Or did he need Zola to be the excuse he needed to not return to what was waiting for him back in Washington? When it came to book sense, he was the most confident and pompous man alive, but when it came to life and everyday common sense knowledge, he felt like an infant.
Even he had been surprised he used the “love” word so soon. It was foolish and wrong. Any woman in her right mind would fear a man who appeared to have fallen so hard so fast. She probably was shaking in his arms because she imagined she’d just screwed a potential “stalker” or “serial killer.” Yet, if he brought it up again by apologizing for it, or worse, by trying to explain what he meant when he wasn’t even sure himself, it would make matters a hundred times more awkward.
Shirou’s mind refused to hush. He couldn’t help the “what if” questions that followed: What if he had been born into a less influential family, would he had been able to make his own decisions about who he shared his future with? What if he didn’t return to Washington tomorrow? Would he really lose those who were so dear to him if he walked a different path than expected? What if he was falling for Zola? Did he have the right to bring the hell into her life that would ride his heels? What if this was God’s way of telling him he could have it all?
To Shirou’s relief, he felt Zola’s stiff frame relax in the circle of his arms, and she turned her head away from him and rested her cheek against his shoulder. Were her shoulders shaking because she was lying in his embrace naked, or was she crying?
When he heard her draw in a shuddering breath, he got his answer. For a moment he closed his eyes and swallowed deeply the emotions that were confusing his heart. Admittedly he felt like a selfish bastard, but he still wasn’t ready to let her go yet.
“Talk to me,” he asked, smoothing a hand over her hair. “Tell me why you are crying?”
“I’m not,” she murmured. He could hear it in her voice; it wasn’t true.
“Zoë, you cared enough to ask about my fears...you even tried to help me, but it seems you have a fear of your own that needs to be exorcised.”
“I have several,” she cried in muffled tones.
“Tell me,” Shirou urged.
Zola shook her head against his shoulder.
“I told you one of mine. It’s only fair you share one of yours with me. Tit for tat.” He smiled against her hair while breathing in the scent of cocoa butter and lavender. “I will share more about myself…,” his deep tone was soothing and unaggressive in nature, “…only if you do the same.”
“I imagine you’ve probably figured it out by now,” Zola replied.
Her shoulders lifted as she breathed in, then released a resigned sigh that touched something inside him, impelling him to force her to look at him with a light tug on her hair. “Could you please look at me? I’m about to feel as if you’re ashamed about what just happened between us, and if that is the case, it doesn’t fit the perception I formed of you.”
She looked at him, and he saw the bright shimmering light of tears in her eyes. He wasn’t sure what to say at the moment. Was he the cause for these tears? Were they tears of sadness? Disappointment? Did she find his body or performance lacking? No way! His nose scrunched up as he studied her face. With all that that moaning, whimpering, clawing at his shoulders and nearly yanking his hair out, he knew he pleased her physically. His eyes narrowed more. And she pleases me like I never knew I could be pleased.
“Why do you keep making faces at me?” Zola asked with a frown.
He laughed at her expression. “I don’t know where my glasses landed. I can only hope that it’s my belt buckle pricking the back of my calf and not my glasses, or you will have to lead me by the hand tomorrow night at the banquet.”
He saw the moment his words sunk in.
“What?”
“It still scares the hell out of me, but you gave me the impression that you can make me come off looking like a rock star if I do this, and I will only do this if you will be my date to the banquet,” Shirou answered.
“Let me up,” Zola murmured.
“Not yet.” Shirou’s brow furrowed in a frown, and he tightened his hold about her. “Suddenly, I feel as if anything I say at this time, it will be the wrong thing.”
“How the hell can such a thin-ass man be so strong?” she muttered with a scowl and a squirm.
“Not until you tell me what I’ve done to piss you off. You wanted me to do the banquet and I told you I would.”
“Why all of a sudden you don’t have to return to Washington? Was all of that just a lie?”
“No, but I decided that until I feel more assured about my decision, the matter has to be postponed,” he answered as honestly as he could.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Her gaze met his.
“It means I never considered there were any other options for me until now.”
“Shirou,” Zola began through clenched teeth. “I didn’t have sex with you to get you to the banquet. If you think that is what happened here, you should just leave money on the table before the doorknob slams you in the ass on the way out.”
“What?” Shirou’s face went blank. How did he get from offering to do something he thought would please her into paying her for sex and leaving? He eyed her suspiciously before saying, “Zoë, you’re deliberately picking a fight with me,” he deduced aloud. “If it’s a fight you want, then so be it. But at least let’s do it with clothes on before I find myself fucking you again.”
Her eyebrows shot up, and he was assured she could feel his cock coming to attention. Why her pissing him off would turn him on was beyond him, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything sexier than her face and glorious breasts all flushed in her anger.
“Perverted bastard,” she murmured. Catching him off guard, she got loose, rolled off and away from him, grabbing her robe in the process.
Shirou was impressed as hell. For a big girl, she was quite agile. There goes another misconception out the window. He had a feeling with Zola in his life he was never going to be bored. He frowned in amazement at how they’d managed to sex their way that far away from the doorway where they’d started. Now he knew why his butt cheeks were burning so badly. He would have rug burns to remind him of this little torrid tumble.
A huge grin came to his mouth until he saw her intent. “Zola Simpson! Don’t you dare go into that bathroom and lock that door. I’m not done speaking with you yet.”
“Get out before...before...before I...just get out!” She grabbed the knob and moved to slam the door closed.
Before she got the door shut, Shirou shimmied on his sore backside and managed to get his foot and ankle through the door before it closed. “Fuck! My foot! My foot!” he cried out, rolling about the floor and drawing both his legs up to his chest. “I think you broke it! I should sue you!”
“What? Sue me? You put your foot in the door like an idiot,” Zola cried out, knocking the door wide as she dropped to her bare knees on the cold bathroom floor to survey the damage. “What kind of genius are you? A dummy has the sense to not put his foot in the door like that. Shirou, stop squirming and let me take a look at it.”
“You have to take my shoes off to see it,” he wailed.
She gently slid the shoe off his foot. “I don’t think it’s broken. I don’t see any blood, so it didn’t break the skin.” Her voice was tearful and full of concern. “I will need to take your sock off to make sure.”
“Ouch...ouch!” Shirou moaned and pulled a face as she probed at his socked foot and tugged at the sock. “You have to take my pants off to undo the garters.”
“Lord, I don’t think I ever met a man who still wore these things,” she muttered, pulling the other shoe off his foot before working both his legs out of his trousers.
He hid his grin in his shoulder as she gave his cock vying for attention a perfunctory glance, shaking her head.
“Gentle, now,” he crooned as she unfastened the garter on the one foot. “Uh, please undo the other one also. I fee
l like a fool enough as it is, and I’m afraid my standing butt-ass naked in garters and socks isn’t as enticing as you were in that bathroom in those stockings and garter belt. Speaking of the airplane bathroom...”
“You know...” She cut him a hard glare, stopping from removing one sock. “You are doing a lot of coherent talking to be in a lot of pain.”
“Oh, it’s throbbing...painfully, I assure you. You will see it’s all angry and purple red like my penis in a minute,” he whined.
“Shirou, if you’re shittin’ me I’m going to break your foot for real for making me worry,” Zola chastised as if he were a wayward child and finished removing his sock. “Shin!”
“It was the other foot that got hurt. Check it.”
“You said it was this one.”
“I didn’t. I said I think you broke my foot. I didn’t say which one,” he corrected in his most analytical voice.
Zola reached for the other foot. He could tell by her unnecessary rough handling of his leg he had been caught. “You ass!” she said and started attacking him with the flat of both hands.
Laughing, he grabbed her wrists and wrestled her down to the floor until he was lying between her naked, spread thighs. His face grew serious as he stared down at her. “You are so beautiful.”
Tears fell out of the corners of her eyes. “Damn you. You are supposed to get dressed and leave afterwards,” she sniffed.
“Why?”
“That’s the rule of a one-time thing. You can’t play the game if you don’t know the rules.”
“This isn’t a game to me, Zoë. For me sex is in the quality, not the quantity,” he spoke earnestly. “I do nothing without thoroughly, carefully weighing the options that are at hand. When you opened the door to the possibility that we could be lovers, even if for one night, and I wanted nothing more than to go on this mad adventure with you, I didn’t do it out of impulse.”
“I did,” she replied flatly.
“I don’t believe that or you wouldn’t be so emotional about this situation right now. You’re upset because you’re scared to death that I might actually get up from here and leave you alone like you expect me to do.”
“You will.” Brown eyes flashed at him in anger. “You all do when something you consider better comes along.”
“Then why pick me?”
“You were there,” she argued.
He eyed her a moment in silence. “No. There was a man who some women would probably consider more attractive than I. He was dressed well with a tall, broad frame, blond hair, and blue eyes just sitting two seats down from me. But you didn’t choose him; you chose me. Am I to believe that wasn’t a conscious decision on your part?”
She licked her lips. “What do you mean?”
“I mean if all you were looking for was a fuck, as you claim, wouldn’t it have made more sense to have chosen the other man who was wearing a wedding ring instead of me? If you had chosen him, you would have known for sure that even if he wanted to spend more time with you, he wouldn’t because he couldn’t.”
She winced. “I didn’t notice—”
“Liar,” he interrupted. “Remember, it’s your profession to read people. You read me loud and clear. You knew that unlike that other man...I need you. I was distraught and confused in my own burdens.” He caressed a thumb along the length of her wide bottom lip.
“Zoë, I was searching inside myself for an answer to if I was making the best or worse decision of my life by marrying a woman my father chose for me instead of marrying for love.”
“You’re engaged to be married?” Her bottom lip trembled. “Damn you. Why did you hold me afterwards? Why? Do men get some sick, twisted turn-on by being the first one to inflict the hurt before they can just walk away as if nothing ever happened?”
“Zola...”
“Okay, you win.” Zola released a bitter laugh. “Boy, you take the prize!” She shook her head. “You really reeled me in with that don’t give a damn, yet sensitive, geeky, too good to be true gentle façade of yours.”
“It’s not—”
“Aren’t you the man?” she interrupted. “You got one over on a woman who has spent years learning to read men like an open book so she wouldn’t be hurt again.”
“Listen. I—”
“Are you happy now?” A cold, unreadable expression came to her face. “You gave me hope. You took it away. I’m hurt and disillusioned. Now leave me alone. Please!”
Shirou released an inward groan. He felt a pain in his chest like he’d never felt before. He also felt frustrated enough to strangle her. He was discovering firsthand that at least there was one stereotypical tidbit that had been true about being with a black woman.
What had he overheard one of his coworkers saying about his black wife?
“Nothing can hurt me more than hurting my Black Queen. A black woman is strong, but she feels her pain deeply. She loves hard and protects her pride even harder, and God help all men when she’s been hurt. It’s like...a century of oppression is right there in your face, and all you can do is stand there feeling helpless as hell and let her have her say. She won’t hear a damn thing until you let her have her say.”
Shirou also remembered him saying, “The making up was like nothing you’ve ever experienced, and if you’re lucky to get a black woman’s love and trust, hold on to it with both hands, because her loving you will make you happy as hell.” That was what Shirou wanted.
He wanted to not only be happy working; he wanted all his work to be about something. Success so far had been a shallow victory. Listening to how Zola spoke about him, it really did make him feel as if he had achieved something great. She made him want to do something even greater just to make her proud.
Was it possible? Was he falling in love with her? Was it scientifically possible for it to happen this quickly?
“Zola, I’m not going anywhere,” he found himself saying. “I’m not one to walk away from anything without resolving the issues first. I analyze, think, and pray on it until I get a resolution even if it’s not the answer I want to hear.”
Chapter Seven
Zola tensed, and she felt humiliated that she couldn’t seem to get her emotions under control. She was always so good at reading men. How could she have been so wrong about Shirou? How could she start to believe again that there was at least one good man in this world and that maybe for once she was the fortunate one?
“You should have left,” she sniffed. “At least I would have the illusion that you were different than all the other men I’ve met in my life.”
“Okay, I’ve heard everything you had to say,” he argued. “Now it’s my turn.”
“Whatever,” Zola muttered. She was sure she’d heard it before. But why was she acting this way? This entire thing was just about sex for her. She had an itch; she scratched it, and now all parties resumed their lives with no one the wiser of their recklessness. So what if he was engaged or married? She wouldn’t see him again after this unless it was work related.
“Shirou, before you say anything else, let me apologize. You don’t owe me any explanations about your personal life. I’m a grown woman and I wanted great sex and you gave me the greatest sex I’ve ever had.” She let out a short laugh. “Thinking about it now, I feel silly for getting angry at all.”
“Well, don’t become angry again when I tell you that I’m glad you got angry.” Shirou held her eyes. “It tells me that even though you say this is nothing but sex for you, you’re actually feeling the connection is stronger than either one of us can logically explain.”
Zola raised her eyes heavenward. “Don’t read too much into this. Fantastic sex, I imagine, can make one feel as if there is a possibility for more great sex around the corner. It makes you think about having that person in your bed every night at your fingertips and then, stupidly, you believe being sexually compatible means love—”
“Isn’t it a great beginning?” Shin interrupted. “Imagine the possibilities. Wouldn’t
you like to at least find out, Zoë?”
Shoulders stiff, she looked away from his appealing face.
“I know it’s frightening to open yourself up to a practical stranger, especially if you’ve been hurt or disappointed by someone you opened yourself up to in the past.” His words caused her to look at him again. “You have to admit it’s also a wonderful and exhilarating feeling.”
She found herself silently nodding in agreement.
“Zola, to discover someone new...someone so unexpectedly and in such a profound way and have it to feel so right has never happened to me before. Tell me, how can we not take a chance and see where it will lead us?”
Beauty & the Geek: Zola's Magic Touch (Mocha Memoirs Presents Beauty & the Geek) Page 8
