Almost Like Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

the two of them without looking like she was at a seventh-grade formal? She didn’t want to risk another chest bump.
    But the answers to those questions weren’t left up to her.
    Ian took her hands and lifted them to his shoulders. The action brought her flush against him, and a thousand tiny pinpricks shivered her skin.
    When he put his hands back on her body, they went a little lower—to her hips instead of her waist.
    Then he started to move.
    Until that moment, she wouldn’t have said there was anything particularly sexy about the music playing in the club, which was fast with a techno beat. But Ian picked up on the bass line underneath, and he translated that slower, sexier rhythm into the sway of their bodies.
    In her high heels she was only an inch or so shorter than he was. They fit together with unexpected perfection, his rock-hard contours eliciting a subtle pliancy in her body.
    There was an unfamiliar ache in her breasts. They felt heavy and soft and voluptuous, but at the same time her nipples hardened into tight little buds.
    Could he feel that?
    If she met his eyes, she might find out. She might see a satisfied smirk or a knowing grin.
    So she didn’t look at him. Instead, she closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder.
    Mmmmmmm.
    He smelled like clean male skin with a faint undernote of musk. She’d sat next to him at a meeting once and gotten a whiff of expensive cologne, but he wasn’t wearing that tonight.
    His shoulder was so broad and strong. She was a tall woman, but next to Ian she felt fragile and feminine—another unfamiliar sensation.
    “Mmmmmmm.”
    Ian’s hands tightened on her hips, and she realized she’d voiced her pleasure out loud this time.
    Damn.
    She held her breath and was relieved when he didn’t say anything. But those big hands pulled her even closer, fitting her more securely against his body.
    Her belly seemed to hollow out as honeyed warmth spread through her.
    What was happening to her? Sure, she’d talked a good game about looking for a guy tonight . . . but she hadn’t really expected to feel attracted to someone so soon after her fiancé dumped her.
    And this was more than attraction. She was so turned on her hair might be standing on end.
    Another thought clamored for attention in her pleasure-fogged brain. But how was she supposed to think straight when Ian had found that place on her waist again and was stroking it softly, his thumbs making lazy sweeps against her bare skin?
    When rationality finally broke through, she had to force herself to lift her head from his shoulder.
    “You cancelled my show,” she blurted, hanging onto that fact as if it were a port in a storm.
    His hands stilled, but he didn’t let her go.
    “I know,” he said, the low timbre of his voice sending new darts of sensation through her.
    “I don’t like you.”
    “I know that, too.”
    “If I seem to be enjoying myself that’s only because I’m drunk and . . . and . . .”
    “Vulnerable,” he suggested.
    “Yes, vulnerable. Because you cancelled my show,” she said again.
    “Right. So that means I owe you.”
    He bent his head towards her as he spoke, and his jaw brushed against her cheek. She felt the scrape of rough stubble across her flushed skin.
    She took a deep breath. “Absolutely. You owe me big.”
    The song ended. In the quiet before the next one began, Ian stepped back to look at her, putting a little space between them.
    Kate had never been so relieved and so disappointed at the same time.
    Those hazel eyes looked into hers. “So let me be your date to the wedding. I’ll make your ex eat his heart out, and I’ll make every other woman there wish she was you.”
    The wedding. She’d almost forgotten about it again.
    For the first time, she imagined showing up at the Ritz-Carlton reception with Ian Hart on her arm. Whether he came as Corporate Guy or Tattooed Bad Boy, there was no question he’d be the smoking-hot date of her dreams.
    Which was