Time to Control

Time to Control

By

Marie Pinkerton

©2013 by Blushing Books® and
Marie Pinkerton

Copyright © 2013 by Blushing
Books® and Marie Pinkerton

All rights reserved. No part of
the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published by Blushing Books®,

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Pinkerton, Marie

Time to Control

eBook ISBN: 978-1-62750-098-2

Cover Design by Korey Mae Johnson

This
book is intended for
adults only
. Spanking and other sexual activities
represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in
this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating
any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.

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Marie
Pinkerton

“Romance…
with a hint of kink”

Visit
her website here:

http://mariepinkerton.com

Follow
her on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/HintOfKink

What
readers are saying about her first book, “The Errant Bride”

Very
very good story with wonderful characters that you really fall in love with.
Wish it had been longer but hopefully we will see more of this couple in a
sequel in the future,.

An
absolutely delightful story. Every marriage should be so lucky to begin this
way. Abbey and Mark are lighthearted people quickly falling in love and not
fighting it too hard. I so thoroughly enjoyed my time with story. It's
definitely a feel good experience.

Very
cute story about a couple of strangers that end up married by sneakery from her
friend. Both have strong feelings about marriage and find each other
attractive, so they decide to get to know each before making a permanent decision
about the marriage. Along the way, they also discover they both enjoy spanking.
Nice read.

Ranked
#23 in the Top 50 Best Selling Stories at Blushing Books over the last 30 days!

Chapter One

I was married five hundred years
ago to the man I met on Thursday.
 
It has made for an interesting start to a relationship.

My company was being bought out,
and my boss needed me to fly to New York and meet with the technical consultant
hired by the acquiring organization.
 
When I asked why me, Alan said I was the only tech person in the office
that he could dress up and show off.
 
He didn't mean it in a sexist manner, I don't think, just as a statement
of facts.
 
The men in the office
never left their programming cave, and had the pasty white skin and dour
expressions from living in the dark for so long.
 
Not to mention their interpersonal
skills rivaled those of said caveman.

To an extent, I was like them;
tanning via LCD monitors doesn't work very well, so I was also pale.
 
I like to think that my complexion and
dark hair are more Bebe Neuwirth than GothGirl.
 
Give me a flattering skirt and I'll
rouge my knees and get along quite well in polite company.
 
Forks don't confuse me, and I can make
small talk with the best of them.

So my overnight bags were packed
with the most professional clothes I owned, my laptop, and several reams of
printed out source code.
 
I wasn't
happy about the latter, more for security reasons than the death of additional
trees.
 
But the boss says print, and
I print, especially since I get to go to NYC as a single woman on the town for
the first time.

Spring storms had delayed my
departure Wednesday night, so instead of getting into town at ten, it was the
ripe hour of five am.
 
I barely had
enough time to shower and change at the hotel before going to the firm's office
building for an eight o'clock meeting.
 
Thank God for the Starbucks around the corner.
 
If there was ever a day to get an extra
shot of espresso, this was it.
 
I
wasn't the biggest fan of coffee; I generally preferred my caffeine cold, but
there were times paying the four bucks was necessary.

Miriam, the secretary for the man I
was meeting, let me tap into Nash Equity's wireless network so I could do some
work while waiting.
 
Good thing,
too, because the office behind her was still empty at ten after eight.
 
Every ding of the elevator got my
attention, and I would look up to see a group of consultants getting off
laughing with each other, heading to their respective offices and cubes.
 
With what Alan told me the consultants
were making from our acquisition, I'd be smiling and laughing too, all the way
to the bank.
 
Enough so, you'd
think, that Edward Valenti-Kirby would be on time.

At eight forty-five a lanky, good
looking, black haired man in his early thirties stalked past Miriam with his
hands full of briefcase and coffee.
 
He grunted at her, and my jaw dropped in surprise.
 
I was expecting Mr. Valenti-Kirby to be
my parents age, stuffy, and, well, balding and overweight.
 
I wasn't expecting to want to see how he
looked underneath the expensive suit.
 
Sure, the Armani looked custom-tailored to his broad shoulders and trim
waist.
  
But what exactly was below
that led to that amazing lay of the fabric on his backside?
 
Mr. Valenti-Kirby slammed the door
behind him using the heel of his foot, shutting off my view of his rear.
 
I winced at Miriam.

"That's him?"

"Yes, poor dear.
 
The New York News list came out today,
and it has rather upset him."
 
I nodded in faked understanding, then went off to Google what was wrong.

What was 'wrong' was that Mr.
Valenti-Kirby had made the top ten eligible bachelors in New York City.
 
Huh.
 
Sucks to be him.

"Send her in," he shouted
through the door.

Sucks to be me.

I slid my laptop back into the
faux-leather case and gave Miriam a shaky smile as I passed her.

"You'll be fine," she
whispered, giving my arm a squeeze with her strong typing fingers.

"Good morning, sir, I'm Schroeder
Kelly."
 
I shook his
outstretched hand, and was pleased to see a slight grin cock one side of his
mouth.
 
"Go right ahead, I know
it's tempting."

"Did you bring your piano with
you?"

"I have a piano app on my
iPhone, if that counts."

"Good enough."
 
A smile stretched across his face,
showing adorable dimples and deep laugh lines around his eyes.
 
I imagined kissing them -- whoa, where
did that come from?
 
Be
professional, Schroeder.

Flustered, I took a seat across
from him, and started pulling documents out of my case.

“You had a pleasant flight in, I
trust?” He asked, making small talk as I prepared my presentation.

My eyes wavered and betrayed me
– he looked at me curiously.
 
It was just an innocent question; why did I have to be so transparent
around cute guys?
 
“It wasn't
great,” I admitted.

“No?” He sounded surprised.
 

My honesty seemed to shake him out
of the foul mood he arrived in, and I really wanted to see him more relaxed, so
I explained, against my own better judgment.
 
“Storm delays. Weather this time of year
in Dallas is terrible – you heard of the tornadoes a few weeks ago,
right?
 
We have a line of severe
thunderstorms come through at least once a week.
 
There was fair sized hail last night,
and ended up with a bunch of canceled flights, including mine.
 
I didn't get into the City until five
this morning.”

“Would you like to come back later
today?
 
Rest a bit?”
Politeness?
 
Consideration?
 
That was the last thing I expected my technical
consultant to offer.
 
Alan had led
me to believe Mr. Valenti-Kirby wouldn't care less about my personal feelings,
that I'd be more apt to be raked over the coals if it was known I was
tired.
 
Heaven knew Alan did that to
me, looking for weakness.
 
And
Valenti-Kirby would be searching for where we were lacking on the due
diligence.

“No.
 
Thank you, though,” I responded
quickly.
 
“Now, Alan said you wanted
to go over the resumes of the technical personnel.
 
I have them all with me, and can give
you details of what exactly their roles at the company are.
 
Let's begin with Alan...”

* * *

“Why did I tell him the flight
stunk?” I bemoaned to the mirror image in the restroom two hours later.
 
“Alan told me to be honest about the
business, but that didn't mean I had to tell everything about everything
else.”
 
Yes it did
, my
conscience told me.
 
You don't
like lying.
 
And now hopefully he'll
keep in consideration that you're exhausted, and give you a pass on anything he
might have grilled you on previously
.
 
I took a deep breath, pasted a professional smile back on my face, and
headed back into the office.

In my absence, Mr. Valenti-Kirby
had taken his jacket off and moved to the couch.
 
Papers were laid out on the coffee table
in front of him, and I automatically went to join him on the matte brown
leather.

“That's what Kinerian is
buying.
 
That's my team's work for
the last five years, and what has made Innovative Design, Inc. a multi-million
dollar company while so many other online companies are going under.”
 
I reached out and grabbed a small stack
of code.
 
“This is one of the
supporting applications that Gavin wrote.”
 
I proceeded to outline what the code was doing, trying not to notice how
warm his knee was where it touched my thigh.

Going through Gavin's code alone
took an hour.
 
Mr. Valenti-Kirby
looked at his watch (an expensive Tag-Heuer) and frowned at the papers. I
didn't think I could handle having that intense look at me, so I was glad it
was the code and not me getting his ire back up.
  
“This is going to take more time
than I have allotted.
 
Tell you what,
leave these with me, and come back at four. I'll have any questions prepared
for you, and then you can give me the next song and dance your bosses wanted
you to do.”

I froze.
 
“Sir?”

“You know it and I know it,” he
said bluntly.
 
“It's all a
game.
 
My job is just to referee
it.
 
And stop calling me sir.”

“As you wish, Mr.
Valenti-Kirby.”
 
Where the hell did
I go wrong?
 
I mentally reviewed
everything I had told him, and couldn't figure out where I misstepped.
 
It was code, for crying out loud.
 
This guy supposedly had programming
knowledge, and wanted to go over the details.
 
If I was boring him, it was his own
fault.
 
He seemed interested in what
I was saying, though.
 
Or at least,
interested in watching me talk.
 
Maybe he should have paid more attention to the code than to me.
 
Alan was going to kill me if this went
south. Fire me at least.
 
I gathered
my laptop, leaving the rest of the papers with him.
 
“See you this afternoon.”

As much as I wanted to see the
town, what I wanted most at this point was a few hours of sleep.
 
After scarfing down a quick hot dog from
a food cart, I headed back to the hotel.
 
The Econo Lodge in downtown Manhattan was a step up from Econo Lodge's
along freeways, yet still in my company's price range.
 
IDI didn't get profitable by spending it
all on frivolous expenditures.
 
The
room was clean, and the bed was comfortable; that was all I needed.
 
I didn't care that the room was barely
bigger than the bed.
 
The
neighborhood was safe, Times Square was a few blocks in one direction, Nash
Equity equidistant the other, and that in and of itself was enough for me.

I returned promptly at four,
refreshed from my nap, and this time Mr. Valenti-Kirby was ready and
waiting.
 
“I don't understand why
Josh writes his code this way,” he started, and we were instantly back in shop
talk.

 
He had rolled his sleeves up at some
point in the afternoon, and I tried not to stare at the muscular forearms.
 
Good lord, was the rest of him like
that?

“I'm sorry, what was that?” I
blushed as he repeated his question.
 
My fair skin always made the blush more pronounced, and I flushed more
realizing he would notice my distraction.
 
I tucked a stray piece of hair behind an ear and tried to focus.

“Going out on the town tonight?”

“Working,” I answered, embarrassed
yet again to admit it.
 
“Finishing
off a new website so that it can launch tomorrow.”

“Can't Josh finish it off?”

Oh crap, now I stepped into
it.
 
I chose my words with
care.
 
“I've been the creative
talent behind the project so far, and I know what's left to be done.
 
I can finish it in a few hours tonight.”

“How long would it take him to
finish?” He asked pointedly.

“Josh is a great programmer--”

“I'm not debating that.
 
His job is not under question.
 
How long would he take?”

Damn honesty.
 
“Several days, most likely.
 
He'd have to review to figure out what
the scope of the project was, then see how far I got, then he could do the rest
of the code.”
 
Maybe
, I added
internally.

“And his code is drastically
different from yours,” Mr. Valenti-Kirby gestured at the coffee table.
 

“We have different
approaches.”
 
There, that was
smoothly spoken.

“And you're a quicker coder.”

“I have five more years of coding
experience, and four more years working at the company than Josh.
 
It's natural that I may have a better
feel for things at this point.”

“Face it,” he told me, tossing the
papers in his hand onto the table.
 
“You are the tech department.
 
I can see it in the code, and the fact that they sent you here.
 
Well?”

I had nothing to say in
response.
 
Yeah, he was right, but I
didn't think IDI would appreciate me saying so.
 
“Sir, I'm not sure--”

“You're fine.
 
No worries.
 
You can report back to your boss that
things are going well.
 
See you at
nine?”

I agreed, and fled.
 
For someone so cute when he smiled, and
nice when he tried to be, he was very intense.