Читать книгу: «For Her Pleasure»

Chapter 1

‘A typical victim of sexual harassment,’ he was saying confidently, just before the madness began, ‘is someone in a subordinate position. Perhaps an immigrant or someone in a first job.’

A noise in the back of the room, the sound of the door to the conference room opening and closing, caused his colleagues to turn around. They all watched as she entered and the air in the room changed.

‘I sincerely apologise for being tardy,’ she said, a warm, wide smile on her face. ‘There was an accident on the highway that detained me unavoidably.’ She walked to the front of the room. ‘I’m glad you were able to get started in my absence.’

He knew nothing about women’s fashion but he recognised quality and elegance in a woman’s business suit when he saw them. That she could combine those characteristics with complete professionalism and not-a-hair-out-of-place fastidiousness in her grooming was his first indication of who she was. There was more there too, right from the beginning. A heat. The way the suit glided snugly over her curves, like she could have made the decision to go a little bigger but then the material wouldn’t pull in just the slightest way, suggesting as it did that her luscious figure could barely be contained, that it was waiting, like a predatory animal, to spring out at a moment’s notice. But he shoved that out of his mind like the completely wrong thought at the completely wrong time that it was.

He felt the slightest stirring of unease for a millisecond as she put out her hand to introduce herself. He was not usually intimidated by beautiful women. But something about her – glossy auburn hair all swept up in a surprisingly old-fashioned chignon away from emerald eyes that seemed to look right into his brain; gorgeous, flawless ivory skin over cheekbones so exquisite – made him unusually ashamed of his own geekiness. Normally he wore his geekdom like a badge of honour. But in the face of her perfection he was briefly transported back to high school, aware of his average clothes, his average shoes, his average hair. She was not even the kind of woman he was normally attracted to. He usually went for the petite blonde type. She was all curves, very Marilyn Monroe, but with that hair the colour of fire. Embarrassingly the phrase ‘va va voom’ ran through his head.

But then he took her hand, slim and soft in his own, and the way she smiled so easily at him made his unease flutter away, swept off like threatening clouds blown by an easy wind on a summer day.

‘I can take it from here,’ she said, bringing out an iPad from a smooth leather handbag and plugging it into the projector with deft hands.

When, after an hour, they broke for coffee, she approached him, off to the side of the conference room. ‘Thanks again for getting the workshop started. I hope you’re happy with how we’ve customised the visual presentation so far,’ she said.

‘It looks great,’ he said.

‘I’ve got some things I need to go over with you. Mostly just confirming the content of the upper management workshop. The biggest difference is the liability issues. We won’t get into much detail about that at this level.’

As she spoke he became aware of something else: he could smell her.

Not perfume. There was none of that. And not soap. There was that, yes, she was certainly immaculately clean, he thought. But it was something more. Something compellingly feminine. Human. Base. Images of the ocean washed through him and a thousand pictures of flowers blooming, opening their petals, flicked through his mind. His dick stirred. He felt a slight heat in his face.

‘So if I could come and see you in your office after we wrap up here,’ she was saying.

Talk now, he told himself, realising she was staring at him, waiting. ‘Sure. Yeah, yeah, sure. That’s … fine. Good. Um, I’m on third, with legal actually, though I’m not really with legal, still doing client work, just for now it’s easier with the whole sexual harassment policy thing happening, while I get this in place, after everything, well, you know about that. Just, since I chair the committee I, um, I …’ God. He wasn’t making any sense. He was trying to keep talking to hopefully distract her attention from the fact that he was now staring at her shoes.

Heels. Black patent. Sexy as fuck. Open-toed with her pretty red nails peeping out of the top. She caught him looking and he blushed and stopped talking. But then she smiled at him. A slow, sly smile. He saw a light go on in her eyes and in an instant he understood that she knew him. She saw what he was exactly.

* * *

‘Just a few closing remarks,’ he said in front of his colleagues as she unplugged her iPad and settled herself into a chair in the front row. ‘I’d like to thank Ms Joan Halliwell for her presentation today.’ Light applause. She sat back and unfastened the top two buttons of her suit jacket. ‘And thank you for your participation here today to learn about what we, at X Architects, consider to be an extremely important subject. Before we end for today I’d just like to echo Ms Halliwell’s final thoughts –’ he started. But as he spoke there was a tiny clattering noise that drew his attention. She had dropped her pen on the floor. When she reached down to pick it up her suit jacket fell open and he was suddenly uniquely privy to the plain fact that under her finely tailored and completely professional suit jacket she wore only a skimpy, lacy, midnight-black bra. The skin of her breasts, almost translucent and glowing against the black lace, threatened a wardrobe malfunction the likes of which would have made Janet Jackson’s little stunt seem like Romper Room.

He gulped. And was rendered temporarily mute. By the time his colleagues near her in the front row turned to see what had caused his sudden silence, she had righted herself once more, her suit jacket lying flat, primly against her chest, her face a mask of innocence.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, as the power of speech continued to evade him. ‘I dropped my pen.’

‘Oh, no, no, I –’ he stammered ‘– it wasn’t that. I just momentarily lost my train of …’ He put his hand to his forehead. ‘Sorry. I was saying …’ But he still couldn’t reassemble his jumbled thoughts.

‘I believe you were about to restate the importance of respect for colleagues and customers in the workplace,’ she prompted. ‘Oh, yes, and consultants as well, of course.’ There was a soft chuckle in the room as she smiled that warm and wide smile at him. And then – did she wink? Or did he imagine that?

‘Of, of course,’ he echoed. And then thought, I gotta get outta here. Now.

Because suddenly there was something worse, much, much worse than just some awkward pauses in closing remarks in front of his colleagues that was a concern. There was an increasingly pressing concern.

His dick was on the rise. And threatening to push against the seam of his fly in what could no doubt only be thought of as the all-time worst display possible: in front of business colleagues forced to attend the first session in a two-week training workshop about sexual harassment in the workplace, a session led by the chair of the sexual harassment in the workplace committee.

He made some manic, stuttered words of conclusion. And bolted.

* * *

In the stall in the men’s bathroom he stood, fully clothed, with his forehead pressed against the cool metal of the back of the stall door. He breathed slowly. In. Out. Willing his erection to go down.

He would have liked nothing more than to pull down his trousers and furiously jack his cock until it spurted its goo. It wouldn’t take long. He was, as ever, acutely aware of that.

But he was panicked by the idea that someone could come in at any moment, perhaps even to check up on him after his odd behaviour. So to have, say, Ed Canavan, CEO, enter the bathroom to the tell-tale sounds of masturbation, to be called out as a man who wanks in the men’s washroom at work – God, the shame of the thought alone was too much to bear. And yet somehow thinking it was not helping his fight to tame his stiffened prick.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

Plus she was waiting for him. Right now, right this second, he imagined she was in his office wondering what could be taking him so long.

And maybe she was just going to continue the conversation about the management-level workshops she had mentioned. Or maybe she planned on laying into him, lashing up one side and down the other about how he was ogling her breasts, and didn’t he know who she was, what knowledge she had, what she could do to him, ruin his career, his marriage, everything. Maybe it was even more sinister! Maybe she had planned it all along. This was what she did, with her body that screamed ‘come fuck me’ and her shit-eating grin. Set up a guy to make a wrong move and then bring down a harassment suit on him so fast it would render him impotent ever after. Before she moved on to the next. Maybe that was how she could afford those Kate Spade heels (for women’s shoes he did know) and custom-tailored clothing.