Owning Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 3)

I caught Carla looking at me out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t look happy. I knew her pain.

“Carla usually takes care of that for me,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck in the hope of making my anger dissipate. “That was a nice thought, though, Jane. I just wish you’d told me you were coming over. This is… a surprise.”

Jane smiled sweetly. “That’s the point, silly.” Then she left the stove—and any pretense of learning to cook—and crossed the room to me, sliding her hands up my shirt.

“When you didn’t come back to the office, I thought something might be wrong. I tried texting you, but you didn’t respond. Didn’t you get my pictures?” She looked up at me. “Was something wrong?”

There was a hint of an accusation in her voice. Jane wasn’t good at hiding her emotions. I looked at her, gently taking her wrists in my hands to move her away from my body.

It didn’t work. She only entwined her fingers with mine, swinging her arms gently as I sighed.

“Yes, actually. It’s my sister. She got fired from her job, and she needed someone to talk to and drive her home.”

Jane arched one of her perfectly-coiffed brows. “Sister? You never told me anything about a sister…”

“That’s because she isn’t my sister yet. Her mother is marrying my father. We’ll be stepsiblings in just a few months, though I think it’s fair to start using the title now.”

Jane didn’t look convinced. I could feel her hands growing cold in mine. “So… you’re not siblings yet. Then she’s just a woman you drove back to her apartment instead of coming back to the office to fuck me?”

I looked over at Carla. If she’d heard what Jane had said, she didn’t show it, and for that I was thankful.

I took Jane by the arm as gently as I could and pulled her out of the kitchen and into the hallway.

“You’re being ridiculous,” I told her, keeping my voice low. “First, you already know that we’re not fucking again. Second, Madison is practically family. And unlike me, she doesn’t come from money, so losing her job is a pretty big deal.”

“Doesn’t she have any friends?” Jane asked, wrenching out of my grasp. “Someone else she could call on instead of her ‘big brother?’?” The way she put the words in air quotes made me want to break her fingers.

“No. She has no one. Her mother is… well, her mother is the kind of person who wouldn’t give a burning man a glass of water. In fact, she’d probably use him to light her cigarette and complain about the smell.”

I smiled to myself. It was no wonder my father liked her. Those two had so much in common.

“The point is that I was the only one she could turn to. Besides, we ran into each other by accident. I had no idea I was going to see her today.”

“Uh huh,” Jane said, folding her arms across her chest. The kimono-style top she was wearing left very little to the imagination, and the pushup bra she had on underneath it ensured that her cleavage was practically touching her chin. I remembered the first time I’d gotten a glimpse of those beautiful breasts. It was funny how I couldn’t give two shits about them now. “You could have told me, you know.”

“Jane,” I said as calmly as I could, “I know you have expectations of what this… thing we had going on between us was. But you aren’t my girlfriend. We ended this. I don’t owe you anything.”

“See,” she said, taking a step toward me, “that’s where you’re wrong…”

I stepped back into the wall as Jane approached, sliding her body up against mine like a cat in heat. I could feel her taut stomach stretching over my abs as she purred, one hand sliding up over my shoulder as the other delved down between my legs.

“Jane,” I started, but she cut me off.

“Shh. Easy there, big guy. You’ve had a rough day. Family drama. I get it.” She rubbed me through my slacks, and for a moment, a ripple of pleasure pulsed through me. “You’ve had all kinds of unexpected things happen to you today. How about we make this one a good one?”

She began working my belt, trying to slip the tongue through the buckle. Despite my own desires—or lack thereof—I could feel myself hardening at her touch. Jane could feel it, too. She had that look in her eye, that smugness that always came over her face when she knew she had won.

Except she hadn’t won. Not this time. And as she tried to tug my pants down past my waist, I grabbed her arms again and gently pushed her away. “Stop. Christ, what were you going to do, blow me right here in the hallway?”

Jane licked her lips and grinned. “If that’s what you want…”

“It’s not,” I said. “This isn’t something you can fix by putting my cock in your mouth…” I let her go and set about fixing my zipper. “We’re not doing this anymore.”

She stared. “What does that mean?”

“It means that you showed up in my house uninvited, harassed my housekeeper, and then interrogated me about what I was doing with my sister. You’re not my girlfriend, Jane. You’re not even my fuck buddy. You’re my personal assistant. This is wildly inappropriate, and I think you should leave.”

Jane looked at me for a long time, a longer amount of time than I was comfortable with. Every second that ticked by, the air in the hall seemed to become thicker, colder, like the intensity of her glare was sapping the life right out of me. I was sure I’d find the house plants wilting later when I walked into the living room.

But I held her gaze. Maddy was right. Jane had crossed a line—again—and things weren’t going to get any better until I stood my ground.

“Fine,” she said. I hated that word, especially coming from her mouth. “I’m not your girlfriend. Whatever. I’m just the girl you fuck at your desk when you’re having a bad day, I guess.”

“You drugged my coffee and handcuffed me to the chair!” I shouted indignantly. Sure, I’d hired her because I wanted to get into her skirt, but the way it happened wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

“I didn’t hear you complaining,” she replied, the anger evident as she turned away.

She was right, I hadn’t complained at the time. Hell, I’d liked it. Jane was nuts, but she breathed a little excitement into my life. Trouble is, she didn’t understand boundaries and her ever-escalating sexual escapades had started to become even more dangerous. Sooner or later, our little office romance was going to bite me in the ass. I was trying to put an end to it for good reasons.

She walked back into the kitchen, grabbed her purse off the back of one of the kitchen island chairs, and came storming back down the hall toward me. The sounds her heels made on the tiled floor were like bones snapping. They gave me the shivers.

She swept past me and toward the foyer, but not before calling over her shoulder, “I guess you’re only worried about being inappropriate when there’s other people around, because when we’re alone, stuffing your dick in my mouth is totally fine!”

“Not when I catch you hiding under my desk right before a regional board meeting!”

“You could have stopped me,” Jane said.

“I am stopping you Jane, we’re not doing this again. This is over. This has been over for weeks and the sooner you get that through your head, the better. I don’t want you in my house, I don’t want you in my bed, and I don’t want you in my fucking office. We’re done Jane. Don’t bother coming to work tomorrow, I’ll mail you a severance package.”

Maddy’s words were echoing in my head as I put the nail in this relationship. She was right, if I was going to end this I couldn’t leave a shred of hope… even if it hurt.

“You’re not going to fuck me, and now you’re firing me? We’ll see about that,” Jane said coldly, slamming the door behind her and ending any chance at getting the last word on the matter. The sonic boom she left behind mingled with her words as they echoed through my house.

I sighed, rubbing my face with my hands. “She’s insane,” I mumbled, trying to make my dick forget about the warmth of her hands, the gentle press of her che

st against mine. “She’s utterly fucking insane.”