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

“When do I start?”

“Now. I need you to get me all the information you can find about… got a pencil?”

“No,” Stevie said, “but for twenty bucks an hour, I’ll open a vein and write with my own blood.”

“Get a pencil,” Matt said. He looked up at Maggie and smiled. “I think I can improve this company.”

“Okay, boys and girls.” Dan Fowler raised his voice and the actors immediately fell silent. “Break’s over. We’ve got mucho work to do tonight, so don’t turn off your brains yet. Let’s walk through the blocking for the opening number. Places on stage!”

The cast scrambled for their spots.

Maggie moved center stage. So far Dan’s storm-trooper attitude was working. He was among the most efficient directors she’d ever worked with.

“Okay,” Dan called. “Lucy is center. Spot comes up on her. The stage is dark and misty. Creepy crawly things start moving behind her….”

As he spoke, the cast walked through their on-stage movements.

“Lucy says, Stop, and the creepy things scramble away. Lights come up. Out from the wings come my men in top hats and tails. They pick her up and carry her around….”

Maggie looked nervously at the eight men who would be hoisting her onto their shoulders in this part of the opening number. They didn’t lift her now, since it was only a walkthrough, but they were going to spend a great deal of time rehearsing this particular move, to make it look effortless.

“On comes the full chorus, including all four secondary leads. We talk, talk, talk, sing, sing, sing. The stage is packed but the crowd parts as Cody enters upstage center.”

This was as far as they’d got before the break.

“Okay, Cody,” Dan ordered Matt. “You come directly downstage to Lucy. You sing your bit of the song and then you talk. Lucy, don’t back away, I want you directly center stage for the kiss that’s coming.”

Maggie nodded, glancing up at Matt, who was making notes on his script.

“This kiss has to be very 1940s Hollywood,” Dan continued. “Very big screen passionate. The music underneath swells, so you’ve got to time it just right. I think you’ve got eight bars of music to fill. Rhonda, dear, play it for them, would you?”

The accompanist played as Maggie and Matt listened. God, eight bars was an awfully long time.

“Try it with the music,” Dan ordered. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Matt tossed down his script and positioned himself next to Maggie. “Your last line is what? So go away,” he remembered. “You should turn your back to me, as if you’re going to walk away, stage left. I’m going to grab you by the arm and swing you back around toward me, okay?”

Maggie nodded, suddenly frightfully nervous.

“Give us about four measures before the kiss,” Matt called to Rhonda, who began to play.

Maggie listened for the musical cue, then turned away from Matt. He pulled her hard toward him, and she slammed into his chest. As Matt’s lips met hers, she couldn’t keep from giggling.

“Wrong!” Dan’s nasal voice interrupted. “Stanton, you’re as stiff as a board. Get into character! Think about your motivation! This is one of Lucy’s fantasies, and she’s as hot as hell for Cody, even though she won’t admit it. Come on, people, what happened to that chemistry I saw at your audition? I want steam! I want pheromones! Try it again.”

Once again the music started. Matt pulled her toward him, more gently this time, but she knew she was still too tense.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling away before he kissed her.

“Can we take a few minutes?” Matt called to Dan.

“Not right now,” Dan’s bored voice intoned. “Work on it at home. We’ve got to move on.”

“I couldn’t get into character tonight,” Maggie said in the car on the way home from rehearsal. “What’s wrong with me?”

Matt glanced at her. Her expression in the dim reflection from the dashboard light was woeful. She was stuck inside of her own head, that’s what was wrong.

He spun the steering wheel hard to the right, pulling into a side street. Maneuvering the car to the side of the road, he cut the engines and the lights, and they were plunged into total darkness.

“Matt—”

He grabbed her and kissed her.

“There,” he said as he let her go. God, he didn’t want to let her go. But that was probably why she was freaking out about kissing him in the first place. “That’s how long those eight bars of music are. That wasn’t so terrible was it?”

“No,” she said faintly.

“Good,” he said as matter-of-factly as he could manage. He started the car and did a one-eighty to get them back to the main road, glad that the car was too dark for her to see his face, because his eyes surely would have betrayed him.

Ten

Maggie read another selection from the endless pile of business reports as she ate a bowl of oatmeal. Matt sat across from her with a giant bowl of fruit.

She glanced up at him, and he smiled.

“Don’t you ever eat anything but fruit for breakfast?” she asked.

Matt laughed. “Wow, we wouldn’t do too well on the Newlywed Game, would we? No. The only thing I eat before noon is fruit.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes me feel healthier.”

Maggie gazed across the table at him, wishing he’d tell her why he’d been in the hospital three years ago. But whenever she brought the topic of conversation even vaguely in that direction, he changed the subject. Like right now.

“Speaking of newlyweds, your mother left a message on the answering machine. She wants us to come for Sunday dinner sometime next month. Talk about advance notice—I guess she figures this way we can’t make up an excuse.”

Maggie sighed.

“Also, we’ve got a rehearsal tonight,” he added.

She nodded. Great.

“We’re doing a run-through of the first four scenes,” he reminded her.

She nodded again, focusing her attention on her oatmeal.

He didn’t get the message. “You know that means we’ve got to go in there and do that kiss from the opening scene.”

The kiss. Oh, God.

“We should practice it,” Matt said. “Don’t you think?”

Maggie took a deep breath. “Yeah. We should. How about after lunch?”

“How about now?”

She looked at him, looked at the clock. Stevie was due to arrive in about fifteen minutes. “Okay.” Somehow that made her feel safe.

Safer.

She stood up and headed toward the stairs.

Matt followed. “Where are you going?”

“To brush my teeth.”

He caught her arm, pulled her in to him, and kissed her. His mouth tasted sweet, like watermelon and bananas with a hint of peaches thrown in.

“Yum,” he said. “Brown sugar is definitely better than mint at this time of day.”

Maggie’s insides were doing flip-flops. He hadn’t touched her since that kiss in his car after last week’s disastrous rehearsal. She’d thought she was getting over him—or at least used to him. But if all it took was one little nothing kiss to make her knees feel weak, she was in big trouble.

“Here’s what I’m going to do,” Matt told her. He maneuvered her around as he spoke, going through it in slow motion, putting her into the right position for the best angle for the kiss. She tried to pay attention, but couldn’t. “Lucy is really nuts about this guy, despite everything she says. We should show that right from the start.”

As Maggie looked up into Matt’s golden-greenish eyes, she realized that she understood Lucy’s motivation perfectly. Because, damn it, she wanted Matt, no matter how hard she tried to deny it. Maybe that was her problem. This role was hitting too close to home. But maybe if she kissed him not as Lucy, but as Maggie—Maggie kissing Matt. He’d never know the difference, and she’d bring a certain authenticity to the role.

“Ready?” Matt asked.

“Yeah.” She smiled. She was ready.

She stepped away from him as per the stage directions, and he pulled her toward him. This time, her movement was fluid, and she seemed to flow into his arms. Her lips went up to meet his, and she kissed him with all the fire in her soul. Unable to remember any of the blocking he’d just explained, she put her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him.

She heard him groan, and felt his hands move down her back to the curve of her derriere, as he kissed her harder, more deeply. His thigh pushed against her, and she opened herself to him, wrapping one of her legs around his. The sensation of her bare skin against his made her ignite, and she pulled him even closer.

And still she kissed him. The eight bars of background music could have played over and over and over again.

He slipped his hand up underneath her T-shirt and she shivered at the touch of his fingers against her skin. But then his hand cupped her breast and her heart nearly stopped beating.

“Yo, dudes—Oops, looks like I’ve come at a bad time.”

Maggie and Matt jumped apart to see Stevie backing out of the room.

“We were just rehearsing,” Maggie said breathlessly, her cheeks heating.

Matt sat down at the kitchen table and put his face in his hands. When he glanced up at Stevie, his expression was black, with only a hint of amusement in his eyes to offset it.

“Oh, gee, I just remembered, uh,” Stevie said, “I’ve got to run some errands—”

“Oh, knock it off.” Maggie was annoyed. “It wasn’t what it looked like.” She turned to Matt, blushing again as she remembered the feel of his hand on her breast, but determined to be professional. “I think we sort of overshot the mark, but at least I wasn’t stiff.”

Matt fought the urge to laugh at her word choice. She may not have been stiff….

“Do you want to try it again?” she asked.

“No,” Matt said. He couldn’t. He couldn’t even stand up right now. “Maybe later.”

Steve followed Maggie into the office, turning back to give Matt one last apologetic look. Matt made a face at him, shaking his head and rolling his eyes in frustration.

Stevie glanced in the direction Maggie had disappeared, then came back into the kitchen. “Maybe this is none of my business,” he said quietly to Matt, “but she’s in love with you.”

“I wish.”

“I’m telling you, it’s true.” Steve was serious. “I know her. She’s… Just don’t hurt her, okay?”

Matt was silent as he met the kid’s gaze, uncertain how to respond. He couldn’t decide himself which was worse torture —thinking she didn’t love him or thinking maybe she did.

As usual, Maggie and Matt rolled into rehearsal several minutes early.

The assistant director, the stocky woman with the cat eyeglasses and the clipboard—her name was Dolores, but Dan Fowler called her Hey!—approached Matt immediately, holding out a plastic-wrapped cup with a screw-on lid.

Maggie’s stomach took a downward plunge.

“Time for you-know-what,” Dolores said, tossing the cup to him. “The rules are I’ve got to walk you into the little boys’ room.”

Matt was serene. He just laughed. But when he glanced at Maggie, she knew this bothered him more than he was letting on.

She watched him walk away, wondering how it would feel to be haunted by a bad reputation. It didn’t seem fair that people didn’t notice how much he’d changed.

“Stanton!” Maggie turned to see Dan Fowler waving to her from up on the stage. “Come here for a sec.”

“What’s up?”

He was sitting on one of the chairs that served as makeshift scenery, and he motioned for her to sit, too. When she did, he crossed his arms and looked at her.

And she panicked. He was having second thoughts about casting her. He didn’t think she was going to be able to do those kisses, and he was figuring out the best way to break the news….

“How long have you been seeing Stone?” he finally asked.

She blinked. Stone. Matt. “I’m not… I mean, we’re not dating or anything, if that’s what you mean.”

“You always show up with him. And leave with him.”

What was this leading up to? Maggie didn’t have a clue. “We’re housemates,” she told him.

“You live together.”

“Yeah, but as friends,” she clarified. “We went to high school together.”

“And you’re not involved with him?”

“No.” Why was he asking this?

Dan smiled, his beard parting to expose white, even teeth. His eyes were warm, the dark brown flecked with gold. When he wasn’t frowning, he was actually quite handsome.

“I was wondering if you’d have dinner with me tomorrow night,” he said.

They ran through the opening number, even daring to hoist Maggie onto the shoulders of the men’s chorus. It was awkward and she giggled, but they were on their way.

Then the dread kiss approached. Matt gave her hand a reassuring squeeze as they began the sequence.

He pulled her to him, and instead of kissing her immediately, he gazed down into her eyes for several beats. When his lips finally met hers, Maggie melted. She forced herself to keep the embrace open, only putting her arms around his neck at the very end of the musical phrase.

When he pulled back, he didn’t immediately move away. He looked into her eyes again, and smiled.

“Perfect!” Dan shouted. “That’s exactly what I wanted.”

Maggie finished up the song on a cloud of relief and desire.

Al, the choreographer, was nearly as much of a slave driver as Dan Fowler. Sweat dripped off Maggie’s face as they stopped for a break.

“One of these days,” she swore as she threw herself onto the stage next to Matt, “I’m going to be in a show that rehearses in a theater that has air-conditioning.”

The dance they were doing was a blend of athletic street dancing and graceful jazz, with several steps reminiscent of the old dirty dancing craze thrown in. Most of the steps had no body contact—instead they had to maintain eye contact. Maggie found that almost more dizzying than when Matt actually touched her.

Almost.

She rolled onto her stomach and put her chin in her hand. “Matt? How well do you know Dan Fowler?”

He turned his head to look at her. “I don’t know. Well enough. I know he’s a good director—he gets the job done, and his end result is better than average. Why?”

She shrugged.

“Why?” Matt asked again, his eyes narrowing. “What aren’t you telling me?”

God, he knew her too well. “Nothing,” she said.

“Tell me.”

She laughed. “No.”

“Tell me.” He rolled onto his side, head propped up on one hand. She could tell from looking at him that he wasn’t going to let this slide.

And okay. Maybe she could actually get a rise out of him. She glanced around to make sure no one else was in earshot and Matt leaned in closer as she said, “Dan asked me out.”

He laughed. “You’re kidding.”

Was that jealousy in his eyes, or just amusement? “No,” she said. “He asked me to have dinner with him.”

“Dinner with Dan,” Matt mused. “Do you think he takes the time to eat anything but fast food?”

No, it definitely wasn’t jealousy. Was it possible he really didn’t care if she had dinner with Dan…? “I’ll let you know,” she said, even though she’d turned down the director.

Matt froze. “You’re going?”

Okay. That was a slightly better reaction.

“Actually—” she said, but he cut her off.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to… He’s great. He’s perfect for you, Mags. He’s honest and solid and…”

“Oh,” Maggie said.

“Break’s over,” Dan announced.

Matt gave her a smile as he pulled himself to his feet.

She’d been hoping for jealousy—not for Matt to give her and Dan his blessing.

Eleven

At 1:00 a.m., Matt rose stiffly from his seat at the conference table.

He’d worked muscles in that dance rehearsal tonight that he’d forgotten he had.

The evening had been an emotional workout, too.

The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that Dan Fowler was perfect for Maggie. The guy was honest and dependable and basically decent. Not too tactful, but that was mostly by choice, since being tactful took too much time.

Matt also knew that Dan had a strict personal policy of never, ever dating the women from his shows. His feelings for Maggie had to be pretty intense if he was willing to break his rules to ask her out. Of course that didn’t surprise Matt at all. The surprise would have been if Dan hadn’t fallen instantly in love with her.

If he had to handpick a guy for Maggie to become involved with, Dan would be at the top of his list. It couldn’t have turned out better if Matt had planned it.

So here he sat, sick with jealousy, knowing without a doubt that no one, not even Dan Fowler, could love Maggie more than he did.

But he also knew that his love for her would do her absolutely no good if he wasn’t around.

Matt stretched, knowing that he wasn’t going to sleep tonight. Instead of lying awake in bed, he might as well make himself as comfortable as possible. He went into his father’s master bedroom—the room Maggie had fallen asleep in, that first night she spent here—and into the bath, where he uncovered the hot tub.

He tried to be quiet as he took the stairs up to his room. There was a paperback book up there he’d started reading several nights ago. He’d finish it long before dawn, but at least he’d fill a few hours.

He paused as he reached the landing on the third floor, looking at Maggie’s closed door. Slowly, he moved toward her room, stopping outside, staring at the doorknob, wishing for the first time in years for a beer.

If he had a beer or two or four, he could use the alcohol as an excuse for reaching out and opening that door. Without the beer, the responsibility was all his.

Maggie sat up in bed, her heart racing. As she listened, Matt’s footsteps faded back down the hallway and up the stairs to his bedroom.

With a sigh of frustration, she sank back in the bed. She couldn’t take much more of this.

Then she heard him coming back down the stairs, and again, she held her breath. But he went past her door without stopping this time.

Don’t think. Just do it.

But even as she threw back the covers and opened her door, she couldn’t help but think.

If she went to him, and threw herself at him again, they would probably make love.

Still, she went down the stairs, down the hall past the dining room, past the living room, to the master bedroom. The connecting bathroom door was ajar.

Quietly she went to the door and peeked in. Matt crouched next to the tub, dipping his fingers in to test the temperature.

She closed her eyes and pushed the door open. “Hi,” she said, and he jumped to his feet.

He didn’t say a word. He simply looked at her.

Now that she was actually here, her confidence faded. She crossed her arms in front of her, suddenly aware that she was wearing only her nightgown. “I heard you going up and down the stairs,” she said. “I know you can’t sleep. I can’t, either.”

And still he didn’t say a word, didn’t move.

“Do you want to talk?” she asked.

Matt shook his head, no. Jeez, she always knew just where to stand to be perfectly backlit. He could see her body through her gown, and he wanted her. Man, he wanted her. He had to get her out of here. This was just too difficult.

“I wanted to tell you that I’m not going out with Dan,” she said, pushing her hair back behind her ear and sitting on the very edge of the wicker chair. “It would just be… too weird.”

No, Matt knew he should say, it’s okay. Dan’s a good man. You should go. But he couldn’t make himself say it.

Maggie rolled her eyes. “I started thinking, what if my mother calls when I’m out? If you answer the phone, what are you going to tell her? Maggie’s out on a date? She thinks we’re married.”

“But we’re not,” Matt said tightly. He forced himself to turn away from her and instead stared sightlessly out the window.

“The truth is, I told you I was going to have dinner with him, because I was hoping you’d be jealous.”

Oh, God. It had worked. However, it had also worked to convince him that Maggie deserved someone more like Dan—and less like Matt.

“You should go back to bed,” he said, his back to her, praying that she wouldn’t say anything else. “Please? I really don’t want to talk right now.”

We don’t have to talk, Maggie wanted to say, but the words stuck in her throat.

“Please,” he said again. It was little more than a breath, an exhale, but it held all the emotion of a cry of pain. “Go.”

And there she went. Running away. Too scared to speak out, to speak up.

Matt didn’t turn around as she left the room.

Maggie lay in the darkness, looking up at the shadowy canopy that was draped above her bed, calling herself names.

Chicken. Coward. Scaredy-cat. Baby. Wimp. Only a wimp would have run away like that.

The digital numbers of her alarm clock switched from 1:59 to 2:00.

Maggie swore softly. Sleeplessness had never been a problem for her before. Of course, she’d never loved anyone the way she loved Matthew.

And she did love him.

So why was she lying up here all alone?

Because she didn’t want to ruin their friendship? It was no longer a good excuse, because, face it, their friendship was already affected. She wasn’t going to pretend to herself that she didn’t feel anything for him, because damn it, she did. And she wasn’t going to hang back anymore, careful to stay his buddy. She wouldn’t be able to bear watching him find some other woman to spend time with.

So where did that leave her?

She knew that if she went to him and openly asked him to spend the night with her, he wouldn’t refuse her.

But how would she feel in the morning?

That was a question that only the morning light could bring the answer to. The question facing her right now was, how did she feel tonight?

Maggie shivered, remembering the sensation of his lips on hers, of his body against hers. She wanted him, and she knew he wanted her. She’d seen the way he’d looked at her when she’d walked into the bathroom. She’d seen hunger in his eyes.

She stood up and crossed to the door. Taking a deep breath, she put her hand on the knob and turned it, swinging the door open.

And oh, dear Lord, Matt stood there, his hair down around his shoulders, his handsome face unsmiling. Even though the night had turned cool, he wore only his running shorts, and she could see the taut muscles in his chest rise and fall with each breath he took

Gazing up into his beautiful eyes, Maggie knew that the desire she saw there mirrored that in her own eyes. She wondered if he could hear her heart pounding from where he stood.

She wasn’t sure who moved first, but he reached for her as she fell into his arms.

Matt kissed her, desperately, ferociously. And she clung to him, her mouth demanding, her arms wound tightly around his neck as he pulled her closer to him. Her tongue was in his mouth, and his hands swept the length of her body, and he knew that he shouldn’t be doing this, but he couldn’t make himself stop.

Their legs intertwined, and she rubbed herself against him. And still he couldn’t stop himself from reaching down to lift her up so that her legs encircled him.

He pulled back then to look into her face.

She gazed back at him, her cheeks flushed from the heat they’d created, and he felt giddy. He buried his face in her neck, breathing in her scent. She smelled like Maggie—clean and sweet. How many times in his life had he stood close enough to inhale her fragrance, close enough to drive himself mad with wanting her?

She pulled his face up and kissed him.

But again he pulled back. “It’s not too late to stop,” he said, his voice sounding breathless to his own ears. He prayed that she wouldn’t agree.