Management Skills
Authors: January Rowe
Management Skills
By January Rowe
When CEO Grant Edmonds meets with his new production manager, he immediately recognizes her as Silver, an exotic dancer who once mesmerized him at an exclusive fetish club. Though he was forbidden from pursuing her back then, there’s nothing standing in his way now. He’s not looking for an after-hours fling—he wants to own her. In every way.
As much as Allie Fairfax tries to deny her past, and the way her body responds to Grant, she soon finds herself having mind-blowing sex with the boss. Despite her own desire to surrender to Grant’s sexual authority, she’s not willing to risk her career. After all, she’s been owned before, and it ended badly.
It’s all or nothing for Grant. If Allie wants more of the fiercest orgasms she’s ever experienced, she must consent to his rules…
Dear Reader,
A new year always brings with it a sense of expectation and promise (and maybe a vague sense of guilt). Expectation because we don’t know what the year will bring exactly, but promise because we always hope it will be good things. The guilt is due to all of the New Year’s resolutions we make with such good intentions.
This year, Carina Press is making a New Year’s resolution we know we won’t have any reason to feel guilty about: we’re going to bring our readers a year of fantastic editorial and diverse genre content. So far, our plans for 2011 include staff and author appearances at reader-focused conferences such as the RT Booklovers Convention in April, where we’ll be offering up goodies, appearing on panels, giving workshops and hosting a few fun activities for readers. We’re also cooking up several genre-specific release weeks, during which we’ll highlight individual genres. So far we have plans for steampunk week and unusual fantasy week. Readers will have access to free reads, discounts, contests and more as part of our week-long promotions!
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To Tony and Charles, the men in my life.
I thank the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers group for their encouragement and support all those years ago. From RMFW I learned professionalism. I am grateful to my old critique partner Elizabeth Stevens for her delicacy and analysis. She taught me to be a better romance writer. I am indebted to my editor Deborah Nemeth for her trust and expertise. She turned me into an erotica author.
Grant sat alone at the best table in the house, directly in front of the stage, nervous as hell. It was opening night of the newest Vault production. The club’s gothic architecture afforded perfect acoustics. No expense had been spared in the costumes, the scenery, the tech. But something could still go wrong. The show was the most complicated piece of stagecraft Grant had ever designed.
The house lights dimmed. Members of the exclusive fetish club waited, along with Grant, for the spectacle to begin. Out of the darkness, a shimmering balloonlike spaceship drifted down to the stage floor. Music throbbed with tension.
Grant scribbled notes on a pad of paper.
Follow spot, too hard-edged. Smoke effects, synchronized. Electrics, a bit sharp. Sound, balanced.
The occupants of the spaceship, a dozen astronauts in reflective-armor costumes, strode out. Each astronaut wore a different color. The overall effect was dazzling. The stage lightning slowly illuminated the background, a planet of twisted trees. Next a series of spots lit the denizens of the planet. Primitive creatures, all men. The music swelled. The giant men, wearing nothing but crude breach clouts and carrying large sticks, stalked the astronauts.
The astronauts were prey.
Grant continued taking notes. What to tweak, what to outright change, what to throw out.
Waving their sticks, the nearly naked giants confronted the astronauts. The audience gasped. Would the brutes kill the elegant metallic visitors?
The two sides, the brutes and astronauts, engaged in a violent, wild dance. Music throbbed. Color exploded all around. Grant took more notes.
Mechanical color scrollers, good. Dance boom light levels, too low. Overhead shutter, pulled in too far.
The dance grew even more frenzied. The giants roughly stripped the protective armor from the astronauts. But it wasn’t war. It was seduction. The astronauts were women, now nearly naked. The club patrons collectively drew in a stunned breath.
The brutes and women paired off. Some willingly, some not. They engaged in fierce, stylized couplings. Crazy artificial lightning effects, created by media and the gobos, strobed the stage. Electricity sizzled. Drums thumped.
The dance, the stagecraft, the music, evoked sex and fury.
The spectacle was beautiful.
The illumination changed, slowly. The light irised in on one silver-armored astronaut, whole and proud. She stood in the center of the stage. Her costumed body was brilliant, otherworldly. A huge, half-naked brute surged toward her with his stick. Suddenly the stage lights dimmed to darkness. Blackout. The house lights came up. It was intermission.
The audience sighed.
A cocktail waitress in a skintight black leather dominatrix costume slithered toward his table. “Would you like something to drink, Sir?”
The waitress was a sweet little thing with rosebud lips and wide blue eyes. Her youth and eagerness didn’t jive with her fetishwear.
“Thanks. I’ll take a scotch. Neat.”
He nursed his scotch during the rest of the intermission, reviewing his notes. On the whole, it was going well. He hoped the owner of the Vault would be as happy.
The house lights dimmed again.
The armored astronaut, so striking in silver, stood with the half-naked giant in a pool of light. She was fearless. Suddenly, with an eruption of sound and radiance, she ran from him. The brute followed.
Grant studied the drama, scribbling notes without taking his eyes off the stage. The lighting design for the chase sequence was crazy, complex and audacious. And flawed. Damn.
The savage caught the silver-hued invader at her waist. He tore off her protection, leaving her bare. Only the flimsiest silver threads covered her body. The audience stopped breathing for a moment. Light showered onto the couple. The music pumped, violent and arousing. The nearly naked astronaut writhed in the man’s massive arms. An extraordinary dancer, she emoted such distress. Her voluptuous body was a wonder. Soft, bouncing breasts. Luscious womanly hips. The giant stood still, impossibly tall and muscular, cruelly imprisoning her with his bulk.
The audience panted with anticipation. Would she submit to him? Would they consummate? Would the resulting lightnings singe them all?
Grant stopped taking notes, mesmerized by the captive’s movements. He was close enough to see her expression of anguish, the texture of her skin. He even spotted a tiny tattoo on her lush, rounded ass. An angel? A fairy?
She swung around the unmoving giant’s body as if the man were a stripper pole. It was an amazing sight. Finally, holding on to her captor’s thick arms, she arched back, her glorious body open to him. Her expression was now one of utter rapture. The brute jerked her body up, slamming her into his huge chest. The drum rhythm beat in time to their undulating bodies. Lightning bolts spit and hissed around them.
It was a long, long climax.
Then came the finale. The rest of the cast swirled out onto the stage, joining the new couple in a joyous dance. It was a celebration of the union between man and woman.
The afterglow choreography was complex, but the stagecraft—Grant’s responsibility—was simple.
Grant returned to observe the show several more times, sitting alone at the same table, taking notes, to fine-tune the tech. He paid special attention to the enthralling creature in shreds of silver. What kind of girl was she underneath that pulsating sexuality?
He asked Sterling, the owner of the fetish club, to introduce them.
Sterling refused. “No fraternization between cast and patrons.”
“I’m not a patron,” Grant said. “I’m your friend. Who just busted his butt to create the tech for your extravaganza.”
Sterling, normally a controlled and dignified man, chuckled.
“Come on. At least tell me her name.”
“Not even her name. You’d hunt her down.”
“Ouch,” Grant said.
“This girl’s not a slut. But if I ever found out she even met you for coffee, I’d fire her. Vault rules. I don’t employ hookers. Back off, Grant. She’s not a trust-fund baby like you. She needs this job. She’s got big college plans she deserves to pursue.”
Grant went back to watch the show one last time. He’d never forget how the luscious woman, wearing insubstantial ribbons of silver, stared straight at him as she writhed in ecstasy.
It was an invitation he couldn’t accept.
Allie bounced down the hall toward her new office. Even her heavy briefcase failed to anchor her. It was her first day at Synthos Systems Group. SSG was full of brilliant visionaries inventing the astonishing mechanics and media for the live spectacle. And she would be one of those stage wizards.
She’d loved her last job in entertainment technology. She’d programmed at Doering and Sons, making sure the wash lighting didn’t overpower the scenery lighting, devising projections and video wall animation. But never once did she get to see the cutting-edge effects she helped to create. Now she would. As a production manager and chief lighting designer at SSG, she’d get to work on her own show, on-site. Vegas. Broadway. Stadiums. All hers to play with.
Joy bubbled through her.
Her friend Pilar had encouraged her to apply for the job. Pilar was a machinist at SSG. Right after she claimed her office, Allie was going to meet Pilar in the vending machine room in Building C for a celebratory microwave popcorn. Allie paused at her office door. It had a brass plaque with her name on it.
Allison Fairfax, Production Manager.
She stood there, transfixed by the elegant nameplate. SSG was so classy. Would she fit in? Biting her lower lip, she smoothed down her fine, short blond hair. With minimal makeup, small pearl earrings, a blue heather wool blazer skimming her ample curves, a navy wool skirt to her knees, she looked cultured enough. Even her scent was subdued and professional. She’d decided early on in her entertainment technology career she would dress up to the position she wanted.
She’d arrived. She was in the big leagues.
Someone was striding down the corridor toward her. Even dressed down in a long-sleeved chambray shirt and jeans, he held power in his carriage. He was probably somebody important in SSG. Another production manager, maybe. He approached closer. Very handsome. Tanned, chiseled features, unusual purple eyes. His eye color was probably an odd trick of the corridor’s fluorescent light. Had to be. The last time she even heard about someone having purple eyes was ages ago.
He stopped to greet her. “I’m Grant Edmonds. You must be our new production manager. Welcome to SSG.”
Yes. Grant Edmonds. The CEO.
He gripped her hand with gentle strength. At his touch, her ovaries hummed and spit like a capacitor about to discharge. How could some stranger do this to her?
“Thanks,” she managed, corking a moan. “I’m excited to be here.”
He unclasped her hand. “Well, we’re delighted to have you. Dave Goldberg tells me SSG was lucky to lure you away from Doering and Sons.”
His deep-set dark eyes glided over her face. An inexplicable smile of affection and recognition edged his lips.
“Silver?” His tone was proprietary.
She hadn’t heard that name for at least five years. She swallowed, distressed. She had to convince him he was wrong. She
wasn’t
that girl.
“Um, no, I’m Allie Fairfax.”
His smile notched down to courteous. His eyes flicked up to her door. “Of course. Like the nameplate says. I look forward to working with you, Ms. Fairfax.”
She took an embarrassed, anxious breath. With a nod, he continued down the corridor, away from her.
She didn’t bother to open her office door. With a shiver of panic, she hurried out of Building A. She had a horrible foreboding she hadn’t fooled Grant at all. He’d recognized her—and noticed her lust.
Damn. Why did the CEO of Synthos Systems Group have to be
him?
Allie headed over to Building C in the crisp November air. The SSG campus was so pretty. Manicured green grass surrounded a cluster of low-slung silver glass-and-steel buildings. She wanted to stay.
Being a production manager was about so much more than money or prestige. It wasn’t even about the glamour and creativity of designing a show for a famous rock band or for the Olympics or for a Vegas superstar. It was about contacts, about networking, about her very future. Synthos Systems Group was famous for its culture of support. Continuing education classes and professional conferences were the norm for managers. Sometimes, after a few years of nurturing, managers went out on their own, building successful entertainment technology companies. SSG was thrilled and even proud—competition fostered evolution.
She hoped Pilar would be early for once.
About a dozen people milled about the vending machine room. No Pilar. Allie bought herself a bag of microwave popcorn and nuked it. Finding an empty table, she sat down with her popcorn.
How could Grant Edmonds have recognized her? Was it her body? Or the way she moved? She’d used both to earn a living before she decided to shift gears and get a degree. She’d been a member of the cast at the Vault, a high-class bondage club in LA. Although her silver metallic costume fell off in chunks during the sexual spectacle, she wasn’t a stripper. Meaning she didn’t strip off her own clothing. Her dance partner Jake, six feet five inches of hunkaliciousness—and completely gay—did that chore.
She didn’t regret her nights at the Vault. Oh, how she would tease and display her body. She enjoyed being adored, lusted after, dreamed about. But she, like every other member of the cast, was off-limits to club patrons. That was fine by her. There was only one patron she ever wanted to get to know—the mysterious man in the black coat. Performance after performance, he sat in the center front VIP table, alone, watching her and only her. Studying, not drooling. He was regal, removed somehow, superior, taking notes on a pad of paper. She assumed he was a reporter. He only drank one drink.
Sometimes she pretended the man in the black coat had her imprisoned and bound, not her dance partner. The fantasy of being dominated by the man in the black coat had made her writhing drama more fun and realistic, until Jake had told her to stop moaning aloud.
Allie opened the popcorn bag and munched, distracted by recollections of her past life, once so full of sensational pleasures and exhibitionist delight. She was never loose. She was never a slut. She’d had only two relationships in her life. Both long-term and one of them full-on kinky. Now all she had was an occasional erotic dream. The dreams bothered her, but what could she expect? She hadn’t had sex for sixteen months and five days. Her choice.
After a while the man in the black coat had stopped coming to the Vault. Maybe he’d gotten the story he’d come for. Allie asked Celeste, the waitress who normally served him that one drink, what she knew about the VIP mystery man. They could have both been fired for that conversation, but Celeste told Allie he smelled of woods—and money. He tipped like a billionaire. He always drank scotch, neat. He was good friends with Sterling, the owner of the Vault. He was handsome and built.
And Celeste had told Allie the mystery man had the most amazing purple eyes.
Allie shivered. The CEO of SSG had to be the mystery man in the black coat. What were the chances?
Pilar flew into the room. She was a Hispanic hottie with gorgeous milk-chocolate skin. Hair like pink straw framed her round face. Today she wore an eccentric combo of a sheer, frilly pink blouse with billowing pirate sleeves and a short pleather skirt. A heavy silver belt completed her look. She was a super-competent SSG machinist, but she dressed as if she seriously wanted to catch herself on fire.
Pilar headed for her table. She always smelled like sugar and vanilla.
“Sorry, I had to—” Pilar stopped and stared at Allie. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s wrong?”
Allie shrugged. “I just saw my past.”
“Okay.” Pilar sat at the table and waited for her to elaborate.
Maybe Pilar could help her with her fears, maybe convince her she was overreacting. “I have a little bit of a past with my boss.”
Pilar’s black eyes grew wide. “What boss?”
“Stop yelling, Pilar,” Allie hissed. She flicked a worried glance about the room. Most of the workers appeared glazed and tired, not that interested in their conversation. “
The
boss.”
“Huh?
The
boss? Who is
the
boss? Cut the cryptology, girlfriend. Who are you talking about?”
“I have a history with Grant,” Allie whispered. “The CEO.”
“Wow. Oh, wow.” Pilar licked her voluptuous lips, painted the same pink as her hair. “A history with Grant? I’d like a
present
with him.”
“Thanks. That’s helpful.”
“Sorry. It’s just that when I feel those black velvet eyes on me, I turn into a volcano about to erupt.”
“They’re purple.”
Pilar blinked her green-shadowed eyes. “What’s purple?”
“His eyes,” Allie said.
“Nobody has purple eyes.”
“Liz Taylor does. Or not. Liz’s eyes are violet, I guess. Anyway, can we get back to my problem?”
Pilar studied her hot pink sparkle nails. “Yeah. Sure. What is the problem? You slept with a gorgeous man?”
“I never slept with him. The problem is that he recognized me. I used to be an exotic dancer, Pilar. He must have designed the tech for the show I was in. He remembers me. I remember him.”
“So?”
“People think exotic dancers are sluts. And if he thinks I’m a slut, I’m screwed. I’m supposed to be the total professional. This job, my career, means everything to me.”
“Obviously,” Pilar said. “You dress like a nun. And you work harder than an ox. That’s why you got the job.”
“I do not dress like a nun,” Allie said. “And anyway, Grant could still fire me.”
Pilar raised her thin, shapely brows. “For what? For once being an exotic dancer? He was the one watching you. You’re making a big deal out of nothing.” She shook her head. “Whatever you did, he did it with you. Who is he to judge?”
“Who
is
he? He’s the boss. He’s a man. Ever heard about the double standard? A man can indulge in anything, but not a woman?”
“Look, Allie, what makes you think Grant remembers you?”
“Because he does. He called me Silver. Silver was sort of my stage name.”
“You’re psyching yourself out,” Pilar said, shrugging. “So what if Grant thinks he recognizes you? Deny it. He can’t prove anything. Keep on insisting you’re not Silver and he’ll back off. He’ll have to. Otherwise it’s sexual harassment. So, let’s forget about this unbelievably gorgeous guy for a while and you start telling me about your new job.”
Allie described all the perks and possibilities of being a production manager. She told Pilar about the fancy nameplate on her door. A feeling of doom still settled into her stomach. Even if Grant backed off, what was she going to do with her unexpected and massive attraction to him?