Meet Your Mate (A Good Riders Romance Book 1) (5 page)

Suddenly, her eyelids fluttered
open. She jerked her head from his shoulder, and they stared at one another,
nose to nose. The confusion cleared from her eyes while shock drained her
cheeks of color. Straightening her spine, she snatched her hand away as if
scorched.

He let his smile spread as she
settled her rigid dignity around her like a full-metal jacket. She stood up,
pulled her jacket into place with an efficient snap, straightened her skirt,
and applauded with the others.

Max rearranged his junk and climbed
gingerly to his feet.

After they waited through what
seemed like a curtain call for every frigging individual member of the
orchestra, the lights went up and the crowd crept out sedately. Max held onto
Annabel’s elbow to prevent her from slipping away.

“Roger didn’t want us to leave in
the first crush,” he reminded her.

“Oh, right.” She opened the
ridiculously small black purse she clutched like a lifeline. “I probably need
to make some repairs before facing the camera again.” After retrieving a
mirror, she reached up to smooth the sides of her hair, but he clasped her
wrist.

“Don’t,” he said as her pulse beat
double-time beneath his fingertips. Interesting. He twined a wisp of hair
around his finger and let it spring back into place. “You look sexy like this.
Approachable. Touchable.”

She pulled her hand away and hid it
behind her back. “
Wh
-
Wh
-Where—“
She cleared her throat. “Where did Roger say to meet him?”

“He said to wait here.”

She nodded again, looking at the
stage, then the ceiling, and finally, the doors. At everything but him. “How
did you like the performance?”

“Very stimulating.” He winked. “Was
it good for you, too?”

Annabel leaned against the Jeep’s
headrest as Max pulled into her driveway. Through the open moon roof, thousands
of stars sparkled against the dark velvety sky. She pretended to study them
while she scrambled to locate the shreds of her composure.

A flash of light in the rearview
mirror announced Roger’s arrival behind them.

Max shifted the car into park and
shut off the motor. She sensed more than saw him turn toward her. In a slick
maneuver, he slid his arm across the back of her seat. “I’ll tell you the
truth.”

His fingers tom-
tommed
against the leather headrest, sending a thundering drumbeat through her
temples. Realizing he wasn’t going to tell her the truth or anything else until
she responded, she turned toward him. “About what?”

“Going into it, I expected this
date to be a complete waste, but I had a good time.” He begrudged every word,
she could tell.

She licked her dry lips. “Even the
symphony?”

“
Especially
the symphony.”
His voice was laced with humor and something deeper. Darker. Desire, maybe? No,
probably not.

Mortified all over again, she
covered her blushing cheeks with her palms and peeked at him through her
fingers. “I’m so sorry about that. It was bad enough to fall asleep, but
to—to—” She could hardly bring herself to think about it, let alone say it. “To
practically
grope
you in public was totally inappropriate.”

She groaned at the recollection of
waking
up
from a highly erotic dream in the middle of Music Hall draped across his
hard, muscular body with about as much class and subtlety as a cheap one-night
stand. She could imagine her late oh-so-proper college professor husband’s
outrage if she’d let her hand drift across
his crotch
in public. Carl
would have flat out stiffened—and not in a sexual way—and pushed her away.

“Aw, don’t worry about it.
Appropriate behavior is highly overrated.” He leaned closer and rubbed his
fingertips along the edge of her collar. “You need to lighten up, Morgan. Have
some fun.”

His touch only grazed her skin
occasionally, too infrequently for her to object, just often enough for her to
notice... and anticipate. A little too much anticipation for comfort. She
batted his hand away like a mosquito.

“Besides, Music Hall was a real
educational experience for me. I didn’t know you classy, high-brow types went
in for public displays of affection.” His deep chuckle was rich with infectious
amusement.

After maintaining a stiff upper lip
for all of two seconds, a chuckle burst free, and she laughed along with him.
She had to. Her parents had raised her to conduct herself with the utmost
propriety at all times. Her husband expected the same. Most of the people she
knew would have been appalled by her behavior tonight. But if Max didn’t take
her
faux pas
seriously, how could she?

As the laughter died between them,
a large form loomed outside the car. Roger! She’d forgotten all about him.

He tapped on the window. “You two
heading to the door anytime soon, or should I go get a snack and come back?”

“We’re going in now.” Max turned
and gave Annabel a crooked smile. “The watchful eye of
Let’s Talk
awaits. Let’s get this over with.” He opened his car door. “Wait right there. I
want Roger to document an example of my best manners.”

Under normal circumstances, she
probably wouldn’t have obeyed an order from him, but her cellphone dinged. She
checked the text message in case of a Carly emergency. But no, just an update
on the girl’s evening.
Just left
movies with Jenna. Home by 12. C U
then.

As she dropped the phone back in
her purse, Max opened the door. After years of enjoying similar courtesies from
her husband, it seemed only fair to accept this small, but sweet gesture from
Max.

When he helped her out of the car,
his hand felt warm and strong. Carl’s hands had been so frail before he died,
so cold. With a stab of betrayal over the comparison, she could barely remember
a time when Carl’s touch had felt this vital, this supportive. The essential
feelings of safety and belonging she’d treasured from him during their
courtship had faded after their marriage. They’d evaporated completely with the
onset of his illness.

Max kept her hand as they walked to
the door, turning to clasp both of hers after they stepped onto the small
porch.

“You purposely picked a date you
didn’t think I’d like, didn’t you?”

“Maybe… partly…” She chewed her
bottom lip. “Yes.”

“I fooled you by having a good time
anyway.” He put that Southern drawl on and off like a pair of sunglasses,
flattening his vowels and stringing out his words with several extra syllables.
“Turnabout’s fair play, don’t you think?”

“What?” Apparently, the champagne
had covered her brain in pink fuzz balls, leaving her more than a little slow
on the uptake.

“I mean, maybe we should—”

“Are you two going to kiss or not?”
Roger interrupted.

Darn Roger, anyway. Why couldn’t he
keep his mouth shut? What had Max been about to say? Would he have tried to
kiss her without being prompted? Would she have let him?

“If you’re only going to shake hands,
do it, so I can leave. If you’re going to kiss, I’ll wait around.”

“We’re
not
going to kiss,”
Annabel said.

“Yes, we are,” Max contradicted.
“Get the camera ready, Roger.”

The fleeting brush of
Max’s lips against hers came and went before Annabel objected or responded. Not
that she could have responded before the tingling after-effects froze her in
place.

“Is that the best you can do?”
Roger goaded.

“No, I can do better. Want to see?”
Max proceeded to show them—and potentially all the people in the tri-state
viewing area—exactly how much better he could do.

Even knowing the display was all
for show, his arms around her felt too muscular. His mouth on hers felt too
possessive. His chest against hers felt all too real. Her eyelids fluttered,
then closed. Heat curled through her, warming her from her fingertips to her
toes. And in all the interesting places in between.

Had anyone ever kissed her this way
before?

Not the much-older husband who
treated her with too-much respect even before he got sick. Not the
inexperienced boyfriend who dumped her in high school when caring for her
mother had taken up so much of her time. Not the sweet, but earnest young
artist who had been the only one to show any interest in her since her
husband’s death.

Desire overcame her resistance to
Max’s bold kiss. His scotch-flavored tongue flirted with hers. Intoxicated by
him more than the champagne, her hands moved up the smooth texture of his suit
to grasp his broad shoulders. His hands caressed her, moving down her back to
her waist, to her hips, to her—

Whoa there, buddy! Far enough!

They each recognized the rapidly
escalating level of intimacy at the same moment. Dazed, Annabel took a step
back and banged into the door. Max took a step back and teetered off-balance on
the edge of the porch. His arms flailed against the inevitable until gravity
won the battle.

A freshly blooming azalea bush
broke his fall, but he bounced off it and crash-landed in the tulips. A string
of curses colored the air.

“Are you all right?” She peered
down at him, trying not to laugh.

“I’m fine.” His voice came out in
that clipped way men have when refusing to admit to any pain less severe than a
compound fracture or a bullet wound. He scrambled up and brushed pink petals,
leaves, and mulch off his formerly immaculate suit.

“Very smooth. A perfect end to a
perfect evening.” Roger chuckled from the sidewalk. “Very cinematic. I think
I’ve seen the Three Stooges do something similar, Max. I loved it.”

“If you try to use that on the
show,” Max said, genially, “I’ll tie you up, weight you down, and throw you in
the river.”

Roger waved in Annabel’s direction.
“Then give me something better.”

“With pleasure...” Max advanced up
the porch steps again.

Annabel held up her hands to ward
him off, but blinked at the heat and determination banked in his eyes. She
braced herself for her third kiss of the night—making it a record number for
the last three years.

Her heart fluttered with pleasure,
then fear. She reacted to the second instead of the first and took charge. She
straight-armed him to a stop. “Hold it, right there.”

His eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“
I’ll
do it.”

He spread his arms wide and awarded
her with a devilishly tempting smile. “Be my guest, babe.”

Gripping his shoulders, Annabel
rose up on tiptoe and brushed her mouth against his. She gave him a reasonable,
respectable, acceptable kiss. Not long, not short, not wet, a little dry
actually, but heck, she barely knew him. And what she did know about him she’d
never liked, except for tonight. And tomorrow, she would blame her brief change
of heart on the champagne, remembering in great detail his many unlikable
qualities.

She ignored the goose bumps his
hands produced as they caressed her sides, the way his lips clung to hers as she
pulled away, and the disappointment that replaced the heat in his eyes.

“Did you get that?” she asked
Roger, unable to tear her gaze away from Max’s.

“Every brief and boring second,” he
grumbled. “Is that really the one you want me to use?”

“Yes, please.” Taking Max’s right
hand in hers, she pumped it with business-like detachment. “You’ve now
fulfilled your commitment to me, Carly, Tess and
Let’s Talk
. Thank you
for a lovely evening.”

He shrugged. “You’ll have a honker
of a headache in the
mornin
’.  Take something
for it before you go to bed. And drink lots of water.”

“I will.” She swallowed back the
comments hovering on her tongue. To say anything more would be pointless. If
she hung on to restraint for a few more seconds, he’d be gone from her life for
good, except as the peripheral irritant he’d always been. “Good night.”

“’Night, Morgan.” His hands slid
into his pockets, his jaw tensed, and yet he stayed.
Waiting for me to go
inside.
Even though he hailed from the South, she hadn’t expected him to
behave like such a Southern gentleman. She opened the door with a cautious
backward glance and stepped into her foyer.

She closed the door firmly against
Max and any crazy desires he’d stirred up inside her. Disappointment settled
around her. “And that’s the end of my one and only date with Mad Max Williams.”

The peculiar echoing silence of an
empty house confirmed Carly’s absence. Annabel made her way from foyer to
kitchen, setting aside her purse, kicking off her shoes, and pulling pins from
her hair. She gave her scalp a vigorous massage while she checked the clock.
Ten till twelve. Carly would be home soon.

Upstairs, Annabel had finished
brushing her teeth when the teenager framed herself in the bathroom door.

With bright and eager eyes, she
probed for details. “How was it? Tell me everything. When did you get home? Did
he come in for coffee? Did he kiss you goodnight?”

“It was fine.
He
was fine.”
Annabel reached into her medicine chest for the bottle of Advil. “I had a nice
time.”

“Oh, no.” Carly groaned. “How bad
was it?”

Annabel washed the capsules down
with water. “It was fine, I told you.”

“Did he laugh too loud? Talk with
his mouth full? Make stupid jokes? Snore during the concert?”

Annabel laughed at the deluge of
questions. Carly often came into her room for date post-mortems, but this time
they’d switched roles. The date under discussion was hers, not her daughter’s.
Weird. “None of the above. Why do you assume the worst?”

“You’re not taking regular aspirin,
you’re taking extra-strength,” Carly pointed out. “He must have done something
horrible to give you a headache.”

“It’s preventive medicine.” Annabel
slipped a comfy flannel robe on over her favorite
Lord of the Rings
nightshirt. “I drank too much champagne.”

“You?” Carly gaped as they moved
into the bedroom. “You always preach moderation. You never even finish a glass
of wine.” The girl plopped herself in the middle of Anna’s bed and crossed her
legs Indian-style. Moving a stack of folded laundry aside that Carly had
brought up earlier, Annabel sat in the overstuffed chair in the corner. “Don’t
tell me he was trying to get you drunk! That’s so juvenile.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Annabel
pulled her feet under her and considered the idea. “He didn’t order the champagne.
The cameraman did. Besides, what would Max’s motive have been? We had a
chaperone, after all.”

“Oh, right, the incredible hulk.”
Carly made a face. “That must have been like when I was in junior high. You’d
take me and Tommy Dent to the movies and sit in the row behind us.”

“Except I didn’t train a camera on
you or tell you how to pose the whole time.”

The corners of Carly’s mouth turned
up in a grin. “How did the luscious Max Williams respond to that? He doesn’t
look like someone who lets people tell him what to do.”

“You forget, he’s used to taking
direction in his job.”

“Only when he wants to, I’ll bet.”

An image of his dark, determined
eyes rebelling against her suggestions the last time they worked together
flashed into mind. “I think you’re right.”

“So, tell me everything,” Carly
demanded again.

“It was better than I expected.”
Well, that wouldn’t have taken much. Now that the date was over, she should
warn Carly about their mutual dislike. “As Tess mentioned, Max and I knew each
other before. Remember when I did some freelance editing for the TV station? We
met then. And later, we hired him to do some voiceover work at Lasting
Productions. He acted like a naughty school boy, then I got all bossy and
uptight about the schedule and the budget and all that.” She bit her lip
remembering some of their more unpleasant exchanges. “You know how I can get.”

Carly nodded with a twinkle in her
eye. “I know you’re serious about your work, Anna, but it’s not polite for me
to point out how OCD you are about every little thing.”

Annabel accepted the comment with a
shrug and a grain of salt. “Too true.”

“But weren’t there
any
sparks? He is a
hottie
.”

She scrunched her nose in distaste.
“Yes, but he has kind of a wild reputation. You know, with women.” She thought
of her friend
DeeDee
and the questionable intern. And
Candy
LaBar
, the stripper. And who knew how many
others? Even rumors about Max and Tess Hartley had made the rounds when they
were both new in town.

“I knew that.” Carly waved the
comment away. “That’s why I picked him. I figured once you went out with a
handful like Max, anyone that came along later would be a piece of cake.”

“Why, you little stinker.”
Sometimes the girl showed more insight than the
Psychic Friends Network
.
“And I was worried you’d be disappointed when you found out your attempt at
matchmaking had missed its mark.”

“Oh, well, I didn’t expect you to
fall madly in love and get married or anything, but going on
Let’s Talk
announced to the single men in Cincinnati that you’re available for a social
life. Since you admitted the other night that you were ready to cut loose a
little, I hoped I got it right, and that Max would be the perfect candidate.
And you have another date coming up. Who knows? You might enjoy it.”

Annabel stood up and began putting
away the folded laundry. A hot mix of dread and excitement washed over her as
she anticipated the possibility of another date with Max, but cold reality
overshadowed both emotions. “Don’t count on it, sweetie. I doubt that he’ll
pick up the second-date option.”

While Max drank his first mug of
coffee and caught up on the overnight news on CNN the next morning, he did his
best to talk himself out of calling Annabel.

Confusing but tantalizing thoughts
about her had kept him awake most of the night. The way the candlelight picked
up about twenty different shades of blonde in her hair. The way her reserve
disappeared with the first glass of champagne. The way her eyes glowed when she
talked about her work. With each passing hour, he became more determined to
peel away every one of her protective layers until he unleashed the passionate
woman he’d glimpsed lurking beneath the touch-me-not exterior.

Bright morning light, however,
revealed some serious drawbacks in the Get-To-Know-Annabel-Better Plan. Their
rocky history, for one. Her snooty attitude, for another. The disdain she felt
for his work, and her automatic assumption that anyone who liked to have a good
time must be morally bankrupt, to name a few more.

To be fair, he remembered the times
he’d goaded her with his worst behavior just to get a reaction from her.

Maybe it was crazy, but now that he
thought about it, he wondered if she did the same thing with him in reverse.

Going back on his word and
springing this bike trip on her as their second date seemed like asking for
trouble. Especially if Mercer tried to make contact with him today as he’d
promised.

But Max figured he’d take that
chance.

The little weasel had failed to
deliver the goods twice already. And the odds were high the informant would
pull another no-show today. Max already had Roger standing-by to video the
transaction if the deal actually went down. Recording the date with Annabel
offered a good excuse for having him on hand.

Ready to make the call, he moved
out onto his balcony’s condo. The stunning view across the river usually helped
clear his thoughts. With a freighter moving by beneath him, he flashed through
the remaining negative arguments on his list.

She’d probably be a pain in the ass
the whole day, and complain about the wind and the noise and the vibration.

Besides, they were in competition
for a major award they both wanted and needed to win. She was bound to have hard
feelings when she lost to him. Why spend more time with her than he had to?

Annabel embodied every attribute he
avoided in a woman. She made him think of home and hearth, needlepoint pillows
and family barbecues on Sunday afternoons. And none of those things had
anything to do with him.