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From her eyes to her lips.
From her lips to her breasts.
By the time he’d completed his leisurely visual inventory and brought his gaze back up to meet hers, Annie’s body was tingling as though it had been infused with electrified champagne. Her breathing was swift and shallow.
“If there’s going to be a problem with our practice dates,” Matt drawled, his voice several notes deeper than usual. “It won’t be due to me forgetting you’re female.”
* * *
That was the first of a series of remarks that left Annie increasingly off-balance as the evening unfolded. It wasn’t until they were midway through their main course that she realized exactly what was going on.
Matt was flirting with her!
His approach wasn’t sweep-her-off-her-feet bold. Nor was it seduce-her-down-the-garden-path subtle. It was...well, Annie wasn’t certain how to describe it except to say that it was pretty darned effective!
But it doesn’t mean anything, she reminded herself firmly, reaching for the glass of Chablis she’d ordered to go with her meal. This is practice, not personal. Matt’s acting the way he thinks a single guy is supposed to behave on a first date. And you’re supposed to be critiquing him.
Annie took a sip of her white wine. All right. Fine. She’d do what she was supposed to do.
Critique Number One.
Um...
Er...
She couldn’t. She just couldn’t! Matt was her best buddy. Their relationship was unique. She couldn’t treat him like a...a—
Like a what? she demanded of herself. Like a man? Like an attractive, eligible man who’s invited you out to dinner?
Annie’s earlier admonition came echoing back.
I know it’s difficult for you, Matt, she’d said. But this practice date scheme of yours isn’t going to work unless you can start thinking of me—at least occasionally—as having a gender.
Et tu, Annie, she thought.
The success of this exercise wasn’t solely dependent on Matt’s perception of her. Her perception of him was an integral ingredient, as well. Therefore, it was incumbent upon her to—
Hold on.
Just a few moments ago, when she’d been trying to define what it was that she couldn’t treat Matt like, hadn’t she used the adjective “attractive”?
Why, yes. Yes, she had.
And the use of that word had been unthinking. Automatic. Instinctive. Hadn’t it?
Oh, absolutely.
Well? Didn’t that prove she wasn’t entirely oblivious to Matt’s, uh, gender?
Something deep inside Annie shifted. It was the psychological equivalent of a movement by one of the earth’s tectonic plates. Not enough to trigger a major quake, but sufficient to touch off a palpable emotional tremor.
She set down her wineglass very carefully. Then, with equal deliberation, she began to take stock of the man sitting opposite her.
His hands drew her attention first. Men’s hands often did. Many of her female friends talked about noticing a man’s eyes or butt—depending on the direction of his approach—first. She tended to begin by checking out hands.
Matt’s were well-shaped, with flexible fingers and closely pared nails. There was a feathery dusting of light brown hairs on the backs of them.
They were trustworthy hands. Obviously strong, yet endowed with a disciplined economy of movement that seemed to promise that this strength would never be misused.
What would it be like to be touched by those hands? Annie wondered suddenly. Not in friendship or in fun. That sort of contact held no mystery for her. But touched in the intimately erotic way a man—
She slammed the brakes on this train of thought. Not that she was terribly shocked by the direction it had taken. She was an experienced adult, after all, not an unfledged innocent. Still, there was such a thing as going too far, too fast—especially for someone whose only objective was to help her best buddy get a social life.
Shifting in her seat, Annie transferred her gaze from Matt’s hands to his face.
His mouth.
Quirkily made, yet compellingly male. Bracketed by grooves that were deeper than those found on most thirty-one-year-old males.
His nose.
Ferrule-straight, but just slightly off center. A potent counterbalance to his angular cheekbones and stubborn jaw. While the idiosyncratic combination of features didn’t add up to matinee idol handsomeness, it had an undeniable appeal.
His eyes.
Deep set beneath level brows, with a web of finely etched lines radiating from the outer corners. A changeable blue-gray in color, they exuded integrity and intelligence.
Matthew Douglas Powell wasn’t the best-looking man she’d ever been out with. And yet, the adjective “attractive” very definitely—
“Annie?”
She started so violently she nearly knocked over her wineglass “Y-yes?”
Matt regarded her through slightly narrowed eyes. “Do I have a piece of spinach stuck between my teeth?”
“Spinach?” Annie darted a bewildered glance at his plate. How could there be spinach stuck between his teeth? He’d ordered lamb chops with asparagus!
“You’ve been staring at me.”
“Oh.” She scrambled for a way to explain her behavior. Telling the truth didn’t strike her as a viable option. “I, uh, did...uh, you get your hair cut?”
“I got a trim this afternoon.” Matt frowned. “Why? Is there something wrong with the way it looks?”
“No.” Annie shook her head. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“How would you react if someone asked you if you’d done something to your hair?”
“That’s different.”
Matt lifted his brows. “How?”
“Women are supposed to be paranoid about their hair.”
“But men aren’t?”
Annie hesitated, conscious that this exchange was veering into absurdity. “Uh, no,” she finally said.
“Try telling that to some poor guy who’s afraid he’s going bald.”
“That’s certainly not anything you have to be concerned about,” Annie observed, eyeing Matt’s sandy blond thatch of hair.
“Not yet, anyway.”
The caveat surprised her. “Are you saying you’re worried about losing your hair?”
“Well, it doesn’t prey on my mind twenty-four hours a day,” Matt responded dryly. “But, yeah. I do feel a nasty little twinge on the mornings I notice there seem to be a few extra strands clinging to the bottom of the bathroom sink.”
Annie fiddled with the stem of her wineglass. Strange, she reflected. She’d never imagined that Matt might be insecure about his appearance.
Other men, sure. She’d dated men so anxious about their faces and physiques that they couldn’t pass a polished surface without doing an assessment. But Matt? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him glance in a mirror!
Yes, he’d been self-conscious about his looks during adolescence. Who hadn’t been? Besides, he’d seemed to overcome his geeky self-image after he’d shot up eight inches and fallen in love with Lisa Davis. Annie simply couldn’t picture him brooding over his hairline.
“I don’t suppose harboring deep-seated anxieties about baldness is something a contemporary single guy should admit to on a first date,” Matt commented, clearly fishing for feedback.
“Well, that depends,” Annie replied judiciously. “The nineties-style male is expected to be sensitive enough to share his vulnerabilities.”
“Oh?”
“Of course, if he’s too sensitive—” she flashed an ironic smile “—nineties-style females will think he’s a wimp.”
“Lord.” Matt shook his head and speared a stalk of asparagus with his fork. “Why do you women have to make life so complicated?”
A spark in his blue-gray eyes told Annie she was being baited. She opened her mouth to bite, but was forestalled by a thoroughly unwelcome greeting.
“Why, Annie Martin! Darlin’, I haven’t seen you in ages!”
Annie didn’t have to look to determine the source of this interruption. The Southern-fried, sugar-coated voice could belong to only one person. Her name was Melinda—”Call me Honeychile”—Reeves and she was an ex-beauty queen whose favorite title was “Mrs.” Although Melinda had a comfortable income thanks to multiple monthly alimony checks, she occasionally earned a little extra spending money by modeling. That’s how Annie had met her.
“Hello, Melinda,” she greeted the magnolia-skinned blonde. “You’re looking well.”
“I’m just back from the cutest l’il ole island in the Caribbean.” Melinda patted her platinum-pale tresses. “What about you, sweetie?”
Annie glanced across the table at Matt. While he wasn’t exhibiting the lost-his-brains-and-thinking-with-his-gonads response Melinda evoked from most men, it was clear as crystal that he wasn’t oblivious to the blonde’s physical assets.
“I’m just fine, thank you,” she said, trying not to grind her teeth. “I don’t think you know my, uh, friend, Matt Powell. Matt, this is Melinda Reeves.”
Matt rose to his feet in a seamless movement and extended his right hand. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Reeves.”
“My, my, my,” Melinda responded, accepting the proffered appendage. “I do so admire a man with good manners. Call me Honeychile, Mr. Powell. E’vybody does.”
Annie darted another look at her “date.” While an encounter with someone of Melinda’s ilk probably was necessary for any man seeking to familiarize himself with the singles’ scene, she couldn’t help wishing that this meeting had come later—a lot later—in Matt’s orientation process.
“Call me Matt, ah, Honeychile,” he suggested, reclaiming his hand.
“Why, thank you.” Melinda preened a little. “I most definitely will.” She preened a little more. “Well, I really must be goin’. I’m meetin’ one of my ex’s for dinner. Nice to see you again, Annie. You take care of yourself, you hear?”
Annie made a gesture that was a cross between a bye-bye and a brush-off. The other woman responded with a languid waggle of her long-nailed fingers then sashayed away on four-inch stiletto heels.
“Interesting,” Matt commented, reseating himself.
“Don’t even think about it.” The words were out before Annie had time to consider their implications—much less to prevent herself from uttering them.
“Excuse me?”
Oh, well, Annie thought with a mental grimace. In for a penny, in for a pound. Besides, Matt had asked to be enlightened about the contemporary male-female thing. It wasn’t as though she was butting in with unsolicited advice.
“Melinda ‘Honeychile’ Reeves is the kind of woman who treats men like kites,” she said flatly.
“Kites?”
Annie gestured. “She gives them just enough string to let them think they’re flying free. Then she yanks on the string, hauls them in, and hangs them on a hook someplace until she’s ready to play again.”
Matt rubbed his jaw. “And here I thought she seemed sort of sweet.”
He was teasing her. Annie knew he was teasing her. She also knew she probably deserved it. Even so...
“You have a lot to learn about women, Mr. Powell,” she informed him.
Matt smiled. Slowly. Sexily. From somewhere deep inside Annie came to the realization that he hadn’t so much as bared a bicuspid at the blond and busty Melinda.
“That’s why I’m out with you, Ms. Martin,” he said.
* * *
“A strike?” Annie yelled through cupped hands. “Are you crazy? Get a pair of glasses! That was a ball!”
“Gee, Annie,” Matt said through a bite of hot dog. “Why don’t you tell us how you really feel?”
Annie turned in her seat and nailed him with a disdainful look. “People who didn’t start cheering for the Atlanta Braves until they won the pennant have no right to criticize people who were rooting for them when they were the worst team in the league.”
Matt took a moment to chew and swallow, then another moment to take a gulp of beer. Annie’s passion for the Braves had always amused him. She was so sane and sensible about everything else. Except, perhaps, for the enduring crush she had on Fred Astaire. But that was an interest she confided only to her closest friends. Her devotion to the Braves, she flaunted like a flag.
Going to this game had been Annie’s idea. She’d extended the invitation six nights before, when he’d brought her home from their inaugural practice date. While she hadn’t specifically said the outing should be categorized as their second date, he’d decided to treat it as such.
Within certain limits, of course. Although modern male-female etiquette might dictate otherwise, he had no intention of passing up a chance to twit his best buddy about her unswerving support for her favorite team.
“That pitch was in, Annie,” he said, fighting back a grin.
