cries of “Happy New Year!” echoed throughout the crowded room, shouted from the announcer on the TV program as well as by the various people scattered about whose lips were not otherwise occupied.
But Jane didn’t hear a single sound, other than the pounding of her heart.
Chapter Three
She’d died.
There was no other explanation for the way she felt, Jane thought. She must have died and zoomed straight up to heaven. And not even the regular heaven, but some higher plane reserved for the incredibly saintly, incredibly fortunate. Because there was nothing remotely earthly about the feelings she was experiencing right at this moment.
To the casual observer, Jane was certain that it looked as if like nothing more than a traditional New Year’s Eve kiss was being shared by two people at the stroke of midnight.
A lot the casual observer knew.
There were fireworks exploding in her veins, not to mention that her head was spinning wildly, threatening to throw her completely off balance and utterly out of control. Granted, her experience when it came to men and kissing was rather sadly limited, but even she knew that this was something unusual, something really and deliciously different. She’d never been on the verge of a complete meltdown before.
Jorge tasted incredibly sweet and he smelled even better. Everything about him aroused her.
Bold was a word that had nothing to do with her personality, outside of those times when she attempted to secure more funding for her nonprofit organization. But she felt bold now. Bold enough to press her enflamed body against Jorge’s in an attempt to absorb every nuance, every fragment of this incredible experience that had taken her completely by surprise and swept her not just off her feet but off to another dimension.
Another universe.
Like a woman trapped in a mind-boggling, sensuous trance, Jane wove her arms around Jorge’s neck, praying the dream she was having would never end. Praying that the moment she was in would stretch out until eternity. She’d never felt so alive, so wonderful before. And probably never would again.
He was rattled.
Few things ever rattled Jorge Mendoza. He was thirty-eight and eons away from being a boy, even though he still possessed not only a boyish grin, but boyish charm. Even in his teens, he’d been more man than boy, with a man’s take on things. And heaven knew he’d kissed and been with more than twice his share of women.
Life had been good to him that way, he’d often thought, blessing him not just with exceptional looks but, more importantly, with a magnetic charm. Charm that now aided him in his professional endeavors—currently he was gathering financial backing for a trainer who raised the finest quarter horses in Texas—as well as in the seduction of willing women.
But none of that was on his mind right now. Instead, he felt complete and total, unabashed surprise. He hadn’t thought that he could ever feel like this. Like there were rockets going off in his veins.
That kind of feeling hadn’t happened to him since the first time he’d slept with a woman.
But this pretty, intelligent but obviously inexperienced young woman had just managed to do what no other woman had in the last twenty-four years. She’d jarred him down to his very foundations and made him feel like a boy on the brink of manhood again.
It was with incredible effort that Jorge managed to finally, albeit reluctantly, draw his lips away from Jane’s.
Taking in a deep, steadying breath, he looked down at the young woman the way one might look at a soul-shaking revelation, attempting to analyze it. Very slowly, surprise gave way to abject pleasure.
“Happy New Year,” he whispered softly against her hair.
“Right.” She was rather stunned that she could actually talk rather than simply gasp. “Happy New Year,” she repeated, each syllable accompanied by the mad beating of her heart. Hands down, this certainly was the best New Year’s Eve moment she’d ever experienced.
His dark eyes danced, smiling directly into her soul. “So,” he asked her, “what are you doing for the rest of the year?”
“Recovering.”
The honest admission had just slipped out before Jane could think to stop it. But being coy was not something she had any practice at, or, truthfully, any desire to become proficient in. There’d always been something off-putting to her about women who felt the need to play games with the men in their lives.
By the same token, though, she’d discovered that since she didn’t play games, it wasn’t very long before she had no one to even contemplate playing games with. The few men who had passed through her life would come on strong and when they didn’t get what they were after, they would just phase her out.
She refused to believe that all men were only after one thing—but so far, she had very little proof to the contrary. None, actually.
Jorge laughed at her response, amused that she was so honest. He was used to women who liked to be mysterious, to exercise their feminine wiles on him. In reality, a great many of them were about as shallow as saucers—not that he required much depth in his partner of the moment. It made things far less complicated that way.
But this one was different.
This one didn’t seem at all versed in the flirtatious give-and-take that went on between the male and female of the species. Rather than being as devious as a cat, she came across more like Bambi, with all of the famous fawn’s innocence.
A trace of guilt began to nibble away at him. Jorge was beginning to regret his bet with Ricky. He hadn’t counted on the fact that there might very well be feelings involved. And there were. He could see it in Jane’s luminous eyes.
He also hadn’t counted on the fact that he would be attracted to his target. Not just physically, but in a way that he couldn’t even quite put into words.
Jorge certainly couldn’t pin this feeling on alcohol consumption because he hadn’t really consumed any. Just one quick toast of white wine with his parents, sisters and their spouses before the Fortune Foundation party had officially gotten under way. But since then, he hadn’t had anything stronger to drink than a ginger ale.
No, Jorge couldn’t blame his reaction to Jane on anything other than the petite woman herself.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, so, for the time being, he decided not to think about it.
“You’re laughing at me,” Jane protested self-consciously, the aura of her out-of-body experience beginning to fade just a little.
The faint pink color he witnessed creeping up her rather seductive high cheekbones was oddly arousing, Jorge mused. With the rest of the evening stretching out before him, he decided he definitely wanted to get to know this woman better and discover what made her so different from the legions of other women he’d known—other than her obvious lack of sophistication and her innocent manner.
“I’m not laughing at you,” Jorge told her gently. “I’m laughing with you.”
Now even she knew that was a line. Or
