Read Ross 04 Take Me On for Free Online Page A

her drink, focusing on the “pleasure”… Oh goddamn, he wanted to mix it. He wanted to mix it hard. “It’s not…a hard-and-fast rule or anything.”
    “Not hard and fast?”
    Shit. He felt like a fucking mouse being batted back and forth between the paws of a very svelte, very cunning feline, and given that he’d spent all damn day thinking about her, he wasn’t sure he liked it. There was a certain perverse curiosity in wondering when she was going to stick her claws in, though, and maybe it was best to hurry her plan along. Whatever it was.
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    That got her attention, and her musical laughter surfaced again. “I’m not doing anything, Ian. Hey, look, I appreciate what you did for me today. Stepping up the way you did, and then calming me down when…things got weird. Seriously. Thank you. I should buy you a drink.”
    “Nah…I’m good,” he muttered, still off balance from the delicate floral notes of her perfume and her sheer allure. “It’s my job. Nothing more.”
    “Oh?”
    “Well…” It had been more than that. He was a damn liar if he said otherwise. But he didn’t want her to know that. He needed to stay clear of this one. At all costs.
    But this was a woman who knew her own power. She knew it so well that she could call bullshit on any pitiful excuse he tried to make up as to why he didn’t want her. Every man in this building wanted her, and she wore that knowledge. It shrouded her as surely as her dark curtain of lustrous hair. Whatever humiliation had befallen her a few months ago damn sure hadn’t affected her self-esteem.
    “Yeah, it’s my job,” he finished lamely.
    “You’re very good at your job, then. I see why Brian has such faith in you.”
    “I appreciate that.”
    Onscreen, Beltre took that moment to slam one out of the park, giving the Rangers the edge over the Blue Jays, and the room erupted in boisterous approval. Gabriella even joined in. “So you like baseball?” Ian asked once the shouts died down.
    “I love it. Me and Mar—um, yeah, I used to go to Rangers games whenever I had a chance. Not often, but I loved it.”
    “Me too. Kinda wish I were there right now.”
    “Right? So if you wish you were there, why are you here?”
    “Needed a fresh start. I knew Brian from some mutual friends we have in Dallas. Kara and Marco?”
    “Sorry, I don’t know anything about many of Brian’s friends.”
    “Oh. Well, they taught him—and me—everything we know. I worked in their studio, but they were saying he needed help here, so I came.”
    “Just like that?”
    “Like I said, I needed a new start.”
    “Why?”
    He sucked a breath in through his teeth. “I have my reasons.”
    “Ooh, mystery.” She gave him a nudge with her elbow. “I like a mystery.”
    She wouldn’t like this one. He damn sure didn’t. “What about you?” he asked. “You’re here, wishing you were there too.”
    Gabriella sighed, twirling her glass on the polished bar. “Don’t be too sure about that. At the ballgame, sure. Otherwise…not so much.”
    He began to relax a bit, though it occurred to him that maybe it was a huge mistake to go off his guard around her. She was far more disarming like this. “I’ll be honest,” he said. “I knew a little about what happened to you before you came in. Brian didn’t tell me much, so don’t get mad at him. But I started working for him around the time it all went down, so yeah. He was so pissed about it.”
    “It’s okay. The entire town and all of the Dallas medical community know, so why should you have been any different?”
    What the hell did he say to that? How did someone go through something like that and come out on the other side as this fierce creature? He could see now, though, beneath the veneer of the seductress who had slithered up to him tonight, real pain. The same pain he’d glimpsed earlier today. “I can see how it would be hard to go back home and face everyone after