would have smacked him right upside his head for saying that mess. She rolled her eyes at him and said, "Well . . . I wouldn't go so far as to say it was heated."
Theophilus knew she was worried about her