Page 71 of Embrace

I whipped my head around to face him again, relieved he spoke. “He said there were no rooms.”

His frown intensified. “Did you bother to check?”

I shook my ahead, ashamed that I hadn’t.

“Have you done some soul searching, Penina?”

My eyebrows were pinched. “Meaning?”

“Did you want to be in a hotel room with him? Did you want to be seduced into fucking him?”

“No.” My tone was firm. “That was not what I wanted, Asher. I was not in my right mind.” I shook my hands emphatically. “Plus, he was nice. He was being a friend.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped. The fact that he hadn’t looked away from me was a good sign.

“Listen, there was no part of me that was physically or sexually attracted to Greg. And yes, I should’ve gone down to the front desk to see if there were other rooms. And I was going to do that after dinner. And I would’ve taken a commercial flight back to New Orleans. I wanted to do that, too, but I also wanted to stay in Wisconsin, just in case I found the nerve to follow through and see my mother. You know, maybe I’m not ready for a relationship. Maybe I’m just not good at it. I’m not able to do it without fucking it up.”

Is that disappointment in his eyes?I refused to look away from his probing gaze. I wanted him to find whatever he was searching for inside me.

After a few more moments, he turned to stare straight ahead.

“When I was with Julia, she used other men to make me jealous,” he said finally.

My chest caved in as I sighed.Am I like her?I knew better than to believe that nature was stronger than nurture. Julia’s brain and my brain had absorbed and adapted to different stimuli, so surely, I couldn’t have ended up like her.

“But I wasn’t trying to make you jealous, Asher. That was not my intention.”

He gulped again. “Did he touch you?”

I had to look away to remember.

“Fuck, Penina. That should’ve been a hard no.”

“Well…” I shook my hands, panicky. “When I made him stop the car and I fell on someone’s lawn to catch my breath, I cried, and he consoled me.”

He scratched the side of his face as he watched me with his customary probing stare.

“I didn’t know that,” he whispered.

“I didn’t tell you. You didn’t ask, either.”

Slowly, with the same sort of control he’d exhibited during the altercation with Greg, Asher took in a deep breath and released it. We stared at each other, trapped in a moment of confusion.

“I’m only human, Asher. A flawed human being who can be susceptible to being suckered.”

“Don’t,” he said.

My eyebrows pulled together.

“Don’t apologize again. I know you’re sorry. And so am I.”

* * *

Chapter Twenty

Penina Ross

When he said he was sorry, I felt as if my whole world came crashing down on me. We didn’t say anything else to each other until Kirk stopped in front of my building.