He still wouldn’t look her, but his face flushed a deep red. “No, I’ve never had problems. Not even when I was drinking. I told you, I think I’m just tired.”
Sheila glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “At… three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon?”
His maroon face went purple. “Maybe I just need a nap.”
“Okay.” She climbed off and pulled the covers up over her naked body, lying beside him. “Me, too.”
“Fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. It really wasn’t. This was an almost exact replay of her sex life with her ex-husband, Bill, and she couldn’t-wouldn’t-go through that again.
She refused to let it go. Sitting up, she touched Morris’s face. “Honey, please, if I’m doing something wrong, just tell me.”
He jerked away from her caress as if stung and said nothing. He still wouldn’t look at her, instead staring at the TV on the dresser, which wasn’t even turned on.
She sat up straighter, her heart plummeting. “So it is me.” She pulled the covers tighter around herself and swallowed her pride. “Okay, tell me. I don’t mind. Tell me what you like and I’ll do it. Or what you don’t like. Or what I did wrong. Just please talk to me.”
He didn’t answer for a full minute, and it was agony not to repeat the questions again. She didn’t want to push him, although somehow she felt as if she already had. Finally he said, “It’s not what you’re doing. I usually like everything you’re doing. What guy wouldn’t? It’s… the way you’re doing it.”
Sheila was taken aback. That was not the response she’d been expecting. “What do you mean? Is it my technique?”
Morris shook his head, his jaw clenching. He finally turned and looked directly at her. “No, nothing’s wrong with your technique, ” he said, his words slow and controlled and enunciated. “Your technique is perfect. Especially for someone who said she didn’t like sex and shouldn’t even have a technique.”
“What?” Sheila’s mouth dropped open. “I never said I didn’t like sex.”
“Maybe not in so many words, but that’s damn well the impression you’ve been giving me for the past year. Why else would a woman in her thirties not want sex? I honestly thought you didn’t know how. And then, out of nowhere, this?”
Sheila stared at him and saw for the first time that he wasn’t just embarrassed, if he was even embarrassed at all. Morris was angry. Really, really angry. Red-faced, struggling-for-control enraged. And for the life of her she couldn’t figure out why.
He wasn’t nearly finished. “Your mouth, your tongue, your hands, that striptease… it’s like you’ve gone from a prude to a porn star overnight. I mean, what the hell? Who are you?”
Sheila felt her face go hot with shame and fury. She glared at the side of his face because once again he wasn’t looking at her. “I’m me,” she snapped. “And I love you. Just because you can’t get it up doesn’t give you the right to insult me and call me names, you self-righteous son of a bitch.”
He turned over on his side without another word. Sheila sat beside him, still naked, staring at his broad back. What the hell just happened?
Forty minutes ago they’d been giggling and teasing each other while watching a football game. They loved each other. She was wearing his engagement ring. But their first real attempt at making love?
Complete and utter disaster.
The wedding was three weeks away.
CHAPTER 9
T he Seattle Seahawks bobblehead had come with the office. Ethan was tempted to throw the ugly thing out just to piss everyone off. All five of Sheila’s teaching assistants shared this office, all with different hours, and sticking Post-it notes on Sonny (as the stupid toy was affectionately nicknamed) was someone’s fun idea for keeping the TAs posted on important matters.
Currently Sonny was asking Sheila’s assistants for twenty bucks to put toward her wedding gift. Valerie Kim was planning to purchase a set of wineglasses from Williams-Sonoma. Fancy schmancy. So far Ethan hadn’t contributed anything-and had no plans to.
There wasn’t going to be a wedding; he’d made up his mind. Her text message telling him to go fuck himself had been the nail in her coffin.
It had been fun for a while, watching her squirm. The picture he’d sent her had given him great leverage for the past couple of weeks. She’d been handling all his e-mails and taking his student calls, but he couldn’t play that card forever. Sooner or later she’d realize there really was no video, and she’d allow herself to be happy.
And that was unacceptable.
The question was, just how much damage could he do? Should he go right for the jugular? Or find some other way to torment her until she cracked?
Voices drifted in from the hallway and Ethan straightened up. Through the open doorway he could see Sheila in her red Donna Karan suit as she passed, animated, chatting with another professor. No pause, not even an apprehensive glance into his office even though she knew he’d still be there.
The only thing worse than being insulted was being ignored.
Ethan waited sixty seconds, mentally picturing the length of time it would take for her to catch the elevator to the first floor. Then he bolted out of his chair and followed suit.
He made it to the parking lot in time to see Sheila drive away in her white Volvo sedan. He was on his Triumph ten seconds later.
It was barely 6:00 p.m. but the skies were already darkening, the road slick with the light rain that seemed to torture Seattleites from September to June every year. Motorcycles on wet roads were never a great idea, but Ethan wasn’t planning to do anything stupid. He was getting pretty good at tailing her. Making sure to stay a few cars back, he kept one eye on Sheila’s car and the other on the vehicles around him. Traffic on I-5 South was bumper-to-bumper, something he’d normally weave around, but he couldn’t if he wanted to keep pace with Sheila.
He’d been following her a lot the last couple of weeks. One never knew what information might be useful. Besides, everybody had secrets. If he was going to ruin her life, it would help to know everything about it first.
A little over an hour later, in a city called Renton, Ethan parked at the curb outside the Front Street Methodist Church. Sheila’s car was parked in the lot. She had entered the church through a side door a few minutes before, and Ethan, still in his helmet, was frowning, trying to figure out why the hell she was here. She wasn’t religious. If she’d suddenly found God, it was news to him.
Over the next few minutes, he watched as more cars pulled into the parking lot. Adults of all ages, races, and attire entered the church the same way Sheila had, through the side door rather than the front entrance. Ethan checked his watch. Were there normally church services at seven fifteen on a Thursday night? Wasn’t that a Sunday thing?
Ethan had never been to church, so he didn’t know. But even in his limited experience, something seemed off.
If this was a regular church thing, or maybe an evening wedding or memorial service of some kind, why weren’t people entering the church through the front door? And why weren’t people in pairs? Most people didn’t go to church alone, right?
He finally locked his bike and headed toward the side entrance, keeping his helmet on. He didn’t think this would seem weird since it was raining and the lower half of his face was completely exposed anyway. The door was sticky and it took a good yank to get it open. Stepping into a small landing, he had the choice of taking the stairs up or down, or he could walk straight through. A glass door was six feet away, leading to what he assumed was the main area of the church.
He wasn’t sure which way to go.
He peered at a bulletin board to his left, hoping it would tell him what was going on here tonight. Scores of notices on colored paper were stapled to the corkboard-bake sales, yard sales, Sunday-school updates, walking and exercise groups, offers for free Avon makeovers. He squinted to read them through his tinted visor, his scalp
