Best Of Makeovers Bundle Part 81

Pa.s.sion hit him on a surge of emotion. The powerful need not just to have s.e.x with her, but to mate with her. To make her his. Totally and completely his.

She must have felt a similar calling, because her hands grasped frantically at his chest, shoving his jacket off his shoulders as she arched against him.

Groaning his name, she fingered the b.u.t.tons of his s.h.i.+rt impatiently.

Only then did he realize that she'd never responded to his declaration, but by then he was too far gone. Too drawn in by her pa.s.sion.

Her heated response had to mean she felt the same way.

She hadn't said she loved him, too, only because she felt it didn't need to be said.

Once he made her his, everything else would sort itself out. Everything would be okay.

Everything was not okay. Not by a long shot.

Unfortunately, he didn't realize that until the next morning.

This time, at least, he woke up with her still in his arms. Sleepy and mussed, she looked adorable. And delightfully s.e.xy. And he would have loved to have spent the morning making love to her...if only she'd said she loved him, too.

Or, at the very least, even hinted at some deeper emotion. He knew she felt more than she was letting on. Knew she was hiding her emotions from him-and maybe from herself, as well.

He didn't need a declaration of love from her. Just some hint that she at least acknowledged what was happening between them.

Unfortunately, all he'd gotten from her was s.e.x. Fabulous s.e.x, yes. But only s.e.x.

As he leaned over her in bed and brushed her hair from her eyes, he decided to give her one last chance. "Morning, gorgeous," he murmured. Nuzzling the side of her neck, he added, "Man, I love waking up to you." Then he laughed and nibbled at her ear. "Actually, I just love you."

Jane stilled as his words sank in. The power of his words shoved aside even the delightful sensation of his mouth on her neck and ear.

Something clenched around her heart, making it difficult for her to breathe. She squeezed her eyes closed, bracing herself against his onslaught. She'd managed to keep him at bay all last night, so why was it so much harder this morning? Why did she feel so much more vulnerable to him now?

She prayed he would keep kissing her. Prayed he wouldn't notice the silence gaping between them.

But he did notice, and, when she didn't respond, he pulled back to stare down at her. "You're not going to say anything, are you?"

Frankly, she didn't know what to say. So she bit down on her lip and held her silence.

With a groan of frustration he rolled off her to the edge of the bed and stood. "So that's it, is it? I tell you I love you and you say nothing. Again."

She sat up, clutching the edge of the sheet to her chest. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"How about, 'I love you, too'? That's the standard response. Or even, 'I love waking up with you' would do. Not perfect, but a step in the right direction. h.e.l.l, even, 'Thanks, Reid, that's nice to know' would be better than nothing."

Shaking her head, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and grabbed her robe from the back of the chair. "I'm sorry I can't say any of those things...it's just..."

He rounded the bed and grabbed her forearm, forcing her to look up at him. "Just what?"

Pulling her arm from his grasp, she backed away from him. "Nothing's changed. It's still just s.e.x."

He reached for her, but she stayed firmly just beyond grasp. "This isn't just s.e.x. Not for either of us. I really care about you."

"You don't care about me." Her voice rose sharply as she spoke. "You don't even know me."

He closed the distance between them. "Of course I know you."

She hated the twinge of panic she heard in her voice. She continued to back away. "Oh, you may think you know me, but you don't know the real me."

"I do know you," he said with a fierceness that tore at her. "I don't know everything about you, but no one does at the start of a relations.h.i.+p. And I can't think of anything I want to do more than get to know the rest of you."

Oh, how she wanted to believe that. She wanted it so badly, she almost gave in to him completely. Instead, she struggled to regain control of the conversation. "I can think of several things you've enjoyed more than getting to know me." She slinked over to his side and pressed herself against him. "Most of them we did just last night."

He cupped her bottom through the layers of terry cloth and pulled her against him. Her lips parted, waiting for his kiss.

Even now, her blood throbbed in her veins, silently urging him to kiss her, to toss aside her robe along with this ridiculous conversation that would only cause her more pain.

But before she could seal the deal, he stepped away from her. "It's not going to work this time."

Her eyes fluttered open. "What's not going to work?"

"Distracting me with s.e.x. You do it all the time."

She quickly averted her eyes. "I don't know what you mean." She tilted her head so a curtain of hair s.h.i.+elded her face from him.

"Sure you do." As if unwilling to let her get away with even that, he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "You complain that I don't know the real you, but every time I start to get close to you, you distract me with s.e.x."

"That's not true," she protested.

"Isn't it? What were you doing just now? What about last night on the roof? Or Sat.u.r.day night at my apartment?"

"I-" She wrapped her arms around her chest defensively. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"So you keep saying." He closed the distance between them and tugged at her hands, carefully untying the knot she'd made with her arms. "Why are you so afraid to let me in?"

She resisted him, tensing her arms and keeping her barriers firmly in place. "Why are you so sure you want in?"

"Isn't it obvious? I'm in love with you."

That again. She didn't want to have this conversation, but he just wouldn't let it go. "That's ridiculous."

"Why?"

She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hands back from his. "Because you don't know me. You're attracted to this person you think I am. This person who's s.e.xy and confident. Who can give presentations and write ads for Tres Bien. But that person isn't real. She doesn't exist."

She gestured emphatically as she spoke, her emotions were so close to the surface. Emotions she didn't want him to see.

He tried to pull her into his arms as if to comfort her. "She looks pretty real to me."

But she didn't let him touch her. "This relations.h.i.+p is an illusion. There's nothing to it but s.e.x." She slowed her speech, enunciating each word as if she were talking to a child. "The woman you think you're falling in love with isn't real."

He studied her for a long moment, and she was sure he'd see what she meant. Wrapped in her armor-like robe, with her hair disheveled and her complexion mottled by her heightened emotions, she was a far cry from the s.e.xy, sophisticated woman he'd "met" that first night on the Prescott's roof. She looked neither glamorous nor refined.

She waited for him to see her as she really was, but he just continued gazing at her with love in his eyes.

Which only drove home that she'd let this go on far too long. "I'm not Sasha. There's nothing of her in me. Nothing. Sasha is beautiful and confident and s.e.xy. And I'm none of those things."

"But you are," he insisted.

"No, Reid. You want to believe I am. You've totally bought into this fantasy you have of me as the perfect woman for you." She started pacing nervously. "I'm supposed to be not just beautiful and s.e.xy, but I'm supposed to be clever, too. I'm supposed to be the one who comes up with the great idea that's going to save the company, but I gotta tell you...so far that's not happened. I've been working my b.u.t.t off here and I have no new clever, s.e.xy ideas for the pitch."

It took him a moment to catch up with her train of thought. "Is that what's bothering you? You're afraid you won't come up with an idea for the ad campaign?"

"Among a great deal of other things, yes."

"What are you saying, Jane? That you can't be my girlfriend and do the ad campaign?"

"Yes. No...I don't know, maybe."

"You want me to choose between you and the company?" he asked incredulously. "Because I-"

"No!" Her voice rang with shock, but then she sighed. "I don't want you to choose. This is your father's company. You love it. You said over and over again that it's the most important thing in your life. I'd never make you choose. And I'd never do that to the company." Her shoulders stiffened as indignation set in. "I care about Forester+Blake, too. I care about the people who work here. Just how selfish do you think I am?" But then she shook her head. "Don't answer that. It's irrelevant, since you don't know who I really am, anyway."

He grabbed her by the shoulders and gently shook her. "Stop saying that. I know you, Jane." She opened her mouth to protest, but this time he didn't let her finish. "I don't care what you look like; that's not the point. I know who you are inside. That's the woman I'm falling in love with. The woman who's smart and funny, even though she's shy. The woman with the wicked imagination and quick sense of humor. I don't care what you're wearing or how you do your hair. It's you I want."

As he spoke, her eyes searched his face, slowly widening as his words sank in.

"You've spent your whole life slipping under people's radar, Jane Demeo, and you almost slipped under mine, but you didn't. And I'm not going to let you go."

Shaking her head, she whispered, "I'm sorry, Reid. I don't see how I can ever live up to this fantasy you have of me."

"I'm not in love with the fantasy. I'm in love with you." But she didn't respond. So he stepped back and folded his arms across his chest. "Are you even going to try to make this work?"

"I'm sorry. But I know, sooner or later, you'll realize what I mean. Eventually, I'll disappoint you."

"You won't," he insisted. But then he rocked back on his heels, understanding slowly dawning in his eyes. "But that's not what you're really worried about, is it? You're not just worried about disappointing me sooner or later. You're worried I'll disappoint you."

"No." But her protests sounded weak.

She propped her hips against the edge of the sink, as if the fight had taken everything out of her and she no longer had the energy to stand. "We had a few really great weeks. Shouldn't that be enough?"

"I want more." He crouched before her, grasping her shoulders, and forcing her to look him in the eye. "You think this is easy for me? I've been pus.h.i.+ng people away my whole life, too. It just seemed easier that way. But now I want more. I can't promise I'll never disappoint you, but I can promise that I'm not going to desert you."

"That's not-"

But he didn't bother fighting with her over it and instead plowed ahead with his argument. "Yes, these past few weeks have been great. Yes, the fantasy has been nice. But now I want the real thing. I want a real relations.h.i.+p. I don't care if it's not perfect. I'd rather have reality than fantasy. I think it's worth the risk. Do you?"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

WEEK from h.e.l.l didn't even begin to describe it. Between working frantically on new ideas for the Tres Bien campaign-all of which sucked-and trying desperately to avoid Reid and convince him she needed time, by the time Thursday rolled around, Jane was physically and emotionally exhausted.

And she still had no answers for Reid.

She wanted to believe him. She wanted to take the risk, but part of her knew he didn't really see her as she was. He only saw what he wanted to see.

And despite his rea.s.surances that she was enough just as she was, she couldn't shake the fear that one day soon he'd realize what a fraud she was. She was already way too emotionally involved with him. Did she dare get in even deeper, knowing it could lead to heartache as she'd never known? Did she dare be that brave?

For the first time in the five years she'd been volunteering at the animal shelter, she actually considered calling Dorothea to cancel.

In the end, she'd made it down to the animal shelter only because it was a surefire way to avoid Reid. Besides, staying at home to stare at a blank notepad wasn't helping much.

She walked into the cathouse to find Dorothea trying to "sell" Sasha to a single mom and her teenage boys.

"We were really hoping for a long-haired kitten," Jane heard the mother say.

Ten minutes later, when they left empty-handed, Jane asked, "So what's the deal? I thought Sasha had a waiting list. Shouldn't she be gone by now?"

Dorothea sighed, running her perfectly sculpted nails across the fringe of her bangs. "The first two families on the waiting list brought her back within twenty-four hours. They claimed she was unfriendly."

Jane had to bite back a laugh. "Well, we could have told them that." Then she glanced at Sasha's cage and felt suddenly a little sad for the cat. She stuck her fingers through the bars of the cage and Sasha b.u.mped her forehead against them. "Tough break, old girl." Sasha purred, turning her head so Jane could scratch her ear. To Dorothea, Jane said, "She can be rather sweet, you know. She just likes to dole out her affection on her own terms."

"Hmm." Dorothea seemed to be studying the cat. "I'm not sure I blame her. Because she's pretty, she gets more attention than the other cats. But that means more strangers petting her and touching her. More little kids poking their fingers into her cage. It must be hard always being the center of attention."

"Tell me about it," Jane said under her breath.

But not softly enough, because Dorothea turned her inquisitive gaze on Jane. "I've been wondering how your little project has been coming along."

"Just great." Jane pulled her fingers from Sasha's cage and began unloading her backpack.

Hand sanitizer, cat toys, and CDs all made it to their respective spots, but when she slammed the CD player down a little harder than she meant to she forced herself to take a deep breath and try to calm down.

"You want to tell me what's bothering you?" Dorothea asked in that calming maternal voice of hers.

"I-" Jane popped open her folding chair and sank into it. "I don't know wh-what's bothering me."

But that wasn't really true. She knew exactly what was bothering her.

All of her life, she'd wanted to be someone like Sasha. Someone cool and collected. Someone s.e.xy and in control. Someone who could just open her mouth and words would come pouring out. All the right words, with just the right tone and inflection. With no awkward, embarra.s.sing stutter.

She'd dreamed of it all her life, and now, finally, when her dream came true, it wasn't anything like she'd thought it would be.

"I guess I just...Being Sasha wasn't like wh-what I thought it would be."

"Hmm," Dorothea murmured. "Being someone else never is."