Almost Like Love(7)
“Her name is Anastasia,” Kate muttered.
Ian looked at her for a moment, his expression hard to read. Then he shook his head. “What the hell kind of name is Anastasia?”
She felt an unexpected rush of gratitude. “My thoughts exactly,” she said.
One corner of Ian’s mouth—that sinfully mobile mouth—lifted in a smile.
“I tell you what,” he said. “If I find you a bad boy who’ll go to this wedding with you, will that be enough?”
She looked at him suspiciously. “Enough for what?”
“Enough to . . . satisfy you. Without sex,” he added.
Kate blinked. Ian Hart was going to find her a bad boy? A bad boy who would take her to Jessica’s wedding but wouldn’t have sex with her?
“Is he gay?”
“No.”
“Then why wouldn’t he want to have sex? Are you saying a guy like that wouldn’t be attracted to me? Are you saying I’m so boring I can’t even—”
Ian held up a hand. “Hold it right there. Believe me when I tell you that every straight man in this place is attracted to you, Kate. But this particular man . . .” He hesitated. “Let’s just say he’s got a chivalrous side. He doesn’t sleep with women under the influence. Not on the first date, anyway.”
She frowned. “So he’s a safe bad boy.”
“Well . . . yeah. Kind of.”
If a guy was safe or chivalrous or whatever, could he still qualify as a bad boy?
“Does he have tattoos? I’m not talking temporary.”
“Yeah.”
“Piercings?”
“Not a lot, but yeah.”
What other fantasy elements had she been imagining?
“Does he drive a motorcycle?”
Ian grinned. “Yeah.”
Ian’s grin was rare, and, as always when she saw it, Kate’s stomach did a little flip.
“I think you should take him up on the offer,” Simone said suddenly. “With the proviso that the guy he’s got in mind is sufficiently sexy,” she added. “If not, then the deal’s off.”
“That’s right,” Kate agreed. “He’s got to be smoking.”
Ian grinned again. “I don’t know what would qualify as smoking in your book, so how about this? If the guy doesn’t meet your standards of sexiness, you can go back to your original plan and find one on your own.”
“And you’ll go away and stop bothering me?”
“Cross my heart.”
With an odd feeling that she was stepping off the edge of a cliff, Kate nodded her head. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take a look at him.”
“Great. Wait right here, and he’ll be over in a few minutes.”
Kate and Simone watched him walk away, navigating through the crowd with his easy, loose-limbed stride.
“A safe bad boy,” Kate said musingly. “Who do you think he has in mind? It’s got to be a friend of his, right?”
“Maybe,” Simone said. Her smile, when Kate glanced at her, was more catlike than usual.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
Ian disappeared into the crowd. “What do you think this guy will be like?”
Simone shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said, hopping up on a barstool. “But personally, I can’t wait to find out.”
CHAPTER TWO
He had to be out of his mind.
As Ian headed back to his table, he wondered what the hell he was doing. He couldn’t blame the alcohol; it would take more than a few shots of Wild Turkey to affect his judgment this much.
He decided it was Kate’s fault. She’d disabled half his brain cells with that damn outfit and exploded the rest by announcing her intention to find a bad boy to go home with.
Imagining her with Arthur had been bad enough. But she seemed determined to go looking for trouble tonight, and he knew from experience that if you go looking for trouble you’ll usually find it.
And he couldn’t let anything happen to Kate . . . not after the day she’d had.
Which meant he was stuck. And since the only way he could save her from herself was to produce a bad boy for her, he’d produce one.
Back at his table, he assessed the resources available to him.
Other than him, Gabe was the tallest guy here—and he was wearing a short-sleeved black tee. Perfect.
“I need to borrow your shirt,” he said, pulling off his jacket and slinging it over the back of his chair.
Gabe stared at him. “Huh?”
“Your shirt. I need it. You can wear mine instead,” he added.
Gabe frowned. “I’m wearing short sleeves. You never wear short sleeves.”
“Yeah, I know. Special circumstances.”