Busting Loose Read Online Free Page A

hand, cutting her off. “Bea, you have no idea what your help means to me right now.”
    â€œOh.” Do it now. Rip off the bandage. “I—”
    â€œI know the pay sucks, and it’s not easy work necessarily. And this isn’t your life’s ambition. But your jumping in to take this job makes it easier for me to keep up with the shelter responsibilities.”
    â€œBut I’m a screwup,” she said automatically.
    His eyes held hers, mesmerizing her through slightly smudged lenses. “You’re the right person for this job. I know it. You’re going to be a blessing for me. I mean us . The shelter and the clinic.”
    Pow. Right in the kisser. She looked around at the poor, sad dogs all stuck behind their bars. Heard the begging pleas of the kittens behind her to let them out to play. Milton, almost on cue, leaned into her leg for a quick reassuring snuggle.
    The cosmos was against her.
    â€œI can’t stay forever.”
    He nodded.
    â€œI’ll help find my replacement, though. I can interview them or . . . something.”
    His smile was all boyish hope.
    She sighed and reached up for his glasses. He blinked in surprise as she removed them and used the corner of the cute new tank she’d ordered from Marc Jacobs online—on clearance, naturally—to clean the smudges off. “There.” Without thinking, she replaced them. Her fingertips brushed back behind his ears as she straightened the glasses.
    His body heat poured off him from the morning’s exertions. She’d had to step in close to reach up his tall frame, despite being five-ten herself. And only now did it occur to her she was all but slathered to the front of him like some horny teenager at the homecoming dance. She took a healthy step back, her heel sliding just a little on the concrete floor.
    He caught her at the elbows, though she’d already steadied herself enough. “Careful. Might want to rethink the shoe choice from now on.”
    â€œOh. You don’t like them?” Almost automatically, she popped one foot out to the side and pouted, a face that seemed to drive men crazy when she pulled it. “I thought they were cute.”
    He frowned at her a second, then shook his head. “They’re impractical. I won’t tell you what to wear, but I’d prefer you didn’t break your ankle. That’s just going to make more work for everyone.”
    Then, with a pat on her shoulder, he just brushed past her and toward the clinic side of the building.
    Well. That was a first, in many respects. And wait a minute. Did she still have a job?
    â€œMilton?”
    The dog peeked up, offering a paw as if to say you can take these booties off now. I have a feeling we’re gonna stay.
    â€œYeah.” She squatted down, the heels giving her an advantage. “We’re gonna stay. For now, anyway.”
    Â 
    Morgan slipped into his tiny office and shut the door, leaning his head back against the cold wood and shutting his eyes. His fist clenched and unclenched, and his mind focused intensely on the contraction of the muscles in his hand and forearm. A tactic he’d learned early in his hormonal years to stave off an ill-timed boner.
    She was going to stay, though he’d sensed she’d been about to quit before even getting started. Shaking his fist out, he wiped his wrist over his forehead, then grimaced at the sweat staining the top of his cuff. Some verbal tiptoeing and cutting her off had done the trick, at least for now. But it bothered him to hear her call herself a screwup. He could appreciate and laugh at self-deprecating humor. But that didn’t strike him as humor so much as just stating what she considered to be obvious.
    And that little pouty act with the practiced pose, modeling her shoes? What the hell was that? The simple man-beast in him had appreciated the way she’d looked, like a perfect combo of sweet innocence wrapped in a