Love Me Knots by Dee Tenorio Page B

unable to do anything else, David rolled to her side, all at once feeling ridiculous and over-exposed by his own mostly dressed state. His pants were open, but every other article of his clothes was still perfectly in place. As if nothing had happened to him. And as he studied her face, her profile blank and cool, he almost wondered if anything had.
    How could she be so distant? She still didn’t look at him as she slid free. Briskly, she rushed back to the shower. He listened, disbelieving, as the water turned on again. Taking the bizarre respite for what it was, he righted his pants and sat up. He ran his hand through his hair and tried to find his equilibrium. This wasn’t what he’d meant to do. It hadn’t been wrong either. So why did it feel that way?
    Analytically, he tried to view the last twenty minutes with some kind of equanimity. He’d tried to touch her, to show her how he felt. Tried to reassure her. She’d balked, but she hadn’t given any indication that she didn’t want him. Even as she’d rejected his feelings, she’d clung to him, as if she were afraid to let him go. Then…then she’d taken control.
    That was it. That was when the whole experience had lost what he’d been trying to give her. It hadn’t been about love. It had been sex. Raw, uncontrolled lust.
    David watched her walk out of the shower, wrapped in a proper towel this time, her gaze most assuredly not on him. He could still see the blush on her cheeks as she gave him and the bed a wide berth. Blinking, he let her pass, waiting for a word, a sign, some kind of indication of what the hell had just happened.
    He heard her moving around, gathering things from the closet. The rustling of her getting dressed. When she finally walked into his sights, crossing to the vanity with its massive mirror, she wasn’t wearing the nightgown he expected. Not even the fluffy white bathrobe still trampled on the floor. Instead, she wore a red-and-white-flowered sheet of some kind, wrapped around her body and knotted between her breasts, leaving her creamy shoulders bare. He straightened away from the bed, his mind racing at what was or wasn’t underneath. To his shock, she grabbed her handbag again and headed toward the door. Without a look, she moved past him.
    “Where are you going?” he asked when it looked like she’d walk straight out without another word.
    “Back to the party at Cobb’s.” She turned, the fabric of her outfit parting around a slim, pale thigh. Thighs that he could almost still feel clenched around his ribs. Clearly that didn’t matter anymore. “And don’t even think of following me there. You’re not invited.”
    Cobb. The man she’d been with on the pier. He stifled the anger that tried to bubble through his thoughts. “I thought we would talk.”
    “What made you think that? Was it when you rudely interrupted my conversation—”
    “With another man,” he interjected, not sure if his temper or his ego was stinging more. She couldn’t be serious about acting like what had just happened meant nothing. Or was she pretending it hadn’t happened at all?
    She went blithely on. “Or was it when you imposed yourself on my hotel room?”
    It wasn’t easy to argue when she wasn’t wrong. But she wasn’t right regarding everything. “We need to talk, Krista.”
    “About what? I don’t see how anything has changed.”
    “What about us? What we just did?”
    She shrugged, her eyes darting to the side. “Sex, pure and simple.”
    “That wasn’t just sex. You felt it. You know what it was.”
    Those green eyes that had always watched him with heat were cold mirrors now. “You’re right, I do. It was you hoping you could seduce me into changing my mind about us. But sex was never our problem, David. It doesn’t answer anything. It just makes us believe things we know aren’t true. We’d be stupid if we confused chemistry with emotion. I’ve been stupid long enough, thanks.”
    So he was right. She’d