“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” she asked.
“Hell. No, it wasn’t. I don’t know what it was supposed to be. I only know that I have no idea how to proceed with this.”
“Why not?” she asked.
He shook his head. He wasn’t supposed to be this attracted to his match. But his blood was pounding in his veins and he had to shift his legs to make room for his growing erection. He wanted her. He wanted her right now. But that wasn’t going to happen tonight. He needed to ensure that this matchmaking thing worked first, and sleeping with her tonight would pretty much send her running for the hills.
Three
Gail didn’t know what had happened, but somehow in the last thirty minutes, Russell Holloway had started to become real to her. He was no longer that bad-boy cad whom she could keep her distance from. Instead she’d kissed him.
Oh, yes, she had. That was the most daring thing she’d done since skinny-dipping in high school. She shook her head; she had become a very staid person. In fact, it had been almost seven months since her last kiss.
Now her lips still tingled from the contact with Russell’s. And she wanted more than just a few kisses. She wanted to feel his strong chest against her breasts and his arms wrapped around her.
She had a feeling that Russell knew how to use his body for maximum effect, and she was definitely ready for more. But that wasn’t smart. She prided herself on making the “right” choices, but now she wanted to just forget that and do what felt right.
So what?
She’d been smart her entire life, and look where it had gotten her. She was alone and doing silly things like signing up for matchmaking services and reality-TV shows. She wanted something—someone—different, and Russell certainly was that.
“You’re staring at me again,” he said with that little half smile of his that she was getting very used to seeing. He used it as a shield to seem open and friendly, but she knew it was a mask.
“That is entirely your fault,” she said. “If you’d just act like I expected you to, then I could walk away and pretend I gave this a chance.”
“Where would you walk to?” he asked. “If you are on this show, I’m guessing you are out of options.”
“Very true,” she said. “I guess I’d go back to my safe little world where everything fits neatly in its place.”
“So I no longer fit in my place?” he asked her.
Frankly, she wasn’t too sure what she’d do with Russell in his place. She wasn’t cut out to date a jet-setting playboy, and no matter what the matchmaker thought, Gail knew he wasn’t right for her.
“No, you don’t,” she said.
“What am I doing wrong?” he asked.
She nibbled on her lower lip and tasted him. “Kissing me.”
“You didn’t like it?” he asked. “I can try to improve my technique.”
“I liked it too much,” she said. “Don’t be offended—”
He leaned down and arched one eyebrow at her in a way that made her feel as though she was amusing him. “Saying that pretty much guarantees I will be.”
She smiled at him. “I guess so, but I expected your kiss to be practiced and kind of mechanical.…”
“Glad to disappoint,” he said.
She wrinkled her nose at him and mock-punched him. “I’m not letting my guard down, no matter how charming you act. I’m not sure about you.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to let your guard down. But there is one thing you should know.”
“And that is …?” she asked.
“I don’t lose,” he said with a full-on, smug grin.
She wasn’t too sure she wanted him to look at this as some kind of competition, and it was telling that he had done so. “I don’t want you to lose. In fact, I want us both to get what we want.”
He leaned back against the seat and crossed his arms over his chest, glancing out the window as the chopper pilot made his way back to the helipad on top of the Big Apple Kiwi. “That came out wrong, didn’t it?”
“Only if you think of me as a prize,” she said. “We’re both feeling our way here. I’m not judging you.”
He shook his head and leveled that steady gray gaze of his on her. “I think you are. You’d have to be. Otherwise, how will you be sure I’m not the player you’ve read about.”
That insight was enough for her to continue to relax her guard. He knew that he wasn’t just starting a new relationship and maneuvering through the normal obstacles that most couples experience. They had the added pressure of his being so unlike her Mr. Right.
She knew that she’d designed her list based on a fictional guy. Her father had divorced her mother when Gail was eight, so she only had vague impressions of him at home. Her mother had dated but never remarried, so Gail was pretty much left with movies and books to form her opinions of what she wanted in a man. Well, that and the men she’d dated, who’d left her wanting more.
“I’m aiming for a win-win here,” she said at last, because, if she was honest, she had no idea what else to say.
“Me too,” he said. “Once we land, do we have to do more camera work?”
“I’m not sure. I think they will tell us when we come down. Why?” she asked.
“If not, will you join me for a nightcap?”
She would have said no just twenty minutes ago, but now she wanted to spend more time with him to talk to him, and get to know his point of view. See how he really viewed the world. His public image was different from this private man, and she was determined to find out how much so.
She took a deep breath. It was easy to say she wanted to change and was willing to put herself out there, but the reality was so different. In her fantasy date, the man was everything that Hollywood and romance novels had groomed her to expect. But Russell was a mixture of those fantasies and reality.
She had to decide if she was ready to step out of those expectations and into Russell’s world. She was. She wouldn’t have signed up with a matchmaker otherwise. “Yes.”
“Good. I knew that this was going to be a good thing,” he said.
“Matchmaking?” she asked. “It’s strange. I’m really not sure if it’s going to work out or not. When I saw the ad for the service, it was New Year’s Eve and I’d had a little too much champagne.”
“And a bad date?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I was all alone and I resolved that I wouldn’t be next New Year’s Eve.”
“Well you’ve gone a good route to find a mate. Matchmaking is an old tradition,” he said.
“Even in Australia?” she asked. She wasn’t that well traveled and didn’t know what the customs were in other countries.
“I’m from New Zealand,” he said. “But, yes, even there. Some of the women in my town were mail-order brides.”
“Did you have any doubts about doing this?” she asked. She had been unsure as soon as she’d signed up. Writing the check had been easy, but as soon as she’d walked out the door of Matchmakers Inc., she’d started to feel so vulnerable and scared. At least the fee had been refunded once she’d been selected for the TV show.
“Lots of them, but