* * *
“Call me old-fashioned,” Matt declared, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel of his car. “But I’m never going to get used to women doing stuff like that.”
“Like what?” Annie asked, undoing her seat belt. She and Matt had just parked in front of her condo after an evening of Cajun food and dancing. “Patting you on the rear end?”
He stiffened visibly. “The place was crowded. It could have been an accident.”
“Mmm.” Annie considered telling him that this seemed highly unlikely to her. Whether Matt knew it or not, his tush was extremely...er, pattable. Especially when it was encased in tight, wash-faded jeans the way it was this evening. Although she’d never goosed a guy herself, she could understand why another woman might succumb to the temptation Matt’s backside presented.
Of course, understanding didn’t mean she had to like it....
Matt unhooked his own seat belt and turned to face her. “Tell me the truth, Annie. Have you ever waited for another woman to go to the ladies’ room so you could hit on the man she was with?”
Annie shook her head. “That’s not my style. But you’d better get used to being vamped. The brunette who slipped you her phone number tonight was just the beginning. You’re a very desirable commodity.”
“Oh, come on.”
“You’re straight. You’re single. You’re attractive.” She ticked the qualities off on her fingers. “You’re also the co-owner of a successful business.”
Matt remained silent for several moments, then asked, “A ‘desirable commodity,’ you said?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I guess I can adjust to the ‘desirable’ part.” His mouth twisted. “Where was all this female attention when I was suffering through puberty?”
“You wouldn’t have known what to do with it.”
“True.” Chuckling wryly, Matt swung open the driver’s side door. “I’m not sure I know what to do with it now, either.”
Annie waited patiently while he walked around and opened the door on her side of the car. “Thank you,” she said as he handed her out.
“You’re welcome,” he responded, shutting the door. “I was meaning to ask if it was okay for me to do this.”
“To do what?”
Matt gestured. “The door thing.”
“The...door...thing?”
“Yeah. Am I—or am I not—supposed to open them for the women I take out? I refuse to light cigarettes because I don’t want to encourage anyone to smoke. But what about opening doors? Is there a rule? Or is this another one of those damned-if-a-guy-does, damned-if-a-guy-doesn’t situations like that sensitive-but-not-too-sensitive routine you tried to explain to me during our first date?”
Annie had to tilt her chin to meet his gaze. Matt—with whom she’d once stood eye-to-eye—was now six feet tall to her five-foot-five.
“I don’t think the ‘door thing’ is significant anymore,” she said. “I’m not sure it ever really was, to tell the truth. I, personally, put it in the same category as the great shaving debate.”
“The what?”
A warm spring breeze sent a lock of hair fluttering across Annie’s face. Before she had a chance to brush it away, Matt reached forward and casually smoothed it back into place. As light as the contact was, it sent a quiver of response arrowing through her.
“The, uh, great shaving debate,” she repeated after several tremulous seconds. “It revolves around the question of whether women who shave their legs and underarms are victims of the oppressive standards of beauty imposed by a male chauvinist society.”
“I take it you don’t spend much time anguishing over the matter.”
“Let’s just say I think women have a lot more important things to be concerned about than the socio-political implications of using depilatories—or of having doors opened for them.”
“Yeah.” Matt nodded his agreement, shoving his hands into the pockets of the lightweight leather jacket he’d worn with his jeans. “Me, too.”
The walk from his car to her condominium was made in silence. Once they arrived at their destination, they turned to face each other. The light that hung next to her front door cast a pale spill of illumination over both of them.
The silence stretched on.
“Well,” Matt finally said, taking his hands out of his pockets, “I guess it’s time for me to make my big move.”
Annie’s heart performed a sudden hop-skip-jump. “Your big move?”
“This is our third date.”
“So?” Her voice was only marginally steadier than her pulse.
“So, I skimmed through a couple of paperback romances during the last few weeks and I noticed that the hero tends to make his big move on the heroine at the end of their third date. Unless, of course, he was overwhelmed by passion and pounced on her the first time they met.”
“You’ve been reading romance novels?”
Matt shrugged nonchalantly, apparently undisturbed by the tone of her question. “I remembered how Lisa used to talk about them and I figured I might pick up a few pointers. I mean, romances are basically written by women, for women, right? They offer a guy insights into the feminine psyche he’d probably have trouble getting otherwise.”
“I...see.” His explanation actually made a great deal of sense.
“Have you ever read any?”
“Romance novels?”
“Yeah.”
“A, uh, few.”
“And?”
“Some of the language is a little flowery for my taste. But I enjoy the relationships. And the happy endings.”
He grinned. “No less than I’d expect from a woman who has a nine-year-old wedding bouquet bagged up in plastic.”
Annie sighed. “You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”
“Nope.” Matt paused, cocking his head. “What do you think about that famous cover model? You know—the big blond guy with the incredible hairless chest who can’t seem to keep his shirt on?”
“Oh, puh-leeze.”
“Not your type?”
“Hardly.”
“I’ll bet your heart still belongs to Fred.”
“Fred? As in...Astaire?”
“Who else? Unless you’ve developed a thing for Fred as in Flintstone.”
“I wouldn’t call my, uh, admiration for Fred Astaire a thing,” Annie quibbled. The image of a tuxedo-clad man and an elegantly gowned woman glided through her mind. She wasn’t certain about the genesis of her fascination with this sort of male-female partnership. She only knew that her Fred-and-Ginger fantasy was an enduring one.
“Hey, do you remember the ballroom dancing lessons you conned me into taking back in sixth grade?” Matt asked suddenly. “The ones in the basement of our church?”
“Conned you?” Annie echoed, stiffening with indignation. “You made me shell out ten dollars of my hard-earned baby-sitting money before