NFH 02 Perfection (13 page)

Of course he'd been caught ogling a
woman like Zoe by an incredibly hot woman, he thought dryly. No
doubt the woman thought he was a desperate asshole.

"Can I help you find something?" she
asked again, running the tip of her tongue over her pale pink lip
as she ran her eyes over him. She was incredibly beautiful, tall
with just the right amount of curves and the perfect amount of
makeup applied to her face making it look natural, but highlighting
her best features.

She was absolutely stunning and he
should be working on getting her number,
however...........

Her nose wasn't cute enough. It was
nice, but he would have liked it more if it was smaller, almost
button-like. She had pretty blue eyes, but a little too pale. Until
that moment he hadn't realized he actually preferred a vibrant blue
over a pale blue.

Her chin had a little tiny cleft that
was barely noticeable, but he noticed it. Her eyebrows were a
little too thin, her hair a little too light, and hell, he might as
well admit that she was just a little too thin for what he was
looking for. Not that he usually had a problem with too thin, but
he had been wondering lately what it would be like to run his hands
over a woman and not feel her hip bones or be able to count her
ribs by touch or how a fuller woman would cradle his
body.

His eyes as if they had a mind of
their own shot from the woman, who a few months ago would have met
all of his physical requirements to the woman who was seriously
fucking with his head. Her shoulder length hair was pulled up into
a messy bun, she wore no makeup and her clothes were increasingly
baggy on her, hiding whatever figure she might have and his damn
cock twitched with happiness just from looking at her.

He looked at the beautiful woman
frowning up at him and his cock did nothing. His eyes shot back to
Zoe and damn if his cock didn't twitch happily. Trevor swallowed
hard as realization hit.

There was something wrong with his
dick.

"Are you okay?" the woman asked,
drawing back his attention. She met his eyes and gave him a sexy
little smile that should have piqued his interest, but did
nothing.

"Excuse me?" Zoe suddenly said, once
again drawing his attention back to her. She stood in front of
them, holding a small bag of what appeared to be tiny dog biscuits
and not doing anything particularly sexy, but he found himself
appreciating her adorable little smile, her beautiful bright blue
eyes, and how she cared more about comfort than fashion.

He liked looking at her, talking to
her and just being with her, he realized suddenly much to his
shock. At some point he'd become attracted to his little tenant and
he hadn't even realized it. She was turning his life upside down
and screwing with his head and he couldn't understand
it.

Women like Zoe shouldn't catch his
attention for so many reasons he didn't even know where to start.
He liked women like the one next to him and should be putting in a
little effort to talk her out of her panties and see if she met any
of his criteria for a wife, but instead of doing that he was
checking out his frumpy little tenant and wondering how loud he
could make her scream his name.

This wasn't fucking happening. He
didn't like women like Zoe and refused to start now. He had a game
plan and he was going to stick with it. The problem was he hadn't
gotten laid in too damn long and the only woman he'd spent any real
time with in the last couple of months was Zoe so that's why his
poor neglected dick was so confused.

Tonight he would take care of this
little problem by hitting a bar and picking up the hottest woman he
could find and fucking her until his dick was back on board with
his game plan and gave up its rather disturbing demands that he get
to know Zoe a little better.

"Do you have these in a larger bag?"
Zoe asked the woman next to him, making him roll his eyes.
Seriously, did the woman really not know anything about
dogs?

"Zoe," he said, sounding exasperated
as he took the small bag away from her so he could look at the tiny
biscuits through the clear plastic window on the front of the
package, "these are for small dogs. Toby," and god how he hated
having to call that poor dog that name, "is pretty big and needs
larger biscuits," he pointed out.

She shrugged. "I know, but those are
really cute," she said with that damn adorable smile that had his
damn cock taking notice.

Dumb
bastard
, he mentally cursed the rebellious
appendage.

"Your brother's right," the woman next
to him said with a knowing smile, expression, and tone that flat
out let Zoe know the woman dismissed her as any real competition in
case her words hadn't.

His eyes once again darted to Zoe,
wondering if he had any time to get her out of the store before she
started crying. Christ, why did women have to be so fucking
vicious? Zoe didn't do anything to deserve her attitude. He'd admit
that in the past this little scene would have amused him and
probably entertained him to no end to have women fighting over him,
but for some reason he couldn't stand the idea of Zoe being hurt.
She was-

"Oh, he's not my brother," Zoe said
brightly as if she didn't realize the woman had just insulted her.
She squished up her face adorably in thought. "At least not until
he makes it legal with Jonathan," she said, her eyes flashing with
amusement as she watched the woman take it all in.

Who the hell was Jonathan? he wondered
as the rest of what she said set in and when it did he glared at
her as he fought back the urge to pull her over his knee and spank
the hell out of her ass.

"You know damn well-" he bit out
tightly before she had the nerve to interrupt him with a teasing
smile.

"They really are the cutest couple
I've ever seen," she said dreamily, leaving him on the verge of
committing murder.

"Y-your brother?" the woman next to
him choked out, clearly not believing that he could be gay. At
least one person realized how foolish Zoe's claims were
and-

"I should have known," the woman said,
sighing as she gestured to the end of the aisle. "There's a larger
bag on the top shelf," she mumbled before walking away, clearly not
willing to waste another minute of her time on him.

"Thank you," Zoe said brightly,
clearly fighting back a laugh as she threw him a wink and headed
off, leaving him confused, pissed, stunned and admittedly
impressed. Any other woman would have either freaked out over the
insult or started crying, but Zoe not only ignored the woman's
intended insult, but had come out on top, laughing and knocking him
on his ass for shits and giggles.

Self-confidence like that was fucking
hot.

It was too bad she wasn't his type, he
thought as he walked past her, only pausing long enough to grab the
bag out of her hand and give her luscious little ass a swat for
good measure, grinning when he heard that little growl of hers that
he liked so damn much.

It really was too bad that she wasn't
his type.

Chapter
12

"I just took you out twenty minutes
ago," Zoe complained even as she reached for the new black leash
with the small baby blue teddy bear pattern that she'd bought
during her second trip to the pet store and headed for the front
door.

Sure she could have used the black
leather leash that Trevor bought, but she liked this one. It was
manly no matter what he said. The teddy bears were blue not pink,
she'd pointed out when he spotted it during their last walk. That
was immediately followed by a one minute glare that she found kind
of cute.

She wasn't sure if he'd been pissed
about the so-called "girly leash" or the fun she'd had at his
expense at the pet store, but it hadn't mattered because both put a
smile on her face. Several times today she found herself laughing
at the memory of the little scene from the pet store. She really
wasn't sure what she found more entertaining, the disappointed
expression on the woman's face who thought just because Zoe looked
a certain way that she was a pushover or the horrified almost
comical expression on Trevor's face when her words hit
home.

He really was an entertaining guy.
Haley was right. Screwing over a man just for the hell of it was a
lot of fun. It was also nice having someone in her life that she
could joke with and just be herself. Over the past three years
she'd learned to keep her mouth shut and accept all the crap life
handed her as she tried to make something out of her
life.

She'd never been a pushover a single
day in her life, her big mouth guaranteed that, but working in that
office had slowly sucked the life out of her, leaving her gritting
her teeth and accepting whatever bullshit her bosses dealt her all
while fighting the urge to open her mouth and land her ass in
trouble. Turning into a meek little worker had been one of the
hardest things for her to do, especially when she was used to
speaking up for herself.

Growing up the way she had there
hadn't been much of a choice in the matter since there was no one
else to speak for her. Even though she'd had about a half dozen
different social workers from the age of two until fifteen when she
finally ran away, none of them cared about what happened to her. To
them she was just a case they'd gotten stuck with and she only saw
them about once a year when they had their mandatory meeting to
make sure she was actually alive.

Her foster parents, all one hundred
and fifty-three of them, had been a different story completely.
Some had been nice, some not so nice and some had acted like she
wasn't there, but in each and every home she'd been a paycheck and
a charity case, nothing more. Not in one single home had she been
treated or expected to act like one of the family.

There were always separate rules for
her and the other foster kids in each home and different
expectations. She was expected to do as she was told and keep her
mouth shut when something happened that she didn't like. They
learned quickly that they couldn't push her around just because no
one cared about her.

She knew other kids kept their mouths
shut, too afraid to upset their foster parents and be shipped off
to a new home, but that wasn't her. The inconvenience of packing up
her small duffle bag and going to a new home, dealing with new
foster parents, and learning new rules hadn't been enough for her
to keep her mouth shut. If they treated her like crap she spoke up,
plain and simple. She never acted like a spoiled little brat who
liked to bitch and whine about everything, but when she had foster
parents who wouldn't feed her unless she worked for it or liked to
hit her or some of the smaller kids, she spoke up,
loudly.

Instead of coming to her aide and
reassuring her that it would never happen again a few of her social
workers actually told her to learn to shut her mouth, telling her
it wasn't so bad and that if she wanted a roof over her head and
food in her stomach that she needed to learn keep her mouth closed.
Sometimes she followed that little tidbit of crappy advice and kept
her mouth shut. She might have been a kid, but she hadn't been
stupid. She knew no one was ever going to rescue her and love her
and that she was damn lucky not to have to live on the street, but
sometimes the way her foster parents treated her was too much and
she couldn't keep her mouth shut no matter how much she wanted
to.

It wasn't until she was fifteen and
found herself living in an abandoned car that she realized that
sometimes it was better to keep her big mouth shut, especially if
she was going to make a life for herself. Although she did her best
to curb her big mouth sometimes it still got her in trouble and she
found herself in a sticky situation a time or two.

When she landed an entry level job
with The N.W. Corporation a few years ago she'd forced herself to
keep her mouth shut, knowing she didn't want to mess up the
opportunity to make something out of her life. As difficult as it
had been she learned to keep her mouth shut, mostly, until she
barely recognized the person she'd become where being screwed over
didn't bother her because she truly believed she'd move up in the
company and all the nonsense they put her through would be worth
it.

Had she really been that
delusional?

Apparently she had, because she
allowed them to push her around until she simply hadn't cared
anymore. Even though it had only been a few months since she worked
in that hell hole she still couldn't believe she let them treat her
that way or worse that she let the job become her life. She'd lost
touch with the few friends she had and stopped dating, not that
she'd done much of that in the past, but at least a decent amount
of sex might have made her life more tolerable.

She really missed sex, she thought
with a sigh.

But if all went well tonight she
wouldn't be missing it for much longer. Not that she'd ever been a
tramp. She hadn't. She just had a healthy appetite for sex for a
twenty-nine year old woman who hadn't had sex in five
years.

She also missed the intimacy of being
close to another human being. She missed lazy Sundays in bed,
fighting over the remote, snuggling to stay warm and the way she
felt when a man made love to her, not alone.