Free Almost Like Love by Abigail Strom Page B

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,