Her look makes me shift in my chair and pull my arms around myself. She's wondering what a girl like me would have to offer a place like this…
She looks like Leah. Ready for the runway, a body straight out of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, only with a splash of hard knocks thrown in. Her hair is a bit more Dolly Parton than Leah would go for, and her makeup is a coat or two past the natural look, but she's clearly beautiful. Suddenly, I'm trying totug the hem of my skirt lower and wondering what the hell I was thinking coming here.
"A signature on what?" Decker clips the words like they taste bad. He runs a hand over his head, back and forth. His arm muscles flex under his skin, every indent visible.
The tingle between my legs turns to a throb. I'm sure a man who looks like that has his choice of any of these girls every night of the week. I sneak a full-on look at him from the chair, impressed by the way his shoulders fill out the back of his jacket. He's a mountain up top, wide and immovable, but lower down he's built like a runner.
Cindy's voice is shrill, and my eyes roll before I can stop them. Decker catches it. He runs his tongue over his teeth and shakes his head.
"This…" He thrusts the stack of papers toward her. "This can wait until tomorrow. You know better than to knock on my door for this."
I like that he's being straightforward without being rude. Cindy's sheepish look says she did know better.
Maybe she's his squeeze. Like, his regular girl, and she's checking out the new kid. Maybe this is his own private harem, and she's the lead concubine.
That thought twists a knot inside me. My chest tightens, thinking of Deck with all these other girls. A man like him surely keeps busy. He's older, sure. The smallest bit of silver-gray hair decorates his temples, and I'm surprised I find him so attractive.
But he still makes me feel light-headed and giddy.
"I'm sorry." Cindy's reply is measured. Polite, but with an edge, like a fox keeping its distance while the farmer is watching. "I just saw you come back down here and figured I could get it wrapped up tonight. I have to get payroll in early tomorrow and wanted this off my to-do list."
She clutches the papers to her chest and crosses her arms over them, darting her eyes toward me again.
"Here," Decker says, holding his hand out for the stack of papers. Cindy holds them out, along with a pen, and he scratches his name on the top paper. "Tell anyone else if they knock on that door, there'd better be blood or cops involved."
Deck steps forward and opens the door. He doesn't have to say anything else. She takes the cue and sashays her perfect size-zero butt out with a defeated sigh.
I must look so stupid compared to all the other girls here. It was quiet out in the bar, but I stood there long enough to see I'm not the 'type' they're looking for. And some of the confidence I'd had while I strutted around in my bedroom to 'Super Freak' is leaking out and settling around my feet in a defeated puddle.
"I'm sorry about that. No one usually comes in here. It's sort of off limits. Unless you're in trouble." Deck comes around to lean against the front of his massive, dark-wood desk. Everything in here is at annoying right angles to everything else, and it's so clean you could perform surgery.
"It's okay." I scan the room.
Cold. Unwelcoming.
There are no soft touches anywhere, but my body is a furnace, and I let out a stupid, nervous laugh at absolutely nothing.
"Do you kiss all your employees? Even the guys?"
The words just run out of my mouth like a locomotive. I've always had a problem with the usual order of things. I know you're supposed to do the thinking first and the talking second, but it's all just one process for me. And it's managed to get me locked in the bathroom plenty of times over the years.
Simon, my guardian, doesn't have much of a sense of humor. His punishment of choice growing up was to send me to myroom to get me out of his sight. But when that stopped bothering me, he took to locking me in my bathroom for hours on end.
Decker's stern face explodes, lighting up with the kind of smile that I just don't remember seeing before. Not on a man. Not in real life. Maybe in an ad in the newspaper. A grin so genuine and infectious it pulls my own smile right out of me. But right now my body is reacting in its own way. Something throbs inside me, some organ I didn't know I had, somewhere deep that might not have even existed until him.
"No. I don't kiss them all." His smile dims, but his blue-raspberry eyes sparkle with a life that has me feeling drugged. "In fact, I've never kissed any of them before."
He stands and steps in front of me, his knees only inches from mine, and I draw in a breath that sounds more like a death rattle. Suddenly, I hate how awkward I am. He's about to realize he's making a mistake.
"Well, you should," I blurt out, scrambling for something less inane. "Because you're good at it." I almost die right there. I just can't stop myself, and being around Deck is making it worse. "I wouldn't mind if you did it again."
I think it, and I speak it. It's a curse.
His hand reaches down and picks one of mine from my lap like a forbidden fruit. His touch is warm and reassuring, but it sends a pulse of energy up my arm and down into where my heart is about to explode all over these white walls, and for a second, I imagine it looking like a blood-spattered crime scene.
My panties take another hit from the gush coming out of me.
He's pulling me up, and without another word, I'm on my feet. The heat from his body washes over mine. His gaze presses down on me from above. I'm sure he must have done this a thousand times, because confidence rolls off him in waves, and I'm helpless in his force field.
