Bachelor Unclaimed by Brenda Jackson Page B

through her hair. If she was a violent person, she would hit him—just like had she been in her right mind, she would have slapped him right before he’d gone down on her. “Your mother.”
    Lifting a brow, he asked, “What about her?”
    “You know her?”
    He chuckled. “Of course I know her. She and my father have been happily married for close to thirty-eight years. They were married a few years before I was born. I’m the oldest.”
    She nodded. “You have siblings?”
    Winston wondered where her line of questioning was headed but decided to answer anyway. “Yes, a brother who is three years younger.”
    “No sisters?”
    “No.”
    Nodding again, she asked, “Are you and your mother close?”
    She looked so serious, he thought, studying her features. Her eyes, full of questions, were a beautiful shade of brown. He’d thought that the first night they met and thought it now. And her lips were erotically shaped in a way that would make a man want to ply them with kisses all day. He could see himself nibbling the corners and then taking his tongue and laving the center before finally wiggling that same tongue inside for a feast.
    “Winston?”
    “Yes?” he said, moving his gaze from her lips back up to her eyes.
    “Are you and your mother close?”
    Why did he always feel this burning awareness in the pit of his stomach whenever he gazed into her eyes for so long? “Yes, we’re close. Why?”
    She shrugged. “Just trying to figure something out,” she said as she began walking again.
    He joined in step beside her. “Figure out what?”
    “What you have against women.”
    He stopped walking and she stopped, as well. She could see the deep frown etched in the grooves of his face. “I have nothing against women. In fact I enjoy women.”
    She placed her hand on his arm and tilted her head to the side as if to assure herself that she had his undivided attention when she said, “Yes, you enjoy women, but you’ll never love one.”
    The nerve endings in his arm began to come alive at her touch. That wouldn’t be so bad if her scent wasn’t surrounding him as well, making his pulse rate escalate. He tried focusing on what she’d said and would be honest with her like he was with all women—especially any with foolish romantic notions.
    “You’re right. I’ll never love one.”
    He decided that with her he would go a little further by saying, “But it has nothing to do with any lack of respect for women. I operate on the ideology that once burned you have the good sense not to play with fire again.” And that was the bottom-line truth of the matter. Unlike his godbrother Virgil who believed in “do them before they do you,” he preferred to enjoy the opposite sex and let them know up-front what would or would not happen between them. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about things getting crazy later.
    They began walking again. “It’s hard to believe some woman broke your heart.”
    Winston wondered why they were discussing this. She’d asked her question and he had answered it. Why wasn’t it the end of story? “It happens even to the best of men,” he heard himself saying when he probably just should have kept his mouth shut. “I was young, stupid and figured one day I would meet a woman and share the same kind of marriage my parents had.”
    “What happened?”
    He opened his mouth to tell her it wasn’t her business and then decided maybe she needed to know in order to understand just how serious he was about not falling in love. “She betrayed me.”
    He heard her surprised gasp. “With another man?”
    “Yes.” He cocked his head and glanced over at her and saw the shocked look on her face. “You act like you find that hard to believe.”
    “I do. You aren’t exactly chopped liver.”
    He smiled. The woman was good for his ego. “Well, she did. I didn’t need anyone in my life that I couldn’t trust.”
    She didn’t say anything and it was just as well, he thought.