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She almost laughed. Joe was one of the most decent guys she’d ever met. That, she realized, was probably Mrs. Mahoney’s point. “Maybe you’re right.”
“You should have seduced him slowly, not jumped on him like a needy virgin.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell the nosy old lady she wasn’t a virgin. Not wanting such a juicy bit of news floating over the phone lines to her mother, however, she swallowed the comment. Mrs. Mahoney looked disappointed because her fishing lure had gone unnibbled.
“So,” the woman said. “Do you know about seduction?”
“Seduction?”
The woman stepped into the hall, leaving her door open. “Look at you. You’ve got a beautiful shape under all that wool. Loosen up your hair.” Mrs. Mahoney pulled her own blue robe tightly around her ample waist. “Wear some tighter clothes, and lower necklines.” She tugged the edges of the robe apart until Meg could see a large expanse of flowered nightdress beneath. “Get a little more alluring and he won’t be able to resist you.”
Alluring? Like the Meg she’d seen on the screen at The Red Doors? “That doesn’t come naturally to me.”
“Honey, men don’t make moves on women who look like their maiden aunt Bertha. Believe me, I know something about sex. Haven’t I buried three husbands?”
Wondering if the old woman was saying she had boinked them to death, Meg again didn’t take the bait..
“I really need to go to bed now,” she said softly.
“All right,” the woman replied. “And, don’t worry, I won’t pass this on to your mother. If she thinks you can’t even get the sex part right, she’ll convince herself you’ll never catch a man. I don’t want to be responsible for her heart palpitations.”
Mrs. Mahoney looked like she expected some gratitude for not being a gossip. And Meg had to use all her self-control to not slam the door.
***
Joe sat in his truck for a few minutes after leaving Meg’s place. He watched her window, waiting for her light to flip on inside. When it finally did, he leaned forward in his seat, resting his crossed arms on the padded steering wheel. Then he saw her silhouette in front of the window, and sucked in a breath.
As the curtains separated, her face appeared. She spotted him instantly. Her eyes widened and her lips parted as they stared at each other.
He remained in the truck through sheer force of will.
After she mouthed, “Good night,” and dropped the curtains, he started the ignition and slowly drove out of the parking lot.
Walking away from her, leaving her standing in the doorway after that kiss, had been one of the toughest things he’d ever done. It had been a pure case of mind over body, intellect over instinct. He’d been dying to stay, but he knew he had to leave.
Joe had only been partially honest with her. No, he truly couldn’t take advantage of a woman he’d just met, who’d had such a bad day. There was more to it, though.
First, Meg was nothing like the more experienced women he usually dated. She wasn’t an easygoing, free-spirited, single twenty-something who liked to play around as much as any guy. As a matter of fact, she was an awful lot like the kind of woman his mother had been trying to foist on him for the past year or two. A warmhearted, natural, delightful female. A woman with a genuine smile, a ready laugh, an open, honest personality.
Hell, that realization should have sent him running in the opposite direction.
It hadn’t, of course. Because he’d been half gone on Meg O’Rourke before he’d ever met her, when she was an image on a computer screen. Now he knew she was so much more. As hokey as it seemed, he had a feeling she might be “the one.”
Joe had never been a believer in love at first sight, nor did he fool himself into thinking that was what had happened here. Sure, he’d fallen madly in lust with her on Christmas Eve. Today, though, during the hours they’d spent together, the lust had smoothly transformed into desire, by way of genuine liking.
The minute she’d raised her head and walked through The Red Doors on his arm, he’d started to fall. He’d slid farther down the slippery slope of emotion with every shared laugh, every flash of her dimple or glimpse of her temper.
It was for that reason he couldn’t allow himself any more than one heated kiss in her doorway. He still hadn’t figured out a way to admit he’d been one of the lousy creeps ogling her on-screen for weeks. If he got sexually involved with her, and then she somehow found out, she’d never forgive him. He’d lose his shot at anything more permanent.
Yeah, he wanted to go to bed with her...now. But he had the strangest feeling he was going to want to wake up with her...forever.
“You’re losing it,” he told himself in the dark confines of the truck as he drove home.
Actually, he thought, he might already have lost it—his head, and a little chunk of his heart. How crazy was that?
Maybe crazy, but true. So, he had to come clean before things went much further. Judging by how quickly things were progressing between them, it would have to be soon.
She’ll slam the door in your face.
