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.”
“No way! Misquote! Sound bite attack! Take it back, or you’re going to get dunked!”
She’d moved all the way to the other side of the hot tub, but as he advanced on her, she actually came toward him.
“Matt, kiss me.”
That he could do.
He leaned forward, moving slowly now, until his mouth met hers in the sweetest of caresses. Her lips were soft and warm, and oh, Lord, so willing.
Matt carefully kept himself from touching her, aware once again that they were both naked, knowing that if he felt the softness of her body against his, he’d be lost.
And oh, although it was careful and gentle, it was the kiss he’d been waiting for, for a lifetime.
Maggie was kissing him. She wasn’t pretending to be someone else who was kissing the person he was pretending to be.
It took his breath away.
It was hard as hell to pull back, to stop kissing her, and he had to turn away to keep her from seeing the tears that had jumped into his eyes.
He forced a smile.
Maggie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Matt was treating her the way everyone always treated her—as if she might break. And if she were going to feel embarrassed about this in the morning—and she knew she was—then, damn it, she wanted the kind of kiss Matt had been legendary for in high school, the kind of kiss that would knock her socks off.
Provided she had socks on.
“I think we should try that again,” she said.
“I think I need to get out of this tub,” he countered.
“I think there’s suddenly some doubt as to who would bore whom in bed,” she told him, amazed at the words coming out of her mouth.
“Oh really?” he said. There was an odd light in his eyes as he looked at her. He didn’t move, he just sat there, very, very still.
She shifted slightly, so that the water barely covered her breasts. Matt’s gaze flickered down and then back to her face.
“I’m not going to take advantage of you,” he said, but he still didn’t move.
“It’s not taking advantage if it’s what I want,” she countered. She stood up, water sheeting off her.
Matt stood, too, and scrambled out of the tub, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his waist. “You’re too angry and drunk to know what you want.”
“I am not!”
“Please, just—”
“For the first time in ages, I’m actually making my own decisions—”
“This is no decision. It’s a knee-jerk reaction.” He raised his voice to interrupt her. “If we make love tonight, everything changes between us. Maybe it would be great. Maybe you’d wake up in the morning and still want me. Maybe we’d be lovers until the day I die. But maybe not.”
He handed her a towel. “Maybe it wouldn’t be anything more than a one-night stand,” he continued, the lateness of the hour suddenly evident in his voice. “I really don’t mind if you use me, Mags, but I’m not going to let you use me up. I value your friendship too much to throw it away for just one night.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He headed for the door. “Dry off. I’ll go find you some clothes. Then we can duke it out over whether or not I’m going to drive you to the motel.”
* * *
Matt came back into the bathroom with his smallest pair of shorts, a T-shirt and a sweatshirt.
Maggie was gone.
He’d walked right past her—she was curled up in the middle of the bed. It wasn’t his bed, but she probably didn’t know that.
He sighed, moving closer, but then realized she was fast asleep.
She clutched the sheet to her chest, and her dark hair fanned out against the white pillow. He stood looking down at her, at her long, dark eyelashes that lay against her fair skin, at the smattering of freckles that ran across her cheeks and nose. She looked like the teenage girl he’d first met so many years ago.
As a seventeen-year-old boy, he wouldn’t have been able to resist shedding his own clothes and climbing into that big bed with her.
As a thirty-year-old man, he swore softly, then picked up the towel she’d dropped on the floor. He carried it into the bathroom and hung it up to dry, tossing the clothes he’d brought with him on the back of a chair. He covered the tub and turned off the light.
Okay. Leave. Walk away. Go upstairs.
Instead, he came back to look at her in the light from the hallway.
Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed. He’d leave in a minute.
God, he was a fool. He could have had her, made love to her. He could have been lying next to her right now, basking in the afterglow.
But tomorrow was coming with a vengeance. And tomorrow they both would’ve had to live with the consequences.
Maybe he could make her fall in love with him. Maybe. And wouldn’t that be nice. Then she’d be in love with someone who could make her no promises. Maggie wanted a family—babies and a husband who was going to stick around. Matt could give her no guarantees.
But he knew what he wanted. For the first time in years, he was certain. He wanted her. After all this time, he still wanted her.
He remembered the day more than a decade ago that he’d realized he was in love with Maggie Stanton. He’d been shocked, horrified, disbelieving. The great Matt Stone, slayer of hearts, did not fall in love. Then, as time passed and he realized that he had, indeed, succumbed, he’d had to face the fact that she didn’t see him as anything more than a friend.
When he’d left for college, he’d partied hard, sure that now that he was away, he’d forget about Maggie. It was only a high school crush, right?
He’d dated a long line of long-legged blondes, he’d drunk hard and had been horribly unhappy.
Somewhere down the line, he’d stopped missing her.
At