Match Me If You Can

Chapter Fourteen

When Annabelle returned to the cottage shortly after midnight, her cheeks were still flushed from watching the film, and her sundress clung to hot, damp… very damp flesh. Seeing the light shining through the front window filled her with dismay. Maybe he'd left it on as a courtesy. Please don't still be waiting up. She absolutely could not face him tonight. Even without watching a dirty movie, she could barely keep her hands off him, but after what she'd just seen…

She tiptoed up to the porch, slipped off her sandals, and let herself in as silently as the squeaky screen door and wobbly doorknob would allow.

"Hey."

She gasped and dropped her sandals. "Don't scare me like that!"

"Sorry." He lay sprawled on the couch, a sheaf of papers in one hand. He wasn't wearing a shirt, just a pair of faded black athletic shorts. His feet were bare, his ankles crossed on the arm of the couch, where light from the floor lamp turned the hair on his calves golden. Her eyes returned to the gym shorts. After what she'd seen on the screen, he was criminally overdressed.

As she tried to get her breath back, he lifted his head and shoulders, which, of course, contracted his abs into the gold standard of six-packs. "Why's your face so red?" he said.

"S-sunburn." She knew how vulnerable she was, and she should have thrown herself in the lake to cool off before she came back here.

"That's not sunburn." He swung his feet to the floor, and she noticed his hair was damp. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing!" She began inching away. It meant taking the long route around, but she wasn't turning her back on him. "You took another shower."

"So?"

"You showered after you swam. What are you, some kind of clean freak?"

"Ron and I went for a run after dinner. Why do you care?"

Oh, God, that chest, that mouth… those green eyes that saw everything. Except her naked. They'd never seen that. "I'm… going to bed now."

"Was it something I said?"

"Don't be cute. Please."

"I'll do my best." He gave her a crooked smile. "But me being me…"

"Stop it!" She didn't intend to quit moving, but her feet went on some kind of labor strike.

"You need warm milk or something?"

"No, I definitely don't need anything hot."

"I said warm. I didn't say anything about hot." He set down his papers.

"I-I know that."

She might be standing still, but he wasn't, and he took in her damp, rumpled dress as he approached. "What's going on?"

She couldn't take her eyes off his mouth. It brought to mind all the mouths she'd seen on that small television screen so recently and exactly what they'd been doing. Damn Krystal and her movie. "I'm just tired," she managed.

"You don't look tired. Your lips are sort of puffy, like you've been chewing on them, and you're breathing hard. Frankly, you look turned on. Or is that my one-track mind taking over again?"

"Let it go, okay?" He had a small scar on one rib, probably a knife wound from a spurned girlfriend.

"What the hell did you women do tonight?"

"It wasn't my idea!" She sounded guilty, and her flush deepened.

"I'll find out. One of the guys will tell me, so you might as well fill me in now."

"I don't think the men will be talking about this. Or maybe they will. I don't know. I have no idea how much you men talk."

"Not as much as you women do, that's for damn sure." He inclined his head toward the kitchen. "Do you want something to drink? There's a bottle of wine in the refrigerator."

"Oh, yeah… Wine's exactly what I don't need right now."

"A mystery just waiting to be solved…" He'd clearly begun to enjoy himself.

"Leave it alone, will you?"

"Exactly what a nice guy would do." He leaned down and picked up his cell. "Janine'll tell me what happened. She seems like an up-front lady."

"She's at the B &B. She doesn't have a phone in her room."

"Right. I'll ask Krystal. I talked to Webster not half an hour ago."

Annabelle had a pretty good idea what Krystal and Webster were doing about now, and they wouldn't appreciate being interrupted. "It's midnight."

"Your powwow just broke up. She won't have gone to bed yet."

Don't bet on it.

He rubbed his thumb over the number pad. "I've always liked Krystal. She's straightforward." He pressed the first button.

Annabelle sucked in air. "We watched porn, okay?"

He grinned and tossed the phone down. "Now we're getting somewhere."

"Believe me, it wasn't my idea. And it's not funny. Besides, it wasn't really porn. It was erotica. For women."

"There's a difference?"

"That's exactly the kind of thing I'd expect a man to say. Do you think most of us get off watching a bunch of women with collagen lips and soccer-ball implants go at each other?"

"From your expression, I'm guessing not."

She needed something cold to drink, and she headed for the kitchen, still talking because she had a point to make. "Like seduction. Does your average porn film even think about showing a little seduction?"

He followed her. "To be fair, there's not usually much need. The women are pretty aggressive."

"Exactly. Well, I'm not." As soon as the words were out, she could have kicked herself. The last thing she'd wanted to do was bring the subject back to the personal.

He didn't pounce on her misstep, not the wily Python. He liked to play with his prey before he struck. "So did the film have a plot?"

"Rural New England, virginal artist, studly stranger, 'nuff said." She pulled open the refrigerator door and stared inside without seeing a thing.

"Only two people. That's disappointing."

"There were a couple of subplots."

"Ah."

She turned on him, her damp palm still curled around the refrigerator door handle. "You think this is funny, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I'm ashamed of myself."

She wanted to smell him. His hair was nearly dry, his skin freshly showered. She wanted to press her face against his chest and inhale, to burrow in, maybe find an errant tuft of silky hair and let it tickle her nose. She nearly whimpered. "Please go away."

He cocked his head. "I'm sorry. Did you say something?"

She grabbed the first cold thing she touched and pushed the door shut. "You know the way I feel about this. About… us."

"You were pretty clear last night."

"I'm right, too."

"I know you are."

"So why did you argue with me?"

"Jerk syndrome. I can't help it. I'm a guy." His lips curved in a lazy smile. "And you're not."

Enough bolts of sexual electricity charged the air to light up the planet. He stood between her and the bedroom, and if she passed too close, she'd be tempted to lick, so she headed for the porch and nearly stumbled over the mattress he'd dragged out there last night. He'd tidied the sheets, stacked the pillows, and folded the blanket in half, doing a better job of it than she'd done with the double bed.

He ambled out. "Do you want a sandwich with that?"

She couldn't figure out what he was talking about until she followed his gaze to her hand and saw ajar of French's mustard there instead of a can of Coke. She'd stared at it. "Mustard happens to be a natural sleep aid."

"Never heard that."

"You don't know everything do you?"

"Apparently not." A few beats of silence ticked by. "Do you eat it or apply it?"

"I'm going to bed."

"Because if you apply it… I could probably help with that."

Her redhead's temper ignited, and she slammed the jar down on the farmhouse table. "Why don't I just hand you my panties and be done with it?"

"That'll work." His teeth glinted like a shark's. "So if I kiss you right now, will you turn into a big sissy again?"

Her anger faded, leaving trepidation in its wake. "I don't know."

"I've got a good-size ego-you know that. But the way you rejected me last night still bordered on the traumatic." He slipped a thumb into the top of his shorts, causing the elastic waistband to dip in a deep, mouth-watering V. "Now I'm wondering, what if I've lost my touch? What do I do then?" He moved his thumb closer to the blade of his hip bone, revealing even more skin. "You can see why I'm a little concerned."

As she gazed at the wedge of taut abdomen, she had to fight the urge to roll the cold mustard jar over her forehead. "Uh… I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it." Summoning her last ounce of willpower, she began to slide past him, and she might have made it if he hadn't reached out and touched her arm. It was the merest brush of his finger-a simple parting gesture-but he'd found bare skin, and that was enough to make her stop in her tracks.

He went as still as she. As he gazed down at her, his green eyes were an invitation to disaster overlaid with faint apology. "Damn it," he whispered. "Sometimes I'm too much of a smart-ass for my own good."

He pulled her against him, feasted on her mouth, ran his hands down the contours of her back. And she let him, just as she had last night, ignoring the fact that this was the Super Bowl of bad ideas, ignoring all the reasons why she shouldn't live every moment of this one night and deal with the consequences tomorrow.

"No patience." His dusky murmur fell like a caress over her cheek as he lowered the zipper on her dress in one effortless motion.

"This is going to ruin everything," she whispered against his mouth, needing to say the words even though she didn't do one thing to stop him.

"Let's do it anyway," he said in a husky rasp. "We'll sort it out afterward."

Exactly what she wanted to hear. She lost herself in their kiss-limp, spellbound, stupid… a little bit in love.

Moments later, her dress lay in a puddle around her feet along with her bra, a pair of panties, and everything he'd been wearing-one pair of black athletic shorts. They were on the porch, but it was dark, the trees thick, and who cared? He gazed down at her breasts, not touching them, simply looking. With one hand he cupped her shoulder. With the other, he ran the tips of his fingers down her spine and dabbled with her coccyx. She shivered and pressed her cheek to his chest, then turned her lips against his skin only to have him spring back and catch his breath in a long hiss.

"Do not move."

He broke away and dashed toward the kitchen, giving her an all-too-brief glimpse of a spectacularly tight male butt. It flashed through her mind that he might be retrieving his cell so he could multitask, but he turned off the overhead fixture in the kitchen, leaving only the stove light on, then disappeared into the living area and shut off more lights. Moments later he reappeared. The dim golden light from the kitchen played along his long-muscled body as he came toward her. He was fully erect. When he reached her side, he held up a trio of condoms and said softly, "Consider these a token of my affection."

"Noted and appreciated," she replied, just as softly.

He pressed her onto the mattress. She remembered how goal driven he was and realized that Girls Night at the Movies might have raised her expectations for lingering foreplay too high. Sure enough, in much too short a time he rolled above her, his mouth at her breast. She sank her fingers into his hair. "You're going to rush me, aren't you?"

"No doubt about it." He slipped his hand to her belly, already zeroing in on command central.

"I want more kissing."

"No problem." He took her nipple between his lips.

She sucked in her breath. "On the mouth."

He teased the tiny, turgid nub, his breath growing shallow. "Let's negotiate."

She dug her fingers into his back, which was already damp from whatever small amount of restraint he might be practicing. Her thighs automatically parted. "I should have expected this."

He trailed his thumb over the thatch of curly hair at the base of her stomach and played in the fiery threads. "I'll go too fast for you. That's a given, and I apologize in advance." She gave a soft gasp of pleasure when he touched warm, wet flesh. "But it's been a long time for me, and what might, in reality, only take minutes-"

"If that." Her toes curled.

"-will seem like years to me." His voice grew ragged. "So here's what I'm going to suggest." She gripped his hips as he played with her. "Let's accept the fact that I can't satisfy you the first time. That takes the pressure off both of us."

She bent her knees and said, in a strangled gasp, "Off you, anyway."

"But once I've released that first burst of… steam…"- he sucked in his breath, his words coming fast and choppy- "I'll have all the time in the world"-her head thrashed as his wily fingers teased her in the most intimate way-"to do the job right." He nudged her thighs wider. "And you, Tinker Bell…" She took his weight. "You'll have a night you'll never forget."

He entered her with a groan, and even though she was slick and oh-so-ready, it wasn't an easy fit. She drew up her knees and arched her back. He closed his mouth over hers, took her hips in his palms, and tilted her to the angle they both wanted.

Feverish, demented images shimmered behind her eyelids. The long, thick body of a python pushing into her, uncoiling… stretching… going deeper… deeper still. His back grew rigid beneath her palms. The sweet attack… The plunge. Again and again. And then the final climb. He began to shudder. She swallowed his low, guttural moan. Light shimmered behind her eyes. She took his weight, threw back her head, and gave herself up.

Long minutes passed. He brushed his lips against her temple, then rolled to his side, barely staying on the narrow mattress. She slid over to give him room. They readjusted. He drew her against his damp skin and began playing with her hair. She was dazed, surfeited, determined not to think. Not yet.

"It… it didn't happen for me," she said.

He propped himself up on one elbow and gazed into her lying eyes. "I hate to say this, but I told you so."

"You were right, as usual."

Crinkles formed at the corners of his eyes, and he pressed a quick kiss to her lips. "Let this be a lesson." He pulled himself up. "I'm going to need a few minutes."

"I'll do some word scrambles in my head."

"Good idea." As she listened to the night sounds that surrounded their nest in the woods, he disappeared inside. He returned a few minutes later with a beer, sat on the side of the mattress, and held the bottle out for her. She took a swig and gave it back. He set the bottle on the floor, then lay down and pulled her to his shoulder, where he began playing with a lock of her hair again. The tender intimacy made her want to cry, so she rolled on top of him and began her own sensuous exploration.

Before long, his breath quickened. "I guess…" he said in a strangled voice, "it's not going to take me quite as long to recover as I thought."

She brushed her lips over his abdomen. "I suppose you can't be right about everything."

And that was the last thing either of them said for a very long time.

Finally, he fell asleep, and she could slip away to her bedroom. As she curled into her pillow, she could no longer repress the reality of what she'd done. He'd attacked lovemaking -with the same workaholic zeal he did everything else, and, in the process, she'd fallen a little more in love with him.

Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes, but she didn't wipe them away. Instead, she let them fall while she readjusted, re-created, reframed. By the time she drifted off to sleep, she knew exactly what she had to do.

Heath heard Annabelle go into her bedroom, but he didn't stir. Now that the hunger in his body had been satisfied, the despicability of what he'd done hit him hard. She cared about him. A whole world of emotions he didn't want to acknowledge had been looking back at him from those honey sweet eyes tonight. Now he felt like the biggest jerk in the world.

She'd told him that this was a disaster in the making, but he'd built his life around crashing through roadblocks, so he'd ignored the obvious and charged ahead. Even though he'd known she was right, he wanted her, so he'd taken, and the consequences be damned. Now that it was too late, he absorbed exactly how big a disaster this was for her, professionally and personally. Her emotions were engaged-he'd seen it in her face-and that meant she couldn't ever go back to the business of being his matchmaker.

He rolled over and punched his pillow. What the hell had he been thinking? He hadn't been thinking, that was the whole problem. He'd only been reacting, and in the process of getting what he wanted, he'd blown her dreams right out of the water. Now he had to make it up to her.

He began drawing up a plan in his head. He'd talk up her business and find some decent clients to throw her way. He'd use his PR people and media contacts to get her press. It was a good story-a second-generation matchmaker brings her grandmother's old-fashioned business into the twenty-first century. Annabelle should have come up with it herself, but she didn't think big enough.

One thing he couldn't do was let her keep introducing him to other women. That would break her heart. Selfishly, he didn't like the idea of her not working for him anymore. He liked having her around. She made things easier for him… something he'd repaid by screwing her over, literally and figuratively.

Like father. Like son.

The despair that settled over him felt old and familiar, like the sound of a rusty trailer door slamming in the night.

He didn't remember falling asleep, but he must have because it was daylight when the earth moved. He eased one eye open, saw a face he wasn't ready to face, and turned his head into the pillow. Another small earthquake rattled the mattress. He peeled open his lids and blinked as a blade of sunlight hit him between the eyes.

"Wake up, you gorgeous gift to womankind," a voice chirped.

She sat on the porch floor next to him, a coffee mug cradled in her hand, one bare leg extended so she could nudge the mattress with her foot. She wore bright yellow shorts and a purple T-shirt printed with a grotesque cartoon troll and a caption that said we're people, too. Her hair curled in a crazy fracas around her imp's face, her lips were rosy, and her eyes a lot clearer than his. She sure as hell didn't look devastated. Shit. She thought last night had changed things. He felt sick. "Later," he managed.

"Can't wait. We're meeting everyone for breakfast in the gazebo, and I have to talk to you." She picked up a second mug from the floor and held it out. "Something to ease the pain of reentry."

He needed to be alert for this, but he felt like the bottom of a dirty ashtray, and all he wanted was to avoid this discussion by rolling over and going back to sleep. But he owed her better than that, so he propped himself on one elbow, took the coffee, and tried to will the cobwebs from his brain.

Her eyes followed the sheet as it slipped to his waist, and he wanted her all over again. He moved his arm to conceal the evidence. How was he going to break the news that she was a friend, not a candidate for a long-term relationship, without tearing her apart?

"First," she said, "last night meant more to me than you can imagine."

Exactly what he didn't want to hear. She looked so damned sweet. It took a real shithead to hurt someone like this. If only Annabelle were the woman he'd always dreamed about- sophisticated, elegant, with impeccable taste and a family that traced its roots back to a nineteenth-century robber baron. He needed someone worldly enough to survive life's bumps, a woman who saw life as he did-a competition to be won, not a perpetual invitation to come out and play.

"At the same time…" Her voice shifted to a lower, more serious note. "We can't ever do that again. It was a serious breach of professional conduct on my part, although not quite the problem I'd imagined." A smile he could only describe as impish broke through. "Now I can recommend you with complete enthusiasm." The smile faded. "No, the bigger problem is how manipulative I was."

Coffee slopped over the edge of the mug. What the hell was this?

She dashed into the kitchen for a paper towel and handed it over so he could mop up. "Back to business," she said. "You have to understand I'm truly grateful for what you did. The whole thing with Rob really messed with my head. Ever since we broke up, well… I've been running from sex. The brutal truth is, I've been pretty screwed up about it." She dabbed at some drips he'd missed. "Thanks to you, I'm past that."

He took a cautious sip and waited, no longer sure where any of this was heading. She touched his arm in a gesture that felt annoyingly maternal. "I feel healthy again, and I owe that to you. Well, and to Krystal's movie. But, Heath…" The tiny scatter of freckles on her forehead met as she frowned. "I can't stand this feeling that I-I sort of used you."

His coffee mug stalled midair. "Used me?"

"That's what we need to talk about. I consider you a friend, in addition to being a client, and I don't use my friends. At least I haven't until now. I know it's different with men- maybe you don't feel taken advantage of. Maybe I'm making too big a deal out of this. But my conscience tells me I need to be totally honest about my motivations."

He tensed. "By all means."

"I needed someone safe who could help me reconnect with my body, someone I wasn't emotionally involved with. So, of course, you were perfect."

Not emotionally involved?

She nibbled at her bottom lip, beginning to look as though she'd rather be anywhere but here. "Tell me you're not mad," she said. "Oh, crap… I'm not going to let myself cry. But I feel so bad. You heard Kevin last night. I…" She gulped. "That whole other complication. What a mess, right?"

She'd thrown one more curveball. "Other complication?"

"You know."

"Refresh my memory."

"Don't make me say it. It's too embarrassing."

"What's a little embarrassment between friends?" he said tightly. "Since we're being so honest."

She gazed up at the ceiling, rolled her shoulders, looked down at the floor. Her voice grew small, almost timid. "You know… The tiny crush I have on Dean Robillard."

The floor shifted beneath him.

She pressed her hands to her face. "Oh, God, I'm blushing. I'm awful, aren't I, talking to you about this?"

"No, please." He ground out the words. "Feel free."

She dropped her hands and regarded him with all kinds of earnestness. "I know it probably won't come to anything-this thing with Dean-but before last night, I didn't even have the nerve to give it a chance. He's obviously an experienced guy, and what was I going to do if the connection I felt wasn't just in my imagination? What would I do if he was interested in me, too? I couldn't cope with the sexual ramifications. But after what you did for me last night, I finally have the courage to at least give it a shot. If nothing comes of it, well, that's life, but at least I'll know it wasn't my neurosis that held me back."

"Are you saying… I was your icebreaker?"

Those honey-colored eyes darkened with concern. "Tell me that's okay with you. I know your emotions weren't involved, but, still, nobody likes to think they've been taken advantage of."

He unclenched his teeth. "And that's what you did? You took advantage of me?"

"I wasn't, you know, picturing him in my mind last night when I was with you or anything. Well, maybe for a couple of seconds, but that's all, I swear."

He narrowed his eyes.

"So are we okay?" she asked.

He didn't understand the smoldering mass of resentment growing in his chest, especially since she'd handed him a free pass. "I don't know. Are we?"

She had the nerve to grin. "I think so. You look a little grouchy, but you don't look like a man whose honor's been violated. I shouldn't have been so worried. For you, it was just sex, but for me it was this huge emancipation. Thanks, pal."

She stuck out her hand, forcing him to set down his coffee mug to shake it or look like a dick. Then she hopped to her feet, threw her arms over her head, and uncurled her small body in a cat's satisfied stretch that pulled up her T-shirt and displayed the small oval belly button he'd dipped the tip of his tongue into last night. "I'll meet you at the gazebo." Her expression clouded with earnestness. "And, Heath, I promise, if you have even the tiniest leftover resentment toward me, it'll disappear by next week. This makes me even more determined to find you the perfect woman. Now, it's not just business. It's personal."

Shooting him a blazing smile, she bounced away into the kitchen, only to pop her head back out. "Thanks. I mean it. I owe you one."

Moments later the cottage door closed. He fell back on the pillow, set his coffee mug on his chest, and tried to take it in.

Annabelle had used him as a warm-up act for Robillard?