"Hey, buddy, you want to help me slay the monster?" he asked, giving the dog a playful scratch behind the ears that earned a groan of delight. After a minute Toby rolled over onto his back in silent demand that Trevor gave into with a little sigh. Damn demanding dog, Trevor thought with a smile.

If he wasn't afraid that Zoe would think he was a pushover he'd be tempted to forget his rule and let her keep the dog. Hell, he was half thinking of stealing the dog for himself. He always loved having dogs as a kid and promised himself that he'd get another one when he was older, but he never seemed to have the time for one.

He gave the dog one last rub, careful not to get any dog hair on his navy blue dress shirt or black slacks. Normally if he was going to work on something in one of his tenant's apartments he'd don his work clothes, but this was only a small spider in Zoe's freakishly neat home so he wasn't too worried about getting dirty. He started to head towards the bathroom only to come to an abrupt halt when something caught his eye.

For the first time since he walked into the room he noticed a large pile of department store shopping bags near the wall. The amount of bags kind of surprised him since he'd never thought of Zoe as much of a spender. She actually came across as pretty frugal, never spending much money on herself and getting by with the basics. He often wondered about that, thinking that maybe she grew up in an extremely thrifty family.

He was just about to get the little spider hunt over with when a familiar pink logo on a group of bags buried towards the back of the pile caught his eye. After a minute of trying to ignore temptation he shrugged and walked over to the bags. If Zoe came back and caught him he'd just tell her he that he was checking for spiders, he decided with a mental pat on the back, knowing damn well that she'd thank him too.

With one last look over his shoulder he opened the bag closest to him wider and felt his eyebrows arch clear to the hairline. The bag was filled with lace and silk of every color. Rubbing his suddenly sweaty hands on his slacks he reached into the bag and picked up the lacey baby pick item on top and nearly groaned when he realized they were panties, a little larger than he was used to seeing and in no way a thong, but still sexy as hell.

He exhaled slowly as he ran a shaky hand through his hair as he imagined that beautiful bottom of Zoe's covered in this material. Christ, he really didn't need to know what she was wearing to cover her curves and he should walk away, but curiosity was a bitch and had him quickly going through the rest of the pink bags.

Five minutes later he was sitting on the edge of Zoe's bed with his elbows propped up on his knees and his head in his hands, trying to wrap his mind around the amount of panties, bras, and teddies Zoe purchased. He still couldn't believe how sexy some of those items were and that unnerved him a bit, because when he thought about Zoe he never thought sexy. Yeah she turned him on for some weird reason, but never intentionally.

But damn if he wasn't turned on now, he thought with a grimace as he sat up and tried to adjust himself in his now too tight pants. When that didn't work he stood up and began to pace the spacious room.

Who the hell was she seeing? he wondered. It had to be someone serious for her to go nuts shopping like that and buying intimate apparel. In his experience women only did that if they were in the start of a relationship, but Zoe hadn't said anything to him about seeing some guy. There was too damn much she wasn't telling him and that really pissed him off.

Every morning and for a few minutes every night they talked about work, the book they were reading, television and all the stupid shit in between and not once did she mention a boyfriend. He knew he mostly viewed her as a tenant and employee, but he hadn't known that she only saw him as a boss and landlord, one apparently that she made small talk with to be polite. That knowledge pissed him off in the worst possible way and it didn't take a genius to figure out why.

Somewhere along the line he actually started to think of Zoe as a friend.

Whatever.

Fuck her.

If she wanted to keep this relationship strictly professional then that was more than fine with him, he thought opening the sink cabinet with a little more force than necessary. He didn't give a rat's ass if they weren't friends. Why the hell would he? It's not like he went out of his way at work to talk to her, which proved that he didn't care.

Or proved that he was an asshole, he thought shaking his head ruefully. Then again she didn't exactly go out of her way to talk to him at work either, which only proved his point or that he was turning into a fucking woman overanalyzing every little thing, he thought, sighing as he shoved things around as he looked for this "huge" spider.

There was no need for all this drama. So Zoe didn't tell him about her date? So what? It didn't mean anything and besides tonight was not the night to stress over this shit. Tonight was about getting laid and clearing his head of Zoe, he reminded himself as his hand landed on the condom box. As he picked it up to toss it to the side a condom fell out, making him frown.

He could have sworn it wasn't open earlier. After a minute of feeling like an ass for caring at all he dumped the rest of the condoms out of the box and counted. Six left out of a twelve pack. Looks like Zoe wasn't the only one planning on getting laid tonight, he thought darkly as he tossed the box back into the cabinet.

This was fucking unbelievable.

He was fucking jealous.

The knowledge both sickened and shocked him. He never got jealous. Not once. Well, when he was kid he'd been jealous of Jason, but that was completely different. He never become jealous over a woman, but here he was crouching down on his frumpy tenant's bathroom floor, wondering who the hell she needed six condoms for and wanting to kick his own ass for caring so damn much.

It was past time he worked her out of her system, he decided, moving to stand up when Toby started growling. He followed the dog's glare and couldn't help but roll his eyes when he spotted the tiny little black spider racing across one of the rolls of toilet paper.

"I knew she overre--holy shit!" he yelled, falling back on his ass and scooting away from the largest spider he'd ever seen. When it decided to come after him he was left with little choice but to grab one of Zoe's magazines off the neat pile near the toilet and beat the shit out of spider as Toby barked encouragingly. Even after he was pretty sure it was dead he kept up the attack, afraid that it was just a trick and the spider was buying its time before it attacked him and dragged him beneath the sink.

Panting hard, Trevor tossed the magazine back on the pile and slowly stood up, never taking his eyes away from the gooey mess on Zoe's floor and leaned back against the wall, making a mental note to call an exterminator first thing tomorrow morning. He watched the mess intently for a moment, making sure it wasn't going to come after him again before he decided to clean it up and get the hell out of there before its friends came looking for him.

He walked downstairs, trying to calm his damn nerves, barely aware that the dog followed him downstairs and headed for Zoe's kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water and chugged it down, wishing Zoe had something more substantial in her fridge to calm his nerves like steak or left over lasagna instead of diet yogurt and a huge pile of green veggies.

Toby's whimpering caught his attention. "Of course she went back and bought it," he said when he spotted the large clear plastic jar filled with mini dog treats.

With a sigh he opened the jar and grabbed a handful of mini treats and held them up. "You're going to keep your mug shut about the spider, right?"

Wagging his tail happily, Toby barked.

"That's what I thought," he said, tossing the dog a biscuit.

* * *

"Excuse me?" Zoe said, signaling the bartender as she did her best to ignore feeling like she was on display in her new clothes. It was the first time in a long time that she'd worn something so revealing. Granted, compared to the scantily dressed women walking around the bar she was probably dressed more like a nun.

For probably the hundredth time that hour she resisted the urge to yank up her blouse she let the sales woman talk her into. Not that she regretted buying it. Okay, maybe a little since it put her breasts on display a little more than she was comfortable with, but it helped give the illusion that she had a nice figure so she was going to have to learn to deal with it. Besides, the blouse went really nice with the silky baby blue floral skirt that she'd loved and bought so it wasn't too bad.

"What can I get for you, sweetheart?" the bartender asked as he walked over to her.

"Could I get another screwdriver?" she asked, smiling as she held up her empty glass.

"Sure thing," he said, winking.

Zoe sighed contently as she turned on her barstool to scope out the crowd again, trying not to look desperate and doing a much better job than she had an hour ago, she thought, feeling surprisingly comfortable.

It was surprising that she could feel so relaxed with her breasts on display and wearing clothes that showed off her real figure without feeling awkward. No doubt it had to do with the excellent music playing and energy the crowd was giving off. The four screwdrivers she'd allowed herself to drink probably had something to do with it, but at the moment she simply didn't care.

Right now she didn't care that she wasn't the skinniest woman at the bar, or even the prettiest. It didn't even matter that the man in her life saw her as nothing more than a tenant to do his bidding or that in a week that man would probably break her heart by taking her precious puppy away. Hell, it didn't even matter that each drink contained over two hundred calories, but that probably had something to do with the fact that she hadn't eaten all day so she had plenty of calories to use. At this moment everything was right with the world and she felt damn good and was ready to have sex for the first time in five years.

"Here you go," the bartender said with a delicious little smile that made Zoe even happier.

"Thank you," she murmured, handing over a twenty and waving away the change. She picked up her drink and sipped it as she looked over the crowd, wondering what the best way to approach a man for sex was.

Her eyes landed on Trevor as he walked into the bar and she nearly sighed. He really looked good, she thought and judging by the way every woman in the bar seemed to stop what they were doing to look his way she didn't think she was the only one that thought so.

She raised her hand to wave to him only to stop mid-raise as she reminded herself that it wasn't like that between them. They weren't friends and the last thing she needed tonight was to look pathetic, well even more pathetic than coming to a bar alone to pick up a guy. For a minute she sat there sipping her drink as she discretely watched as he approached the corner where a lot of guys from work were hanging out.

While all the guys greeted him the women looked him over hungrily. Not that she could blame them. He did look rather delicious tonight. Through narrowed eyes she watched as that jerk that liked to make fat comments about her when he thought she couldn't hear approached Trevor with several women. He wasn't an attractive man, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he obviously put a lot of work and time into his appearance. His hair was over styled, she'd bet everything that she had that his black designer tee shirt was ironed along with his pants and she knew the large bugle in his pants had to be a rolled up gym sock. The man was pathetic and a jerk and she was getting sick of his comments, but she kept her mouth shut only because she didn't want to start any drama at work.

Obviously Trevor liked the big jerk, she thought as she watched him greet the women that the jerk practically shoved his way. She couldn't help but feel disappointed when Trevor didn't tell the jerk off or walk away from the women who looked like they'd been around the block one too many times.

Of course nothing disappointed her more than when he looked up and met her eyes only to look away. Then again it shouldn't because they weren't really friends, she thought, making a mental note to short change him on his lunch Monday morning. She forced herself to look away and focus back on the task at hand.