Best Of Makeovers Bundle Part 77

She struggled to hang on, clinging to the last shreds of her control. But his touch was relentless. Every stroke brought her closer to the edge. She squeezed her eyes closed, only to be flooded with images from every fantasy she'd ever had of him. Her control slipped away and her o.r.g.a.s.m rocketed through her.

Then he was thrusting up into her, anchoring his hands on her waist. She rocked her hips forward, increasing the pressure that built within her. Hands braced on his shoulders, back arched, and eyes closed, she rode him to the crest of her pa.s.sion.

He thrust up into her one last time, his hands convulsing on her hips, his eyes squeezed closed, his expression taut with ecstasy as he groaned her name. As she felt the last surge of his pa.s.sion she ground herself down onto him, clenching around him, her eyes drifting closed, his name a percussive force in her mind that never quite made it to her lips.

As the last waves of her o.r.g.a.s.m washed over her body, she allowed herself to relax against his chest. In that instant, she felt as if she really were Sasha.

Then, slowly, her satisfaction gave way to a burgeoning sense of dread. She'd completely lost control, which Sasha never would have done.

Worse still, if Sasha always controlled her relations.h.i.+ps, it meant she would have to be the one to end her relations.h.i.+p with Reid.

She felt a p.r.i.c.kling of moisture at her eyelids that she refused to acknowledge as tears.

If she was going to end it with Reid, she'd have to do it soon. While she still had the strength to.

For the second morning in a row, Reid woke up alone. This time, at least, he'd been prepared for it.

Last night, Jane had made no bones about not intending to stay. She had-in fact-waited all of three minutes before climbing off his lap and dressing. She'd given him a final kiss before leaving, but she'd given no signs of even being tempted to stay. Not even by the chocolate-mousse cake. Not even a little.

Which, frankly, annoyed him. Not only was she able to resist him, she'd resisted the whole package-the wine, the fire, the chocolate. Women were supposed to live for all that.

Not that the s.e.x itself wasn't great, because it was. Mind-blowingly great. And not just on his end, either. He'd felt her climax hard on the heels of his own. He'd felt her s.h.i.+vering in his arms, her muscles weakened by the force of her response. And seconds later she'd up and walked away.

What had gone wrong?

And why was it that the more time he spent with her, the more off balance he felt? And what had happened to all his careful resolve to maintain his distance? After all, she was still an employee. So why wasn't he treating her like one?

Women were supposed to get less mysterious, not more mysterious. He could only conclude that Jane was unlike any woman he'd ever known. More dangerous and more intriguing.

So Sunday morning, determined to kick this thing once and for all, he stopped by Whole Foods for fresh flowers and pastries, then drove down to the south side of town to her little bungalow. He pulled to a stop a few doors down, but didn't get out of the car.

Maybe he should just let it go. So she wanted their relations.h.i.+p to stay purely s.e.xual. So what? That was what they had first agreed on and most men would be satisfied with that.

And he might be, too, if he didn't know her better. If he didn't sense that s.e.xual aggression hid some deeper emotion she kept carefully buried.

He'd almost talked himself into going up and ringing her doorbell when her door opened and she came out.

He watched from a few doors down as she juggled her bags while struggling to lock her door behind her. She was dressed simply, in jeans and a T-s.h.i.+rt. Her honey-blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail and covered by a ball cap, except for a few strands that had slipped free around her face. The difference in her appearance intrigued him. She looked so much more natural, so much more comfortable than she did when she was dressed up for work. Yes, at work, she looked s.e.xy as h.e.l.l, but here she looked relaxed. He'd never seen this side of her before, and somehow it was even more appealing.

He was so entranced by her, it took him a minute to notice what she was carrying out to her car. She had a cooler in one hand, a backpack slung over one shoulder, and two long skinny bags over the other shoulder. The kind of bags designed to hold folding camp chairs.

What was she doing? Going on a picnic?

He did another mental catalogue of her bags.

She was going on a picnic.

With someone else.

Two chairs meant two people. And she sure as h.e.l.l hadn't invited him on a picnic.

Reid's hands clenched around the steering wheel as emotion flooded him. Equal parts indignation and jealousy swept through him as he watched Jane load her bags into the trunk of her car. Before he knew what he was doing, he was following her as she headed west on Barton Springs Road.

Looked as if she was going to Zilker Park-maybe even the Botanical Gardens-right down by the river.

His indignation kicked up a notch. With him, she wouldn't even drink a single gla.s.s of wine. Wouldn't eat a bite of chocolate cake. But with some other guy, she'd go on a romantic picnic at the Botanical Gardens?

But before he could get himself too worked up, a couple of blocks before the gardens, she turned north.

He let his foot ease off the accelerator. Okay. Not the gardens.

His mind scrambled to come up with a romantic picnic site just north of the river, but hadn't come up with any by the time she turned again, this time onto a smaller side road that curved along beside soccer fields and a series of low gray buildings.

Was she going to watch some other guy play soccer?

That seemed odd. Especially since the only people out on the soccer field were kids. His confusion only grew when she pulled into a parking s.p.a.ce in front of one of the buildings.

Reid pulled into a s.p.a.ce by the soccer field and watched as Jane took all of her bags from the car and headed into the building.

This was getting weirder and weirder.

No one went on a romantic picnic at the Austin Animal Shelter.

He sat in his car for a few minutes, trying to make sense of what he'd seen. What was Jane doing?

For that matter, what was he doing?

He'd never before given much thought to what his girlfriends did when they weren't with him and he sure as h.e.l.l had never followed one to find out.

He'd never cared enough.

So why Jane?

What was it about her that made him so crazy?

And what was she doing at the animal shelter?

He had absolutely no answers to the first two questions, and the only answers to the third lay through the doors of the animal shelter.

So he followed Jane.

Through the doors of the building, he found a row of desks on his right and another door straight ahead through which Jane had presumably disappeared. He headed for the door, but was stopped by a woman seated at one of the desks.

"Can I help you?"

Focused on finding Jane, he didn't even glance at the woman. "No, thanks."

Before he made it to the door, the woman practically leapt over her desk to throw her girth between him and the door. "How can I help you?"

The woman stood before him, arms crossed over her ma.s.sive chest, peering at him from over the rims of her rhinestone, cat's-eye gla.s.ses.

"A woman came through here a few minutes ago. I'm just trying to catch up with her."

The woman's eyes narrowed, her expression suspicious. "Jane?"

Hoping to ease her suspicions, he smiled rea.s.suringly. "Yes, my girlfriend, Jane."

She eyed him up and down, then snorted in apparent disbelief. "Your girlfriend?"

Trying to tamp down his growing annoyance, he asked, "Who are you, exactly?"

Her broad shoulders straightened, her chin b.u.mped up. With obvious pride and self-importance, she said, "I approve applications."

"Applications?"

"If you want to adopt a pet, you have to fill out an application first. If I approve your application, then you can visit the animals. Through this door."

"But I don't want to adopt an animal. I just want to see Jane."

"Jane works in the adoption center. If you want to see Jane, you'll have to fill out an application and have it approved."

The words, "You got to be kidding," were on the tip of his tongue, but he bit them back. This woman reminded him so much of the mindless, form-driven bureaucrats who ran the foster-care system. The same ones who'd shuffled him from home to home.

Every rebellious instinct he had roared at him. But he wasn't the alienated kid he'd once been. He'd learned how to work the system and he knew exactly how to get what he wanted from this kind of woman.

He smiled broadly. "So, if I fill out an application, and you approve it, then I can walk through those doors to the adoption room where Jane works."

"Exactly."

"Then can you get me an application?"

"Applications are by the door."

He grabbed an application, then lowered himself to the chair across from the bureaucrat and began to fill in the requisite information. Name, address, occupation. Still, since he was stuck here, he might be able to get some information from her.

"So, tell me-" he looked for and found the woman's nameplate on her desk "-Glenda, how long have you worked with Jane?"

"I don't work with Jane." Her nose rose a fraction as if she smelled something distasteful. "I'm a full-time employee. Jane is just a volunteer."

"Oh, of course," he said hastily. "I was just wondering if you knew how long she'd worked, I mean, volunteered here."

"Too long." She sniffed to show her lack of interest.

He changed tactics. "I bet you know the ins and outs of this place better than anyone."

Her posture straightened with obvious pride. "As a matter of fact, I do."

He laughed in fake agreement. "I bet you could do any job in this place. If you wanted to."

She nodded, the lines of her face softening to his flattery. "I've often thought that same thing myself. Why, the director of the facility is a total idiot."

He finished one form and started on the next, asking, as subtly as he could, "And the volunteers? How are they?"

"Mostly they just get in the way. Asking questions, taking up my time. Your friend Jane is the worst."

His pen stilled, then he forced himself to keep writing so she wouldn't know she'd piqued his curiosity. "Why is that?"

"You know how pushy she is."

Pushy? Jane?

Well, he supposed she could be pushy-such as last night, when she'd pushed all of his b.u.t.tons and driven him to make love to her right there on the sofa. Somehow he didn't think that was the kind of pushy Glenda here had been referring to.

"Hmm," he murmured noncommittally.

"Always coming up with some harebrained idea to get more people to adopt pets. She's always wanting the shelter to build playrooms so people can 'bond' with the animals." Her voice dripped with disdain. "Or pipe in music that will make people want to stay longer, like they do at the grocery store. And when the director won't approve it, she and that friend of hers always take it to the city council. You know what Jane's like."

Except he was beginning to think he didn't know what Jane was like at all.

"'Course," the woman rambled on, unprompted, "if they don't approve her proposals, she just does it anyway. Brings her own chairs and music. When it's hot, she even brings drinks to hand to patrons."

Suddenly, the cooler, the chairs, and the backpack made sense.

"She's like a pit bull, that one. Once she's got an idea, she never lets it go." She must have sensed his growing annoyance, because she hastily added, "Not that it's a bad thing, her wanting to find homes for all those animals. But, geez, she's a little too enthusiastic, if you know what I mean."

In other words, Jane made the paid employees look bad.

He handed over the application without comment, but forced a smile.

Glenda read over the forms, muttering parts aloud to herself. "Reid Forester...own condo...President CEO Forester+Blake ad agency." Her eyes darted to his, clearly impressed. Then her brow wrinkled. "Hey, isn't that where Jane works?"

"Actually, yes."

Glenda laughed as if she'd just gotten the punchline to a joke. "You're her boss, not her boyfriend. I knew it."

"No, actually-Knew what?"

Glenda waved her hand dismissively. "Knew a mousy thing like Jane couldn't attract a man like you."

He kept his opinions firmly to himself while he waited for her to type his information in the computer and stamp "Approved" across his two applications.

But as he finally made it through the two doors that would take him to Jane, he thought about the way the woman had described Jane. Pushy Jane. Mousy Jane. Neither of which bore too much resemblance to the s.e.xy Jane he'd spent the past two nights with.

He couldn't help wondering which Jane he'd find when he walked through those doors.

She didn't see him at first. She stood at the end of a long row of cages, smiling broadly as she talked to a couple. In her arms she cradled a scruffy long-haired white cat. He watched her in absolute fascination. She seemed totally relaxed. Completely at ease.

After a minute she handed the cat over to the couple, scratching the cat under the chin to ease the transition. Then she gestured the couple into the two folding chairs set up along the wall, before pulling a cat brush from her backpack and handing it over, as well.