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Just like sitting inside this memory. Him and Skye, not needing any words, the night stretching before them with no reason to think about anything but each other and this.
Not until tomorrow.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Words can’t cover it, Mistress.”
It made Skye shiver, thinking of him, his touch. And she’d been doing that a lot.
Even here at work, with multiple windows open on her three screens, a conference call in thirty minutes, plus layouts to finalize before lunch to show Cyn. Their senior account manager was meeting with RNS Travel mid-afternoon to show them the campaign TRA had developed for them.
And yet… Skye paused, her fingers hovering over the board, her eyes on the screens but not seeing them.
She’d given him that fantasy on the table, and he’d executed it, but not like a Dominant. She dwelled on the memory of featherlike kisses along her spine, her nape, conveying his care for her, as he slowly eased in. Then there was how he’d wanted her to grip his hand, bring it to her clit, still directing him, to help bring her to climax. To make sure she received satisfaction before he did.
He’d aroused her so deeply and thoroughly, bringing submissive need and alpha drive together in a pleasurable, indescribably perfect mix.
Focus, she admonished herself. She updated the marketing project details and checked her team’s work. She had three people under her supervision to bring the tech and graphic aspects of Cyn and Ros’s marketing concepts to life. And to execute the analytics to evaluate their performance once they went live.
When she’d joined the boutique firm, it had been small enough she’d handled all that herself. But that had changed. It had been new to her, being a manager, but Ros had taught her how not to overload herself by micromanaging. Investing the time to expand her people’s skill base, communicating her expectations to them clearly, led to her trusting their work and not shouldering so much herself.
Still, she loved the creation phase, both for programming and graphic design, so she would always keep her toe in by occasionally taking beginning to end responsibility for certain projects. As the head of her department, she also reviewed final outputs before release to Ros and Cyn, and ultimately the client. The internal customer was as important as the external ones.
Primarily because Cyn would delight in giving her crap if a mistake was made. The five-woman executive team enjoyed what Abby called a “cutthroat but supportive” competitive environment.“What else would you expect from a group of Type A overachievers?”
Skye found one minor glitch, fixed it, then sent a heads up to Paula so she’d be aware of the quality check, to improve that on the next round.
As she did that, Skye was attuned to the hum of activity in the three-story building, a historic mansion in New Orleans’ Garden District. Because her office was closest to the wide staircase, she had good reception for the chatter that floated up from the lower two floors.
She smiled a little, hearing Bastion’s laughter. Though their tall and broad-shouldered office manager had his desk in the first-floor foyer, his baritone carried.
It was a good environment, but the high expectations extended to all, to succeed for their clients. They came first. When the general number was called during office hours, Bastion picked it up. No voicemail gateway for TRA.
Though not formally educated in marketing or office administration, his aptitude for it had resulted in him moving from reception to administration within months of being hired. More than once Ros had offered him an entry level account manager job in Cyn’s department, but he preferred to run the office. Since he did it so well, Skye thought Ros was relieved that he felt that way. Filling his size thirteen shoes would have been a challenge.
Skye had a “Bastion” voice in her library. The first time she’d used it, Cyn had shot Ros an arch look. “She can do that with all of us, you know. She’ll convince the bank she’s you and siphon money into an offshore account.”
Ros had shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, she can take whatever she thinks she’s worth. For her skillset, I’m probably not paying her enough.”
Money wasn’t why Skye worked for Thomas Rose Associates, though she was more than fairly compensated. When she was a freelance contractor, Ros had seen the work she’d done for a competitor and emailed her. The more they’d corresponded, the more Skye had liked the sound of TRA. When Ros talked about her business partners and long-time friends, CFO Abigail Rose and Veracity Morgan, and their plans for expanding the business, Skye had felt something unexpected.
The desire to be part of a group. A team.
From the time she’d graduated, she’d worked for herself, having accumulated enough contract work in college to pay forthe tuition and gather a client list, most of whom didn’t realize she was mute.
Early on, she’d been excited about working for a company. But after several failed interviews, she changed her mind. Time and again, the hiring manager shifted from her impressive abilities to the one thing that didn’t impact her work. After the inevitable canned gushing over her accomplishments, how she’d overcome her “adversity”—as if the inability to speak impaired her brain or tech skills—she’d get the inevitable response:“We’ve hired someone who is a better fit for our needs.”
She’d gotten over herself a long time ago, putting hurt feelings away. People weren’t automatically assholes just because they thought her muteness was too much of an inconvenience or a hindrance to their business. She knew ways to help them get past that and see her, not what made her different. Prove that it didn’t impact her work or who she was. And yet…interacting with the world with one sense tied behind her back could be draining. Exhausting.
While she wished to belong somewhere it really wouldn’t matter that her voice didn’t work like anyone else’s, wishing for what wasn’t realistic added to the exhaustion. She’d embraced the freelancing. When companies succeeded because of her efforts, she accepted their thanks, but passed on the awards banquets, or the invitation to lunch from intrigued male contacts. She celebrated her successes with a night of gaming and a trio of cupcakes from a nearby bakery. While riding the sugar high, she’d build cities or kick the asses of bosses with her online raid team.
However, when Ros offered a group interview with her team, Skye took it, even while telling herself she was setting herself up for another punch in the face. It was a video call, but she blocked the picture and used her “normal” voice for the audio, the Southern female she’d compiled from several favorite accentsand voice types. The modulator she’d designed, with settings to project specific emotional states, had a patent pending. It could pass as a “real” voice.
They didn’t block their video, so she could see Ros, Vera and Abby in their sunny board room, lit up by a bank of windows, a network of oak trees outside it. She knew they were in New Orleans’ Garden District, just a hop across the river from her current Algiers neighborhood. Another plus she refused to call a good omen.
She’d expected the women to be well put together. Effective marketing people knew their appearance was part of the package they were selling. They enhanced what looks they had with the right tools. Fashionable dress, a good hair and nail salon, expertly applied makeup. With the addition of an infallibly professional and warm demeanor, they built client confidence.
The TRA women had all of that. But they had themorefactor, too, a genuine quality, too strong to be doubted.
