Read Ross 04 Take Me On for Free Online Page B

something like that.”
    “I’ll be going back. I just figured I’d wait out the summer, let a few more scandals erupt, and by the time I head back in the fall, no one will really care about my stupid wedding.” She chuckled without much humor.
    “Non-wedding,” he reminded her.
    This time, her laugh had humor, and he couldn’t help joining in. “I call it The Wedding That Wasn’t.”
    “Fuck weddings. Be anti-wedding.”
    “Oh my God, right? Be damned before I go through that stupid shit again. My other brother and his wife got married on the beach in Hawaii. I could do that. But the whole big-church, hundreds-of-guests, fairy-tale thing…yeah. Fuck that.” She held up her glass, and he clinked his bottle against it.
    “In fact…we’ll go picket against all weddings now,” he said.
    “It just makes me want to go speak out at every one, and not hold my peace.”
    “Right on. They’re all making a terrible mistake anyway.”
    She seemed to consider a moment and finally shrugged. “I don’t know so much about that. I mean, I can look to my own parents—they made it. Both my little brothers seem to be madly in love. I’m surrounded by so much freaking happiness, while being deprived of my own, and it’s sickening.”
    “Hmm.”
    She killed her drink and turned to face him fully. “So how about you? Was I making a play for a taken man or something?”
    A prickle of warning crept up his spine. He drank his beer, not meeting her eyes. Because then he would be doomed. “Making a play, huh?”
    “Wouldn’t be much use in denying it.”
    Yep, just keep staring at the bar. Don’t look at her. Eyes down. “No, not taken. No wife, no girlfriend.”
    She nodded, then pulled her purse around and dug inside for her wallet. He looked at her only when he was certain he wouldn’t meet the magnetic pull of her eyes.
    “Hey, I’ll get your drink. Really, let me. I want to,” he said.
    Ignoring him even when he reached back for his own wallet, she tossed some money on the bar and stood. What the hell had he said?
    “Are you leaving?”
    From his vantage point, he had to look up at her as she spoke. “Well, Ian, it’s pretty obvious to me that you’ve been ready to jump out of your skin ever since I approached you. I began to take it as I was intruding on someone else’s property, something I would never dream of doing. But now you tell me that’s not the case at all, so I can only speculate that you’re that fucking scared of my brother, or you just don’t like me. In either case…I’ll see you at our next appointment.”
    “I’m not scared of your brother,” he said, standing from his stool and towering over her. Her gaze didn’t leave his during his entire ascent.
    “So you don’t like me?”
    “I’m not finished. I’m not scared of your brother, but I respect your brother. And…goddamn, are you always this direct?” How did a woman like this not realize her fiancé wasn’t keen on meeting her at the altar, like, months ahead of time? Seemed she would’ve grilled it out of him.
    “Listen, man, you go through what I’ve been through, you don’t have time for anything less.”
    “Well, then, allow me to reciprocate.” He moved his mouth to her ear and spoke directly into it, allowing his lips to brush against the soft shell. Close enough to smell her hair, close enough to feel its softness against his nose. “I’d love to take you home and fuck you senseless, if that’s what you’re after.”
    A full-body shudder went through her. He stepped back, seeing the desire clearly in her heavy-lidded eyes. She definitely wanted him to. “But I’m not going to,” he finished, watching it crash and burn. “For reasons I’ve already explained. So you can go on telling yourself I don’t like you if you want. Whatever makes you feel better about this.”
    Collecting his beer from the bar, he cast her one last look over his shoulder as he moved off toward the pool tables.
    He’d had the