Read Who's on Top? for Free Online

offending area, and he pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. Because underneath it all, he could still detect faint bluish lines.
    In spite of them, she was still beautiful, even with that schoolmarm’s pout on her pretty lips. He ran an appreciative gaze over her curves, lingering again on her breasts. Damn that jacket. The things ought to be outlawed for women….
    Miss Bic squinted, peered and then selected carefully from the salad offerings. No iceberg lettuce. Only red leaf. And only the freshest-looking pieces. Anything with even a suspicion of brown went right back into the large steel lettuce bin. Miss Bic seemed highly irritated by the clear plastic barrier over thesalad bar. She peered through it, eyes again squinted, and steamed it up with her breath.
    â€œForget your glasses?” Dom asked.
    â€œNo. How do you know I wear glasses?”
    â€œOh, just a guess.” Because you’ve just about flattened your nose against the Plexiglas, there, sweetheart. And if only I’d met you in a different context, I’d love for you to get that close to me.
    She straightened but squinted even more as she wielded the salad tongs over a container of cherry tomatoes and snatched one.
    â€œThat one’s squishy,” Dom told her. A characteristic to be avoided in tomatoes but sought after in breasts.
    She dropped it and glared at him. “Thank you.” She scrunched her eyes and hunched over the clear plastic again, nearsightedly fishing for perfection.
    â€œWould you like me to help you?” Dom asked.
    â€œNo, I’m fine.”
    â€œThat one on the far right, in the corner, is Without Flaw. No green edges, no wrinkles, no dark spots, no puckering.”
    She deliberately took a different one, and Dom shook his head. Exactly four others joined their buddy on her plate.
    Miss Bic bypassed the next container completely—no fatty pepperoni for her—but picked precisely five quarters of marinated artichoke from the next bin. And then five slices of cucumber, followed by five slices of red pepper, which, he supposed,color-coordinated with the five cherry tomatoes. For protein she chose small slices of grilled chicken: five.
    What was with the magic number? Dom was almost disappointed when Jane used only one ladleful of fat-free Italian dressing.
    He took his own tray and followed her back to their table, unloading his heaping bowl of chili and massive iceberg lettuce salad under her gaze.
    Her eyes widened as he added a few shakes of hot sauce to the chili, and he grinned. “Don’t worry—I used exactly five shakes.”
    Spots of pink appeared in Jane’s cheeks and spread to her ears, which he could see now since she’d stuffed her hair behind them. They were very cute ears. He’d really like to lick one—just taste it.
    â€œSo what’s with the number five?” Dom asked.
    Jane shrugged. “I don’t know. I just like it.”
    â€œIt’s a nice, clean number,” Dom mused. “Half of ten.”
    Jane started to look annoyed.
    â€œNo extra digits to mess it up. No ambiguity about it. It’s reasonable. Not too high, not too low. Right in the middle.”
    â€œI thought I was supposed to be analyzing your behavior,” Jane said.
    â€œTurnabout’s fair play.” He spooned chili into his mouth and tried not to stare at the blue lines still visible to the right of her nose.
    She touched the area self-consciously. “I don’t know what it says about me, but the number five hasalways been my favorite. We have five fingers on each hand. Five toes on each foot. We have two arms, two legs and a head. If you connect those five points in a continuum, you make a circle.”
    â€œDa Vinci,” he said.
    â€œExactly.”
    He waited.
    She fidgeted. “And…oh, I don’t know. Five times five is twenty-five, which is point two five of a hundred, one clean quarter…” She gave a