Irresistible Attraction: Scenes of Passion / Midnight Seduction / Beyond Control

The traffic light turned green, but he ignored it. He took a deep breath, hardening himself against her tears. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone tonight,” he told her. “If you insist on going to the motel, I am coming with you.”

“I insist,” Maggie said, wiping her eyes and sticking out her chin. “And I don’t need a baby-sitter.”

“Too bad, because I’ve made up my mind.”

“Well, I’ve made up my mind, too, and I’m staying there alone.”

Their eyes locked and held. And the traffic light turned red again.

“Let’s compromise,” Matt told her. “First come home with me. We can get warmed up, maybe get something to eat, and talk—”

“I don’t want to talk.” She crossed her arms, staring straight ahead.

“Fine,” he said. “We can sit in silence in the hot tub. After that, I’ll take you over to the motel. If you still want to go there.”

Maggie looked at him. “Hot tub?” she said.

* * *

“You already turned it on,” Maggie said, wonder in her voice. “It’s already hot.”

She stood shivering in the bathroom in Matt’s house, staring at the steam rising from the hot tub.

“I was sitting in it when Steve called.” Matt tugged impatiently at the zipper on her jacket. It stuck slightly, but he finally got it down, and peeled the wet sleeves off her arms. Her skin was icy.

He reached for the button on her jeans, but she pushed his hands away. “I can do that.”

Yeah, but it had always been one of his fantasies. Not a good time to tell her that. “Then do it,” he countered. “Come on, let’s get you in there before you die of hypothermia.”

She hesitated. “I don’t have a bathing suit.”

Matt laughed. “You don’t need a bathing suit for a hot tub. For God’s sake, Maggie, I’ll turn around. Just get in, will you?”

He pointedly did just that and she peeled off her clothes. Yeah, she was definitely tanked—otherwise she surely would have noticed that the room was filled with mirrors and his turning his back was useless. He could see her from all angles, and, oh, mighty God… A more chivalrous man might’ve closed his eyes but life was just too short.

Matt watched as she slipped into the water, and… Wasn’t that just perfect? Now it was his turn to get naked. But maybe that was good. Let her see what she did to him.

But, “Eek,” she said, as he started to pull off his shorts right in front of her. She closed her eyes until he was sitting across the tub from her. “Doesn’t this strike you as weird?”

Matt stretched out his legs to get more comfortable, and brushed against her. All right. Don’t do that. He was purposely sitting over here so there’d be no contact. “What’s weird about it?”

Her eyes were so blue and her face was pale and she was still shivering slightly. The last thing he should do was go over there and put his arm around her. He drew an imaginary line around her. Whatever happened, he was not going to cross that line. Not tonight, anyway.

“Well, to start with, we don’t have any clothes on,” she told him.

He shrugged as the water bubbled around them. “Personally, I’d find it much weirder if we did.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s weird and you know it.”

Matt nodded. “Yeah, it’s weird. That doesn’t mean it’s not nice, though.”

“I have this fantasy,” she told him, “where this perfect stranger just kind of holds out his hand to me, and takes me away from my life.”

Oh, man. “That’s, uh… That’s probably one a lot of people have.”

“It’s pretty wimpy,” she said. “Like, I just want to lie back and be rescued.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Matt said.

“No,” she said. “Because who’s to say that his choices would be any better for me? My fantasy should be that I go up to the jungle man and say come with me—let’s escape, but let’s do it my way.”

Jungle man. That wasn’t the first time she’d mentioned this jungle man. “That’s a good fantasy, too.” He laughed. “Mags, I get the feeling that you’re telling me something, but I’m not sure if I understand exactly what it is. Can we stop talking in code? I really want to talk about what happened tonight after I dropped you off.”

She sank down so that the water covered her mouth. Okay.

“Steve said he thought you and Vanessa got into a fight or something?”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“Talk to me,” he said.

She lifted her mouth above the water line. “If we made love, would you be bored with me after only an hour?”

Matt choked on the air he was breathing. “What?”

Great, now he’d embarrassed her. She closed her eyes. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“No,” he said, moving across the tub to her. Mistake, mistake, mistake. He moved back, just not as far as he had been, but still safely on the other side of his line. “Not never mind. You just asked me if I thought you’d be boring in bed, didn’t you?” Damn. “Did Vanessa say that to you? Mags, she already had too much wine at dinner. And she’s nuts on top of that…”

But Maggie was just sitting there, eyes closed, looking like she actually thought…

“To answer your question,” he told her, “no. No, I certainly don’t.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him, looked away. “It was stupid to ask. I mean, what are you really going to say? ‘Yes, sorry, I think making love to you would be dull?”’

Okay. Game over. Matt crossed his line, moving so that he was sitting right next to her. “For the record,” he said, pulling her chin up so that she was forced to meet his gaze, “I don’t think making love to you would be even remotely dull. I would not be bored after even a hundred hours. And this is something that would not be difficult to prove.”

“What would you do if I said, okay, prove it?” She was looking into his eyes, no longer needing his hand under her chin to meet his gaze, but he didn’t move. Her skin was so soft, and she was finally warm. Her lips were slightly parted, her cheeks charmingly flushed, her eyes bright.

Too bright.

No, no, no. No. He wanted to cry. Instead, he shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “Not tonight, anyway. You’re drunk. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“I’m not drunk,” she said with the kind of indignation that only someone who’d had too much to drink could pull off.

“I think you are,” Matt countered. “But okay. Let’s take that off the table. Even if you’re not drunk, you’re upset. I don’t want to sleep with you because you’re mad at your sister.”

“There.” Maggie pulled away from him. “You don’t want to sleep with me. You just said it.”