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

It was the perfect thing for him to do. He was perfect. Everything was perfect. Except none of this was real. He was only doing this out of pity.

“Matt,” she started, but he shook his head.

“Don’t say anything now,” he said. “Let’s take a walk.”

He tossed a small wad of bills onto the table, and held out his hand for her. She let him lead her out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk that led to the marina.

The sky was clear and the moon was up.

Maggie shivered in the cool air, and Matt moved to put his arm around her shoulders, but she sidestepped him.

He caught her arm. “I made a mistake last night,” he said, breaking their silence.

“Matt, I know—”

“Wait. Just hear me out, okay?”

She nodded, moving over to the railed fence that lined the edge of the seawall. She couldn’t meet his eyes, instead looking at the moonlight reflecting off the surface of the water.

“I was trying to be noble,” he told her. “I thought I was protecting you. But I was wrong, and I want to rewind and take it from the hot tub, okay?”

She closed her eyes.

“Come on, Maggie, look at me.”

Slowly, she turned.

“I want to make love to you.” He pulled her toward him. She didn’t know how he did it, but he actually managed to make his eyes hot with desire.

“Matt—”

“I’ve wanted to make love to you since we were in high school,” he said as he pulled her close, as he kissed her neck, her throat, her jaw.

“Please stop,” she said weakly. If he kissed her on the lips, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to stop.

And then he did. His lips found hers, and he kissed her slowly, languidly, his tongue exploring her mouth and…

Maggie smacked him on the butt with the cardboard flower box. He let go of her, staring as if she were insane.

Maybe she was. Anyone who would willingly stop a man from kissing her like that had to be more than touch crazy.

“I know what you’re doing.” She backed away so that there was distance between them. “I thought you’d try something like this. When you found out today about Vanessa and Brock… You feel sorry for me and you’re trying to make me feel better.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think so—”

“It’s not working,” she told him. “You can turn off the act.”

“This isn’t an act.” He reached for her, but she brandished the flower box again. He laughed. “Maggie, I swear—”

“And I’ve kissed you often enough on stage to know that you can play the part of the passionate lover with your eyes closed and both hands tied behind your back.”

“Oh, come on—”

“Please, Matt,” Maggie begged. “I’m exhausted. I don’t want to fight with you right now. Don’t make this worse than it already is.”

He shook his head and started to speak but stopped himself. Without another word, he led her back to his car.

They drove home in silence, but as he pulled into the garage, he looked at her. “It’s not an act.”

“Good night,” she told him, and nearly ran into the house, into the room she’d claimed as her bedroom.

She locked the door behind her. But she wasn’t sure if she was locking him out—or herself in.

Nine

Matt’s eyes opened as the sun streamed into his tower bedroom.

He glanced at his clock: 6:18. Four hours of sleep. Not bad. Not great, but not bad, considering…

Maggie was only one floor beneath him, but after last night, she might as well be a million miles away.

He’d spent most of the night tossing and turning, trying to ignore how much he wanted her, trying to figure out how he’d be able to return to his status of friend after tasting her lips. But he’d done it before. He’d fallen desperately in love with her more than ten years ago, and he’d survived.

Or had he?

Matt had spent the night alternately praying that it would simply be a matter of time before she came to him, and praying that he would have the strength to keep his distance from her.

It was probably a good thing that she’d told him no last night.

It was ten days and counting until he was scheduled to go back to the hospital for a checkup. He’d all but decided not to go, thinking it was little more than a visit to a high-tech fortune teller. Whether he was going to live for one year, ten years, or a hundred years certainly mattered to him, but knowing wouldn’t change the way he lived his life.

Except now everything had turned upside down, and now he desperately wanted to know.

He pulled himself out of bed.

He had work to do.

Maggie grabbed an apple from the refrigerator, still humming the melody from the summer musical’s closing number.

The first rehearsal—a read through of the script—had gone well, except for the fact that she’d counted seven different times she was going to have to kiss Matt on stage. Each kiss would have to be set up, blocked and rehearsed. Over and over again. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

As she took a bite of the apple, she opened up the connecting door to the office and turned on the lights.

“Whoa,” Matt said. “What are you doing?”

“I want to look over those numbers some more,” she said.

She held her apple in her teeth as she used both hands to clear a stack of file folders from one of the chairs. The conference table itself was stacked high with files and bound reports and computer printouts. They had worked hard all day, right up to the rehearsal.