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“How about a pity fuck, then?”
She laughed. “I’m flattered, but no thanks. I’m trying to be good.”
“Too bad. Let me know if you ever change your mind.” He gave her a wink and went on about his business delivering parcels with friendly, speedy service.
“Jeez.” She grabbed a pair of scissors from her desk drawer and shook her head as she cut through the tape. She’d worked in enough small towns that she wasn’t surprised about everyone being connected in some way, but she hadn’t thought it’d be so easy to run into people who liked to explore kinks on the down-low.
Forget about seven degrees of separation—she didn’t even think there weretwothere.
Once the tape was sliced, she tossed the scissors onto the desktop and pushed back the flaps of the short, wide box. It was filled to the top with pretty lavender tissue paper, which she removed and tossed into the waste bin beside the desk. Then she stared down at the four rows and four columns of plastic-covered silk.
“Is…this…”
She pulled out a sheer black bud from the center and turned it to find the lacy top and the gold embossed sticker that sealed the product.
“Stockings?”
They were stockings, and apparently in every color imaginable. There was black, of course. There was also a white pair, nude ones, bright ones, and some with elegant patterns and saucy seams.
At the bottom of the box was a heavy lavender-and-gold striped cardstock envelope sealed with the same sticker as the hose rosettes. She slipped a finger under the flap and removed the laser-printed card.
Do you need garters, too?
It was signed simply with“-T.”
“That bastard. Thenerveof him.” Reflexively, Valerie started to crumple the card to trash it, but then she stopped. She was on autopilot and about to trash a perfectly useful gift out of sheer stubbornness.
Why am I mad?
Tim was a dom. He’d done what doms did. He’d sent her something he wanted to see her wear—and he’d probably insist she show him and expect a proper thank-you for it. It wasn’t an excessive gift, though it was a bit personal, and that made her wonder. Would he have sent those to any other woman in nude hose who’d caught his fancy, or was she a special case?
She carried the box upstairs to her bedroom and hid it in the closet. Out of sight, out of mind. She couldn’t devote any energy to pondering what Tim must have been thinking when he’d ordered those or what he hoped would come of it. Instead, she needed to be figuring out how to compensate for the big boulder in the way of a Shora house’s basement excavation. The rock needed to be removed either by dynamite or an act of God, and she didn’t have either of those things in her budget.
She returned to the office downstairs in time to grab the ringing phone off the cradle. “Valerie Lawson,” she said into the handset.
“Val, it’s Carine. I’m bringing some folks out to tour the models. They’re driving me. Can you take me home afterward?”
“You know, you could just stay here, right?”
“Do you mind?”
“Nah.”
“Thank you so much. That’ll save me the drive out there tomorrow morning. Give me a couple of hours.”
“Take your time,” Valerie said with feigned sunshine in her voice. “I need to deal with a rock.”
___
It took Valerie almost two hours to decide that the rock had been there since the Earth had cooled, probably, and so she’d allow it to stay there a while longer. She hadsomeautonomy on the site, so she was going to scrap the unfinished basement and put the house up on a foundation like most homes in the area. That close to the river and sound, she didn’t like the idea of basements, anyway, but the developer had pushed for that model home to have one. Valerie suspected potential buyers would prefer to have a bigger garage and a nice, elevated, wrap-around porch than a basement, but she was used to being overruled. Common sense wasn’t so common amongst the executives at Lipton Properties.
Carine blew into the office with her jewel-tone green blouse clinging to her chest from sweat and wisps of hair stuck to her cheeks. “Lord, have mercy. Those folks had me standing outside in the burning hot sun for twenty minutes deliberating on how large of a lot they needed and how close to the manmade pond they want to be. After all that, they barely had approval for a loan on a house back in the damned woods with no electric and sewer connections.”
Valerie cringed. “Sorry they wasted your time.”
Carine set down her briefcase and flopped into the chair by the file cabinets. “Might not be a total waste. The lady wants to move her mother in with them to watch the kids, and the mother might actually have the money for one of those houses with the in-law suites. I’ll make the sale, eventually, but slow to come to fruition.”
“Ugh.” Valerie scrunched her nose. “I couldn’t do your job. I like my income to be reliable.”
