Read Online Catching Hell: A Hot Contemporary Romance by Mindy Klasky - Free Book Online Page B

room.
    And she pulled up short as she found herself gazing directly into Zach Ormond’s eyes.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked. He wore a tuxedo, with a starched shirt so white she almost blinked. His bow tie was perfectly knotted, and ruby studs glinted on the path to his cummerbund. The light mellowed the grey at his temples, softening his curls into smooth chocolate.
    “Getting ready to ask the most attractive woman in the room if she wants to dance,” he said.  
    Anna suddenly lost all interest in tracking down Gwendolyn Chalmers. “I’d like that,” she said. “Very much.”
    Zach smoothly handed off her glass to one of the attentive waiters, and then he took her hand. She told her suddenly surging heart that it was being ridiculous. Of course he took her hand. He was helping her through the crowd. He was guiding her to the center of the hardwood dance floor.
    Nevertheless, she was absolutely certain she didn’t want to shift her fingers away from his. Not yet. Not when the music was just starting to swell around them in the stirring strains of a Strauss waltz.
    He moved with the grace of an experienced dancer. His right hand curved over her hip and his broad palm splayed across her back. She could just feel his thumb against her spine, caressing her bare flesh above the top of her crimson bodice. The sensation made her catch her breath, a reaction she could not hide as he smiled.
    She let her own lips curve as she settled her left hand on his shoulder. She felt solid muscle beneath her palm, the body of a man who had earned his living on the baseball diamond for years. There was power there. Promise.
    He guided them into the timeless steps of a waltz, gliding across the dance floor the way he moved on the playing field—with absolute confidence and control. His arms tightened around her, and she yielded to the commanding pressure of his hips as he led them through the graceful pattern: One , two, three. One , two, three…
    The last time she’d waltzed, she’d been at a cousin’s wedding. Her date had been her junior-year boyfriend, a gawky chemistry major who had danced as if he were reciting the Periodic Table. She’d been afraid to talk to him, for fear she’d knock him off his count.
    Zach, though, was an entirely different type of partner. With him leading, she felt as if she were floating, as if she did not need to think at all. He pulled her closer and whispered so that only she could hear. “I think I owe a thank you to whoever chose the theme for this year’s gala.”
    “Oh?” She shivered at the suggestiveness of his tone.
    “I’ve always wondered. What is the age of innocence?” The glint in his eyes was wicked, and it melted something deep inside her.  
    At the same time, though, she heard something beyond the simple flirtation of his question. He was reminding her that he was fifteen years older than she was. He was pulling them both back to the way they had met—when she had been indisputably a child, when he had been a man. He was warning her off.  
    “I’m not sure,” she answered seriously. “But I know I’m past it.” And to prove her point, she shifted her hand from his shoulder to the back of his neck. She let the edge of one crimson-painted fingernail trail against his flesh, awakening a slow shudder that she felt through the entire line of the body that pressed against her. Widening her eyes in mock innocence, she asked, “Where did you learn to dance so well?”
    “When you have four younger sisters and the world’s strictest parents, you get dragged out on a lot of dance floors.” He pulled her closer as another couple swirled nearby. “I have to say, though. You surprise me.”
    “That I know how to waltz?”
    “That you don’t try to lead.”
    * * *
    Even as he said the words, he shifted his arms, pulling her closer to his body. He felt her stiffen, knew she was considering resistance. But he’d been careful to time his comment. If she pushed back