She rolled off of me and away from me a couple feet in distance on the netting. Even with her gone I still felt out of breath.
I glanced over at her to see her looking at me with her head propped up on her arms as she lay on her belly on top of the deck netting. I was a hard person to startle or surprise and she'd done both in a matter of seconds.
"You're awfully sure of yourself aren't you?"
She nodded silently as she continued to watch me.
I craned my head around to see if I was even now the subject of embarrassing witnesses, but I saw no faces. They'd all been thrown flat too and I had come to the forward area of the boat and was now sunk down in the netting out of view of the latter part of the boat.
She may have been entirely wanton in her primal attempt at claiming me as her mate, but at least she'd had the good graces not to make a fool out of me in front of the others. She seemed awfully quiet now given her recent primal outburst and declaration of intent to be my mate.
I looked back to her and despite the oddity of the situation and the rampant confusion on my part I said as honestly as I could to her, "Look Keturah, you need to get something straight. I'm not right for you. Find someone else. I have bad luck written all over me and I'm not available anyway."
Her gaze fell from mine to the ring on my finger.
She stared at the ring for a moment before she glanced back to me and said, "I guess I'll have to wait until you are available then."
In frustration I asked, "Why would you do that? You don't even know what kind of man I am! How can you be so foolish?"
She was quiet for a moment before saying, "You're the man I've waited and saved myself for all my life and the honor of being your woman will be mine. You're the foolish one here to think to resist my heartfelt resolve to be yours."
I half sat up to regard her in complete consternation, "Are you crazy or something?" I exclaimed.
For the first time since I had met her I saw the evidence that I had truly hurt her and I cringed inside as I saw a little of the zesty life dim out of her eyes as she flatly responded with, "It's been said of me many times. While it may be entirely good fortune on my part to have found you the opposite could be said of you I'm afraid."