Two days ago she would have given anything to hear those words. Now they left her cold.
She wasn’t sure exactly what had changed in the last forty-eight hours, but she knew that the relationship Chris was describing—the relationship he was willing to settle for—wasn’t what she wanted anymore.
And she wasn’t convinced it was what Chris wanted, either. What would happen if he met another woman like Anastasia—a woman who made him feel things Kate didn’t?
“Let me be sure I have this straight,” she said after a moment. “You fell for Anastasia because she was wild and adventurous—”
“Exactly. And the sex was like that, too.”
Her hands clenched into fists. “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten that point. But now you’ve decided the fact that I’m safe and predictable is actually a good thing, and you want us to get back together. Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“And it won’t be a problem that you don’t enjoy sex with me as much as you enjoyed sex with her?”
He hesitated, as though recognizing that he was heading towards a quagmire with this one.
“I don’t . . . That is . . . it’s not that I don’t enjoy sex with you, Kate. Of course I do. But it might not hurt to try some new things once in a while. You can be a little inhibited.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe you could write down all the things Anastasia does that I don’t do. Then you could do a point-by-point analysis.”
Not even Chris could miss the bitterness in her voice that time.
He winced. “Okay, I get it. I should have been more diplomatic. But I think we need to be completely honest with each other if we’re going to make things work between us.”
The sound of her cell phone ringing stopped her from saying a few completely honest things right then and there.
“Excuse me a minute,” she said to Chris, grabbing the phone from the coffee table and heading for the kitchen.
She didn’t recognize the number on the screen, but she was so glad for the chance to cool down that she didn’t care who was calling. Even a wrong number would be welcome.
“This is Kate Meredith.”
“Hi, Kate. It’s Ian.”
Of course it was.
She slumped back against the refrigerator. “Why are you calling me, Hart? I don’t have the time to deal with you right now. Believe it or not, you’re currently the least of my worries.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked sharply. “You sound . . . Are you okay?”
She opened her mouth to deliver a stinging reply. Instead she heard herself say, “Chris is here.”
“Chris? Who’s that?”
“My fiancé. Sorry—ex-fiancé.”
“Son of a bitch.” A short silence. “What does he want?”
She should just hang up on him. It was a toss-up between Ian and Chris as to whom she hated more right now, and she had no reason in the world to continue this conversation.
But for some unaccountable reason, she did. “He wants us to get back together.”
Another silence. “Is that what you want?”
“God, no.” She took a deep breath. “He told me I’d make a better life partner than Anastasia, because I’m safe and predictable. Although he does think I should step up my game sexually. Try some new things once in a while.” Her hand tightened on the phone. “Now that he has some basis for comparison.”
As she heard herself say the words, she felt a rush of helpless anger. Maybe she and Chris hadn’t set the sheets on fire, but he’d never told her he thought something was missing.
Instead of talking to her about it, he’d decided to sleep with another woman. And now that Anastasia was gone, he figured he might as well go back to Kate—especially if she could be more like Anastasia in bed.
“Son of a bitch,” Ian said again. “He’s still there?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want him there?”
“No.”
“Got it.”
He disconnected the call, and Kate stared at the phone.
Well, that was weird. But when you balanced it against the weirdness sitting in her living room right now, it was hardly a drop in the bucket.
She wasn’t ready to face Chris again just yet. She sat down at the kitchen table and put her head in her hands.
She didn’t think it had been his intention, but Chris had triggered one of her deepest insecurities about herself.
He wasn’t the first man who’d left her for someone more exciting. Adventurous. Whatever.
It wasn’t an accident that she wrote about heroes and heroines who were brave, daring, confident, fearless—everything she wasn’t. Even as a kid she’d been better at observing life than participating in it, and she’d always lived vicariously through the characters in stories—other people’s at first, and then her own.
Her fictional heroines were larger than life. But she herself was small: timid, conventional, tame.
Boring.
A loud knock at the front door interrupted her pity party. She took a deep breath, ran her hands through her hair, and went back into the living room.
“Someone’s at the door,” Chris said helpfully.
Kate crossed the room, looked through the peephole, and froze.
It was Ian.
Not in his secret identity as Corporate Guy, but in his superhero identity as Tattooed Bad Boy.
He wasn’t wearing any earrings this time, but he didn’t need them. In his white tee shirt and jeans, with his stubbled jaw, tousled hair, and all that ink on full display, he looked as sexy and dangerous as any man she’d ever seen.
How had he gotten here so fast?
Maybe he really was a superhero. Tattooed Bad Boy, Defender of Jilted Women Everywhere.
She opened the door. “What are you—”
He stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. “Who the hell is this?” he asked, jerking his head towards Chris.
Chris got to his feet, looking bewildered, affronted, and a little alarmed. “I’m Kate’s fiancé,” he said stiffly. “Who the hell are you?”
Ian looked at her. “I think that’s a question for Kate to answer,” he said, his eyes making it clear that the ball was in her court. “Why don’t you tell him who I am?”
She hesitated only a second. Then she lifted her chin and turned to face Chris.
“This is . . .” She groped for a bad-boy name. “Spike,” she finished with satisfaction. “I met him at a club on Friday, and we hooked up.”
Chris’s jaw sagged open.
“You . . . he . . . what?”
She was starting to enjoy herself. “Yep, that’s what happened. I guess I was feeling a little . . . spontaneous. You know how that is.”
When she glanced at Ian, she saw his lips twitch.
He laid an arm over her shoulders. “I wanted to hook up with her last night, too, but I acted like an asshole and she walked out on me. I’m here to beg for forgiveness . . . and, God willing, to get laid.”
She pretended to think about it. “Well . . .”
“I don’t believe it,” Chris said, his voice trembling. He took a few steps towards them. “You’d never hook up with a stranger—especially one like him. Tell me this is some kind of joke.”
“He doesn’t believe us,” Ian murmured. When she looked up at him, she caught a wicked gleam in his eyes. “What can we do to prove it to him?”
She could think of no way to answer that question. “Um . . .”
He took her by the shoulders and pushed her back against the wall. Her eyes widened and her lips parted, but she didn’t make a sound.
He leaned in close, his hands still gripping her upper arms. “What if I take you right here? Do you think that would convince him?”
His voice was low and raspy
and intimate, and she could feel heat coming off his body.
Her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry. Ian’s eyes, only inches away, glinted with amusement and something more.
Desire.
“Kate! We haven’t finished our conversation. Tell this man to leave your apartment.”
She was vaguely aware that Chris was speaking, but she couldn’t have repeated his actual words to save her life. She was conscious only of Ian—his scent, his big body crowding hers, his hands on her shoulders, and the heat of his gaze.
She couldn’t look away from him. Warmth flooded her face, and she could feel her cheeks turning red. Ian Hart was watching her blush like a teenager.
When she licked her dry lips, he followed the movement of her tongue with his eyes.
A wave of lust made her shiver. His hands tightened on her, and all she could think about was what they would feel like on the rest of her body.
“Kate. Kate!”
She turned her head and saw Chris standing a few feet from them. He looked furious.
She couldn’t seem to form words. She looked back at Ian instead.
“Listen, buddy,” he said. He was talking to Chris, but his eyes never left hers. “You can stay and watch if that’s your thing, but if it’s not, I suggest you get the hell out right now.”
Chris stiffened. “Is that what you want, Kate? Do you want me to leave?”
Kate struggled back to rationality with an effort. “I think—” Her voice sort of croaked, and she cleared her throat. “I think that would be best.”
One corner of Ian’s mouth lifted. He lifted his hands from her shoulders to slide them into her hair, and her scalp prickled with delicious sensation.
“Fine,” Chris said coldly. “But once you come to your senses, we have a lot to talk about.”
“Mm-hmm,” she murmured, barely paying attention. The door slammed shut behind him.
He was gone. Chris was gone.
Which meant that Ian had no reason to brush his thumbs over her cheekbones like that, and she had no reason to let her eyes drift closed.
He leaned even closer. “Kate,” he whispered, his mouth so close that she shivered again.
She had to put a stop to this.
“Ian,” she said, intending to speak firmly and decisively, using her voice to cut through this crazy sexual tension.
But his name came out in a breathy whisper.
When Ian had woken up that morning, he’d felt like crap. It hadn’t taken long to figure out why.
He owed Kate an apology, and he wouldn’t feel right until he gave it to her.
It didn’t help that Jacob raved about her all through breakfast, talking more than he had in months. A little while later Maggie, a neighbor’s daughter who watched Jacob on Sundays while Ian went to the gym, knocked on the door.
This was his chance. Telling Jacob he’d be back in a couple of hours, he headed for Kate’s.
The doorman recognized him and let him into the building. He thought about going straight up to her apartment but hesitated in the lobby.
Maybe she’d tell him to go to hell, but he should still call first. She wouldn’t appreciate his showing up at her door unannounced.
When she answered the phone her voice was tense and unhappy, and at first he thought he might be the cause. Then he found out the real reason.
Hearing that her asshole ex-fiancé was up there made him see red.
On his way up to her apartment, he pulled off his sweatshirt and messed up his hair a little. The fact that he hadn’t shaved this morning would help with his bad-boy persona.
He wasn’t sure if Kate needed a bad boy—or if she needed his help at all. But if she did, he’d be there.
He left it up to her. When she took the ball he tossed her and ran with it, he felt a rush of satisfaction. The loser who could dump Kate Meredith for another woman didn’t deserve a single second of her time, and the sooner he got out of her apartment—and her life—the better. It was a pleasure to help out by playing the part of Spike, the rebound fling who’d showed Kate a very good time on Friday night.
Then he got a little carried away.
How the hell could he not? Kate looked so beautiful and vulnerable as she faced down her ex. She made him wish he had a white horse, so he could pull her up behind him and gallop off into the sunset.
Then the asshole was gone, and the time for playacting was over. He still had an apology to make to this woman, and he had no business crowding her against the wall, wishing she was wearing a skirt.
Although it was probably a good thing she wasn’t. Because then he’d have to rely on his willpower to keep from unzipping his jeans, shoving her panties aside, and driving himself into her right here. And his willpower was starting to feel like a weak reed.
When she whispered his name, he shuddered.
He didn’t have a chance. She was so close, so sexy, so responsive. A meteor hurtling towards Earth couldn’t have stopped him from tilting her face up to his.
When their mouths met, a bolt of lightning went from his lips to his groin. She was so soft, so sweet . . . When her body arched in surrender, his own body felt hot and hard and arrogantly male.
Her lips parted and his tongue slid inside, thrusting against hers in a deliberately carnal rhythm. His hands moved down her body, brushing against the sides of her breasts before settling on her hips. Through a haze of lust he realized he was grinding into her, his erection rubbing against her belly in slow, explicit circles.
Then he realized that Kate’s hands were on his shoulders—not to pull him closer but in an effort to push him away.
Damn.
He took a step back and turned his head away for a moment, giving them both a chance to recover.
When he heard Kate clear her throat, he risked looking back at her. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips were swollen.
“I just realized that Chris is gone,” she said shakily. “So . . . you know . . . mission accomplished. No need to keep on . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she cleared her throat again. “In short, well done. You did a good job there. Thank you.”
It was hard to sound calm and collected with an iron-hard erection straining against his jeans, but he did the best he could.
“No problem. Glad to help. That guy’s a dick, by the way. You deserve a lot better.”
“Thank you.” She paused. “But speaking of dickish behavior . . .”
“Right.” It was his turn to clear his throat. “I came here to apologize, as a matter of fact. But before I get to that, would you mind if I use your bathroom?”
“Of course. I mean, of course not. It’s down the hall on the right.”
He made his way there as casually as he could, even though it felt like his crotch was outlined in neon.
Once inside the bathroom with the door closed, he leaned over the sink and took a deep breath. Then he turned on the cold water and splashed his face.
Okay, that was better. The bulge in his jeans had subsided a little, and he no longer felt like a savage.
As he glanced around for a hand towel, he noticed that Kate had a nice bathroom. The walls were sage green, the crown molding and other trim done in a darker green. The rug on the floor was the color of sea foam. There were framed pictures on the wall, black-and-white drawings that looked vaguely familiar.
They were Edward Gorey’s, he realized after a moment. Charming and whimsical.
The room smelled nice, too. As he finished drying his hands and face and hung the towel back on its hook, he noticed a basket of potpourri and caught the scent of cinnamon and roses.
He left the bathroom and headed back into the living room. He’d barely noticed his surroundings before, but now he took the time to look around at Kate’s apartment.
It was a riot of color, but there was nothing di
scordant or strident. The walls were filled with paintings and photographs and prints, including one of a sword-wielding heroine captioned with the name Red Sonja. Not far from that bright splash of comic-book art, a beautiful quilt in shades of blue and lavender hung above the mantelpiece.
None of the furniture matched, but somehow it all went together. There was a lot of wood in different tones—cherry, mahogany, ebony—and the seating ranged from leather armchairs to antique rockers to an overstuffed sofa upholstered in pale peach fabric, with throw pillows in every shade of orange—pumpkin, apricot, tangerine.
It smelled good in here, too. Fresh and sweet. He didn’t notice any potpourri, but there were terra cotta pots filled with lush greenery and vases of flowers—roses, tulips, daffodils.
The hardwood floors glowed with the honeyed patina given by decades of care. There were books and bookcases everywhere, antique leather bindings side by side with comic books and thrillers. The lamps were as eclectic as everything else—ceramic, wood, and metal bases paired with every kind of shade, including Tiffany-style stained glass. There were wooden blinds on the windows instead of curtains, and the shafts of sunlight filtering through the slats made geometric patterns on the walls and floors.
All in all, it was one of the most appealing and inviting interior spaces he’d ever been in. He started to say so, but then he remembered her comment the night before about his “soulless palace of luxury” and a flicker of annoyance made him hold back the compliment.
Instead, he nodded towards the window seat, where a black-and-white feline was curled up, asleep. “Is that the cat you told Jacob about?”
Kate looked like she’d taken advantage of his short absence to compose herself. She’d redone her ponytail and straightened her clothing—black yoga pants and a gray thermal top—and her face, though still glowing, was no longer flushed.
She nodded. “Yes, that’s him.”
“What’s his name again?”
“Gallifrey.”
“Right. From Doctor Who.” Wanting to show that he wasn’t ignorant about shows on other networks, he went on. “I’ve been impressed by the way the BBC has driven its popularity in the US. Social media, home DVD sales, product tie-ins . . .”
Almost Like Love Page 7
