Passionate Persuasion (Entangled Indulgence) Read Online Free PDF Page B

hours together, it had sometimes been like her virginity was contagious, and he was all thumbs, and that wasn’t good for anyone.
    And sometimes it had been better than good. He’d dated Kiara for months without ever sealing the deal, which was a first for him. But holding off on sex made the rest—the stuff that, to his shame, college-Alex tended to rush through on his way to the end goal—more… Well, just more everything .
    Greg stood up abruptly, and Alex crashed back down to the present. “I’m outta here,” he said. “Whatever you were thinking about just now? Made it way awkward in this office.” He jerked the poster down from the bulletin board and dropped it onto Alex’s desk. “Ask her out. There’s nothing more distracting than the one that got away.”
    Alex frowned. “Do you think that’s all that this is? The one that got away?”
    “I don’t know, dude. I’m not in your head.” He went to the door. “Thank God.”
    He grabbed the knob and turned it just as someone knocked. It was only quick reflexes that kept Greg from getting knuckles to his head.
    Kiara’s knuckles to his head.
    She stood there like Alex’s thoughts had conjured her. Well, not exactly, because she stood, frozen, with one fist raised and her eyes wide with surprise. But otherwise, he could have conjured her from his wildest dreams. She wore jeans and a loose sweater and her hair was in a ponytail and for a second he thought he’d gone back in time.
    “Hi,” she said, not to him, but to the guy she’d almost punched in the eye.
    “Hi,” Greg repeated, with a shit-eating grin. “We were just talking about you.”
    Kiara shot Alex an accusing look, and Alex shot his best friend an I’m going to kick your ass look, and Greg shot past her and out the door. “You look good, Iowa,” he said, with a broadly exaggerated nod. “Welcome back to PC.”
    Then he was gone. Alex was stuck halfway out of his seat, because he’d started to stand then realized his wildest dreams were going to make that…awkward.
    So he sat back down and tried to ignore the way the neck of Kiara’s sweater fell off her shoulder to reveal the ridiculously tiny strap of some distracting lace thing.
    “Come in,” he said, not quite wincing at his businesslike tone. It was that or jump across the desk and grab her like a Neanderthal .
    She stepped into the office, and he noticed she had a manila envelope in her hands. “I want you to know, this was not my idea.”
    That pretty much exploded any notion that she was there because of her wildest dreams. “What’s up?” he said, finally standing so he could roll Greg’s chair to the front of his own desk and offer it to Kiara. “You want a” —He checked the clock— “coffee? Soda?”
    “No,” she said, and they seemed to have gone both forward and backward as far as their—her—comfort level. On one hand, she didn’t look as if punching him was on her agenda. He knew she was capable of it. Three big brothers, she’d once mentioned, made sure of that. On the other, the way she sidled around him and perched on the edge of the chair, was a far cry from the way she’d looked when he’d used all his willpower to step away from her last night.
    “No, thank you,” she amended primly, and crossed her legs at the ankles.
    So they were back to the ice maiden and the Neanderthal? That was only fun in his fantasies.
    “What can I do for you?” he asked, sitting on the edge of his desk and lacing his fingers to rest on his thigh, like he was taking a freaking business meeting.
    She took a deep breath. “This is not part of my job description. I want you to know that I think it’s really tacky of Lydia Benwick to send me here.”
    Okay, now this was getting interesting.
    “I’m listening.”
    “You remember I said I was playing at a big Arts Council spring fundraiser thing coming up?”
    He did. He’d been wondering if that was going to be the next chance he had to “accidentally”