“It was necessary. I can’t believe you read novels on your laptop. And by the way, I was hurt you didn’t get me a present,” he pouted like a little boy, resting his hands over his heart. He looked so adorable. I wanted to bite his bottom lip when he stuck it out.

After blinking away the thought, I tried again to steal the bill from him, but to no avail.

“Not here, Becca.” He shook his finger and his head, making a tsk, tsk sound. “You already threw yourself at me in your bedroom. Don’t get kinky with me here. I don’t mind, but I’m sure others will.”

Secretly laughing at his words, I scowled at him. “Fine.”

16

AFTER LUNCH, MATTHEW SHOWED me what he meant by having a great time. We went on a Ferris wheel, a ride that dropped you down twenty floors, bumper cars, and even a dragon swing. We didn’t do much talking, but we sure laughed a lot. Since it wasn’t crowded, we went on each ride several times. We acted like children who couldn’t get enough.

Afterward, he bought a bag of cotton candy. “When I was a kid,” Matthew started to say, taking a handful of it, “I dipped a cotton ball into a bowl of sugar and tried to eat it.”

“You did?” I laughed out loud, taking a bite. That first bite tasted unbelievable; it melted on my tongue, shrinking so fast in my mouth that I wanted another one.

“Of course, it didn’t taste the same,” Matthew chuckled. “Why would you call this cotton candy if it wasn’t made out of cotton, right? Little did I know there was the edible kind of cotton and the NON-edible kind.”

I reached over and took another piece. “Were you a bad boy? I mean, did you do mischievous things?”

“Let’s just say, I was very curious, but Max always covered for me. And I still am,” he smirked and wrinkled his nose.

I scowled at him. “I’m sure you are. That was sweet of Max. I was the same with my sister, only I was the curious one.”

“You don’t say?” Matthew grinned, licking and sucking the sugar off his two fingers from the piece he just finished.

Matthew made eating cotton candy look sexy. Dumbfounded, my gaze remained glued to his lips and I wanted to be one of those fingers.

“Ice cream,” he said, breaking me out of my trance. “What flavor do you like?”

“Any flavor is fine,” I replied. I wasn’t really in the mood for ice cream, but figured what the heck. I didn’t have to finish it. Matthew speedily took off and I waited where he left me.

When Matthew brought back only one, I figured he didn’t want one, but it turned out he wanted to share. Share? We weren’t dating.

“I just want a couple of bites, if you don’t mind. I need to be back before six. I have a dinner engagement.”

“Sure. You take some first,” I offered, as a feeling of disappointment settled through me. Of course, he has plans, and as curious as I was, I was not going to ask. I didn’t want to hear he was taking some girl out to dinner.

Unable to take my eyes off his lips again, I watched him open his mouth and let his tongue indulge one side of the ice cream cone. OMG! Quivering from the way he just licked and slurped, while his drop-dead gorgeous eyes were glued to mine, it felt as though he was licking me instead of the cone.

“Thanks, that was good,” he commented, wiping the remains with the back of his hand.

If this were a date, I would have cleaned his face with my tongue.

“Here, you should take it away from me before I become too selfish and eat the whole thing.”

“Thanks,” I expressed, taking a bit. I just realized I had overlapped the part he bit. In a silly, ‘teenager thinking’ way, I just made out with him and he tasted sweet and yummy.

Instead of heading to the parking lot, Matthew took a detour to the park next to the pier. First thing I noted was an older couple snuggling on the bench. It was the sweetest thing to see. Shortly after, a group of women came jogging past us, checking Matthew out as they went by. I had to raise my brows at him since he knew they were gawking at him. He waved at them, getting giggles and smiles in return. I closed the gap between us when a couple walking their German Shepherd headed our way.

“Not a fan of dogs?” he asked, guiding me behind his back as if to protect me.

“No. I like dogs, just not the big ones. You never know.”

“I understand. I don’t like them either. When I was about eight years old, Max and I were playing catch in the front yard. A homeless German Shepherd came into our yard barking, with its mouth drooling and snarling, it was ready to attack. Max stood in front of me as we slowly backed away toward our front door. We only had a pair of baseball gloves to protect us. I can still remember that day, how scared I was. I was afraid for both of our lives. Luckily, our nanny came out, armed with a bat and a piece of ham that she threw as far as she could. As much as Max and I fought, I knew that day he truly cared about me.”

“Wow. I never had an experience like that. I think I just saw too many incidents on the news regarding dog attacks.”

Matthew started walking backward “Never fear, my Becca. Super Matt is here,” he chuckled, making me laugh, too. “Is your sister older or younger?”

“She’s younger; she’s in her senior year in college. My Dad is an insurance broker and my mom is a teacher.” I said more than I had intended, but it was easy with Matthew. He was a great listener.

“So when do I get to meet your sister? She’s kind of hot; she looks a lot like you, but in a different way.”