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“Oh, quit trying to be so damn intimidating. It doesn’t work on me when I’m sober. Isnot going to work now.”
He grunted, then bit into a chip, and his posture relaxed. As he chewed, his gaze didn’t leave her face. The southern rock she’d had playing earlier had long ago faded into one of the Neville Brothers’ sultry ballads. The intensity of his eyes sent an alarm off somewhere in her. Before she could get to the bottom of it and avoid the inquisition, he continued.
“I don’t understand you.”
He sounded delightfully disgruntled. They’d spent more than a few nights hanging out together, but they’d never been completely wasted. Okay, she had, but Max hadn’t. Max didn’t lose control.
“Why do you want to understand me?” Anna shrugged. “There are times I don’t understand myself.”
He cocked his head to one side and waited a few seconds to answer as his gaze moved over her. The silence between them stretched, becoming even more evident when Aaron belted out the last few notes of the song. Anna hated it when Max did that. Just stared at her as if he were trying to figure her out. He did it all the time and hadn’t succeeded in his quest. Restlessness gripped her, but she resisted the urge to fidget. She didn’t want him to think he’d made her uncomfortable.
“I think youdoknow what you’re about.”
His authoritative tone worried her. Max tended to fix things—including people.Especiallypeople. That’s what she thought his engagement was about from the first announcement. Cynthia was a piece of work and needed all the help she could get. Max probably saw it and thought he needed to fix her. Anna didn’t need to be helped. She was perfectly happy the way she was.
Most of the time.
Anna decided to change tactics. “This conversation isn’t making any sense.”
He shot her one of his lopsided smiles that made her entire soul hum, then picked up his margarita and took a drink. His tongue moved over his lips, licking the last red drops from his mouth. All the while, she tried to remember she wasn’t supposed to yearn to follow his tongue with hers and then attack his mouth. She could just imagine the way he tasted. Sweet, with a hint of dark desire that called to her. Once the idea formed, it was hard to push it aside, especially considering her alcohol consumption. But she was saved from embarrassment when Max’s voice interrupted her.
“You think I don’t know why you date these younger men?”
Anna didn’t like the tenor of his voice—or the fact that he’d interrupted her musings—so her voice was a bit sharper when she said, “Because they take instruction so well in the bedroom?”
He set his margarita glass down with a click, and his eyes narrowed. “You know you always do that.”
“Have sex with young men—as you call them?”
He shook his head. “No. You always try and change the subject when I try and dig.”
Maybe it was the multiple margaritas, but she was confused. The course he was taking made no sense to her. Which was odd because most of the time, she could follow his thoughts easily.
“Max, honey, you need to take a break from the margaritas.”
Leaning back in his chair, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh, no, you don’t. Don’t try to make this about my drinking tonight.” She opened her mouth to ask him what he was talking about, but he forestalled her by saying, “You always change the subject when I get serious. There has to be a reason you have these shallow relationships.”
She frowned. “Why would you assume they’re shallow?”
“Are you going to tell me you have deep, meaningful relationships with men you keep around for less than a month?”
“Have you been watching Dr. Phil again?” She shook her head in exaggerated pity and tsked. “I told you not to watch that show.”
He ignored her sarcasm—and the fact that Dr. Phil was no longer on TV—and plowed on. “I know you better than your own parents, I bet. There’s a reason you don’t get too serious.”
Because she didn’t like the direction of this conversation, she decided to offer it another path to go down. “Really? Apparently, you have the same problem.”
That brought him up short. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I happen to be engaged.”
She held up her finger to wave it back and forth. “Na ah ah. Youwereengaged. As informerlyengaged. As in singleanddateless.”
“Well, Iwasengaged. And I didn’t call it off. She did.”
She snorted. “So, Cynthia finally found one nerve in her body and started thinking for herself.” She took another sip, watching him over the rim again. “You’re not much better than I am, Max. Admit it, you didn’t want to get married.”
“I did. I wouldn’t have proposed to Cynthia if I hadn’t wanted to.”
A sharp jab of pain punched her right in the gut. “Really. Then why aren’t you depressed?”
