Page 4 of Easy Come
"Uh, no thank you." She pushed her glasses back, and just as I pulled my gaze from her, I caught a small sharp movement of her shoulders.
She covered her mouth. "Excuse me."
"I've got just the cure for hiccoughs." I walked behind the bar and poured myself a scotch, then grabbed another glass for Georgie.
"No thank you. I never drink during—" She stopped as I handed her a glass of orange juice. Her thin fingers grazed mine as she took hold of the juice. "Thank you."
The juice sloshed in the glass as another hiccough chirped through her. She tossed it back like someone guzzling a beer. My eyes were instantly drawn to her smooth, creamy white throat, rolling with each swallow. Fuck.
I shot back the scotch and circled around to the safe side of the desk, the side that had a six foot slab of polished walnut between it and Georgie. Georgie. Shit, could her name be any fucking hotter?
I sat down, hoping the scotch would help smooth the edges of my reaction to the woman sitting across from me. "So, Georgie, I guess we should get down to the interview. Fire away."
She pushed her glasses back on her nose and took a deep breath. The juice had done the trick.
"Right." She crossed her legs at the knee and her straight, no nonsense business skirt slipped back to expose a few inches of her thigh.Stop thinking about her fucking legs, Trey, and get this done.
"How many employees do you have?" She had her pencil poised, reminding me of a secretary from the sixties where the big gruff boss sat behind his desk and barked out memos to his young, pretty secretary, who quickly scribbled everything in shorthand. All of a sudden, I had a great idea for a role play themed box. I jotted that down on a sticky note.
"We have fifteen people running the business end and forty in the warehouse and shipping side."
"Mostly women?"
Her question confused me. "Wedohave women working here. But mostly women? I guess a few more women than men."
"So you prefer to have women walking around the office?" She hadn't lifted her eyes to me since the first question. It seemed she was determined to find something to make us look unsavory. Damn that Chase.
"No, I prefer to have womenworkingaround the office."
Her hand scratched wildly over the paper. She knew shorthand.
I continued, feeling both a bit pissed and a whole lot turned on. I wanted to teach this reporter a lesson in more ways than one. "I've found women are more focused and have better attention to detail. And frankly, since our goal is to make our women clients think about fucking day and night, just like men, it makes sense to have female employees."
Her face shot up. She'd gone a little pale. Her blue eyes were like jewels behind the lenses of her glasses. "Are you trying to shock me, Mr. Armstrong?"
"Uh oh, back to Mr. Armstrong. I might be trying to shock you. Is it working?"
"No." She nervously clicked her pen and pushed back her glasses, a gesture I was already falling hard for. "Maybe a little."
I leaned back in my chair and looked at her. "Do you know anything about the company?"
She lifted her chin. "I did some research." She'd recovered from my comment about women thinking about fucking. She was a true professional, and it seemed my attempt to throw her off balance had failed. "I know it's a subscription service where each month a new box ofpleasuregoodiesis delivered to the client."
"Yes, that's right." I sat forward and rolled my chair closer to my desk. That tiny mother of pearl button was still working impossibly hard to keep her blouse shut. "But each box has a theme. We test every product ourselves, and since most of the products are for the woman's pleasure, the women who work for Plaything are the product testers. And, I can assure you, they love that part of the job."
It seemed she'd forgotten she was supposed to take notes. She jarred herself out of her thoughts and quickly wrote down what I said. "Is there some room where they test the products?" Her tone was a little less confident. I was sure I noticed a blush rising from her hidden cleavage and up along her slender neck.
I rested my arms on my desk and stared at her. "Do you mean like a room with a one way mirror where my partners and I can watch as our female employees strip naked and test the products?"
Her face darkened as the blush continued to spread. Maybe I'd thrown her off balance after all. Her lips parted. I studied them for a moment. They were smooth and plump, the kind you had to bite lightly at the end of a kiss.
Georgie was speechless and shocked, and I was starting to feel bad for messing with her.
"There's no such room. They take the products home and try them out in the privacy of their bedrooms. Then they come back and give us the thumbs up or thumbs down. Occasionally, the experiment carries over to the work day. I'll show you." I picked up the phone and dialed. "Hey, Diane, could you come to my office for a second? Thanks."
I'd flustered the hot little reporter. She scratched out something she'd written. "Do the women"—she cleared her throat—"the employees—are they required to wear"—she glanced down at her notepad—"are they required to dress a certain way here at Plaything?"
Just then Diane knocked on the door. I invited her in. Diane was a statuesque, smart, all business woman who helped run the marketing department with my partner, Zane. She was stellar at her job. She had been trying out a corset to see if it was comfortable and fun enough to include in next month's box.
