Temptation - Brenda Jackson [34]
Deciding to come out and say what she’d been thinking, she glanced back over at Zeke. He was sitting across the kitchen, straddling a chair. “What about last night?”
He held her gaze. “What about it?”
Sheila’s heart thumped hard in her chest. “W-we slept together and we should not have,” she stammered, wishing she hadn’t been so blunt, but not knowing what else she could have said to broach the subject and let him know her feelings on the matter.
“It was inevitable.”
Her eyes widened in surprise at his comeback. “I don’t think it was. Why do you?”
“Because I wanted you from the first and I picked up on the vibes that you wanted me, too.”
What vibes? “I was attracted to you from the first, I admit that,” she said. “But I wasn’t sending off vibes.”
“Yes, you were.”
Had she unconsciously emitted vibes as he claimed? She tried to recall such a time and—
“Remember that day you woke me up when I’d fallen asleep on your sofa?”
She nodded, remembering. They had stared at each other for the longest time. “Yes, I remember.”
“You blushed but wouldn’t tell me what you were thinking, what was going through your mind to make you do so.”
“So you assumed…”
“No, I knew. I think I can read you pretty well.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. I can probably guess with certainty the times we’ve been together when your thoughts of me were sexual.”
Could he really? She didn’t like that and to hear him say it actually irritated her. “Look, Zeke, I’m not sure about the women you’re used to getting involved with, but—”
“But you are different from them,” he finished for her. “And I agree you’re different in a positive way.”
“We’ve known each other less than a week,” she reminded him.
“Yes, but we’ve shared more in that time than a lot of people share in a lifetime. Especially last night. The connection between us was unreal.”
Sheila immediately thought of her friend Emily Burroughs. If she could claim ever having a best friend it would have to be Emily. They had been roommates in college. And she believed they had a special friendship that would have gotten even stronger over the years…if Emily hadn’t died. Her friend had died of ovarian cancer at the young age of twenty-three.
Sheila had been with Emily during her final days. Emily hadn’t wanted to go to hospice, preferring to die at home in her own bed. And she had wanted Sheila there with her for what they’d known would be their last slumber party. It was then Emily had shared that although she wasn’t a virgin, she’d never made out with a guy and felt one gigantic explosion; she’d never heard bells and whistles. Emily had never felt the need to scream. She had died not experiencing any of that. And last night Sheila had encountered everything that Emily hadn’t in her lifetime.
“Do you regret last night, Sheila?”
His question intruded into her thoughts and she glanced back over at him, wondering how she could get him to understand that she was a loner. Always had been and probably always would be. She didn’t take rejection well, and every time the people she loved the most rejected her, intentionally put distance between them, was a swift blow to her heart.
“No, Zeke, but I’ve learned over the years not to get attached to people. My mom has been married five times and my sister from my father’s first marriage doesn’t want to be my sister because my mother caused her father pain.”
He frowned. “You didn’t have anything to do with that.”
She chuckled. “Try telling Lois that. She blames both me and my mother and I was only four when they split.”
“Did you talk to your father about it?”
She shook her head. “When Dad left, he never wanted to see me or my mother again. I guess I would have been a reminder of what she did. She cheated on him.”
“But it wasn’t your fault.”
“No, it wasn’t,” she said, wiping the baby