I swallowed the lump in my throat and gently pushed away from him. I eased out of bed and searched the room for my clothes that had been tossed about.
“Where are you going, baby?” he asked raspingly.
“Jeb, this should have never happened. I’m sorry, but I was stupid to let things go this far. I’m pretty sure I’ll regret this night—” I tossed the words out too fast to notice the perplexed look on Jeb’s handsome face turning into hurt.
When I noticed it, I tried to suck the words back in, but it was too late. I had been too caught up in my own feelings to understand his.
Jeb pushed up onto his elbows and stared at me as if he were trying to figure me out. “Are you saying you regret what just happened? Baby, that was beautiful,” he said.
I was mute silent. If he’d never been right about anything, he was right about the beautiful moment we’d just shared. I slid my skirt over my hips and picked up my shirt to put it on. Backing off was the only thing that seemed to make sense. I’d left home tonight looking for something to fill in my time, something fulfilling, but jumping in bed with a white supremacist wasn’t the right move.
“Yeah…no…I don’t know, Jeb. With our backgrounds, you and I are not going to happen,” I stated simply. “I mean, I had a good time, and I think you did too. We can just leave it at that,” I said with a mixture of feelings overtaking me, one of them being the pressure between my legs that had me feeling as if Jeb were still there. Dang, he had stamped his name all over me, and I had to get out of there, quick.
“Tameka, don’t reduce what just happened to a random good time,” he said, sounding a tad indignant.
“It was good, right?”
“No, it wasn’t good. It was wonderful.”
“Well, that’s all it’ll ever be. A wonderful moment that has to end here.”
“Sweetheart, it happened. You’ll never be able to remove the memory of the way your body responded to me, the way you looked at me, the way I looked at you,” Jeb stated arrogantly as if he knew the damage he’d already done to me.
I tossed him a rebellious look, but shame on it all. He was so right.
“Don’t call me sweetheart,” was all I could think to say. In my mind, I was chanting, Like every other man, this too shall pass. That chant was my saving grace to get out of there unscathed by the “love bug.”
“I only called you sweetheart because you taste so sweet,” he said, licking his gorgeous lips.
“Not funny. You’re just like every other man. If I were to put our differences aside, we’d have sex a few times, and you’d move on to the next girl that comes along and gets too drunk to drive herself home. I can’t deal with those kinds of tricks.”
He heaved a sigh. “Tameka, I saved you from a true trickster tonight. Had I let you go home with Fast Hands, you would have a basis for your argument. That’s not what I’m about.”
“Everyone knows you’re a man whore,” I said and then watched his hazel brown eyes bore through me.
“Is that what everyone says about me?” he asked, seemingly interested in hearing of his own reputation.
I nodded. “Yes. You earned the title, so don’t act surprised.”
“I’ve changed Tameka. Listen, neither of us saw this coming. It wasn’t a mistake, though. What I felt wasn’t a mistake. It was real.”
“Maybe you feel that with everyone.”
“No. This is real,” he said.
“How do you know that, Jeb? We don’t know each other, and we had sex as if we’ve been together for years. And it was so good but so bad at the same time, and it was what I needed because it’s been a long time for me. I just think we should, you should take me home,” I babbled. It was hard to tell him I didn’t want him when I did.
“You just answered your own question,” he said, smiling. “We’re good together, Tameka, and I’m not the guy you think I am. I don’t want to hurt you. Trust me when I say your heart is safe with me. That you can believe.”
How could I trust his word? Rodney talked a good game. Yet he taught me that words don’t count. I shook my head. I couldn’t open myself up to be hurt like that again.
“Even if all of what you’re saying is true, we’re from two different worlds,” I reminded him. “There are some very strong barriers that stand between us.”
Like his history with the KKK. What on Earth was I doing there with this man? I kicked my own ass internally as I hoped to wake up in the morning, and this all be a dream. Jesus be the NAACP.
“Barriers are made to be broken, Tameka,” he said confidently.
“That simple, huh?”