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She actually stomped her foot. 'You can't fire me. I'm the last friend you've got.'

'Excuse me?' I willed the telltale
colour
from of my cheeks, but Marianne saw it anyway. She tapped the paddle against her chin.

'Well, really, Kate. Who's come visiting since Tom ran out on you? Oh, forgive me, I'm forgetting your buddies here at work - your close, personal employees. Or do you want to count your little housemates as friends?' A mocking smile curved her scarlet lips. 'Trust me, as soon as the next kinky adventure rolls around, they'll be history. They're nothing but a pair of
cocksuckers
.'

I don't know what laughing devil whispered in my ear, but the riposte came effortlessly. Tm a cocksucker myself,' I said calmly. 'So I hardly count that an insult.'

My choice of words seemed to rob Marianne of hers. They also sent
Desi
over the edge.

'Oh, no,' he whimpered. He jerked so hard at his bonds the end of my desk lurched forward. Tm going to come, mistress. I can't hold back.'

'No!' Marianne smacked his shoulder back and forth with her paddle. ‘I forbid you to come!'

But his cock darkened defiantly, the veins bulging, the shaft pounding like a rabbit's heart. The tiny slit in the head fluttered, desperate to eject its load. '
Agh
,
agh
,
agh
,' he grunted, screwing his eyes shut.

A second later they opened and focused on mine, sharp as lasers. I couldn't look away. Mistress, he mouthed, sending a dark thrill to my core. Then he blasted off. His hips humped the air as streams of semen shot from his cock like water from a pressure hose. His seed spattered the floor boards from his knees to the opposite desk. I'd never seen anything like it.

All the while, Marianne rained blows on his shoulders back, damning him to hell for coming without her permission. Impervious to her fury, Desmond held me prisoner with his hot, knowing stare. My hands shook; my vagina fluttered and wept. I knew what he was telling me: that Marianne and I weren't so different, that I got off on this
dom
stuff, too.

Tell me something I don't know, I thought. But the knowledge ran a little deeper now. Now I'd have to consider what it meant. I released my tension with a long, slow breath. 'I want you out before we open for business today,’ I said once Marianne stopped swatting her rebellious slave.

She shook her head at me, off balance, but trying to hide it. 'You'll be sorry, Kate.'

'I already am,’ I said, and tossed an empty book carton on to her desk.

The last thing I heard before I pulled the outer door shut was Marianne yelling for
Desi
to lick his
jism
off the floor.

Still fuming and shaken, I strode down

I hadn't known she resented me enough to strike at me through Joe. Her plan, flimsy though it was, had the potential to both rob me of his company and punish him for rejecting her - two birds with one stone. Except the plot had backfired. At the last minute, her instrument of revenge had developed cold feet. Chances were, she'd blame me for that, too.

Marianne never did get what she wanted.

Desmond
Gerrard
caught up to me four streets from the shop. I spun around to face him. 'What?' I demanded, more interested in walking off my anger than in anything he had to say.

'Please wait,’ he said, then leant on his knees and panted. His breath puffed white in the mid-December air. He'd pulled his business clothes over his slave get-up, obviously in haste. The studded leather choker showed behind his half-buttoned collar. This reminder of what I'd just seen - and felt - unnerved me.

I wanted to leave, but my awareness of all he could do to harm Joe's career stopped me.

'I know how that looked back there,’ he said, once he'd caught his breath.

I waited. He sighed, sounding more like a weary businessman than a slave.

‘I admit, my hobby means a great deal to me, but my professional reputation isn't for sale. Not even to a -' his fingers searched the air for a word '-a paragon like Marianne.'

Some paragon! And some ethics. He'd had no problem going along with her plan before he saw Joe perform. I ground my molars rather than say this out loud, but my disapproval must have showed.
Desi
tugged his overcoat closed and buttoned it. The slave collar disappeared. His dignity had cracked, but not so deeply he couldn't pull it back together.

'Your friend is genuinely talented,’ he said. ‘I honestly believe I could help him get a solid start.'

'Why should I trust you?'

His thumb jabbed his chest. 'I'm Desmond
Gerrard
. My word is my bond.' My
sceptical
snort made him wince. 'All right, my word isn't always my bond. But I prefer it to be so, and I feel badly about what I almost did. I'd like to make amends.'

‘I'm not going to blab about this to anyone, if that's what you're afraid of.' I shoved my hands into my pockets to hide my fists. 'I don't care what you and Marianne do in private. I just don't want Joe hurt.'

Desmond's eyes glittered. 'He's lucky to have a friend like you.'

'Don't try to charm me,’ I snapped, my voice sharpened by my fear of how easily he could do it.

Desmond chuckled. 'Heaven forbid, Mistress Winthrop.'

I glared at him.

He shrugged philosophically. 'Sorry, dear. Wishful thinking. But if you ever consider getting into the scene ... No? Well, can't blame a fellow for asking.' He reached inside his coat to remove a business card. He held it out until I took it. 'Have Joe call me,’ he said, 'and if you're concerned about my principles, feel free to tell him everything you discovered this morning. That way he can make an informed decision.'

I flipped the card against my fingers, sensing a gamble in his words. He was betting I'd keep mum because I wouldn't want Joe to doubt he'd truly earned the admiration of a bigwig like Desmond
Gerrard
.

Damn thing was, the bastard was right.

'I'll think about it,’ I said.

He was smiling when I turned away.

'I'll fill in for Marianne,' Sean said. Wearing nothing but a pair of snug white briefs, he propped his shoulder against the frame of the open bathroom door. He appeared completely serious. When I failed to respond, he crossed his arms. His biceps swelled. Under the bright overhead light, the hair on his forearms glinted like gold dust, a light gilding that also bisected the muscular plane of his belly. My gaze trailed to the contents of his briefs, quiescent now but heavy.

This was not the best place to fix my attention if I wanted to gather my wits.

Nor did it help that I was naked. Fresh from the shower, I had one leg propped on the toilet cover so I could rub cream into my leg. Sean had seen me unclothed before. To cover up would have insulted him. It shouldn't have made any difference that Joe was staying the night in
New York
, that we were alone, or that Sean had just made an offer so generous it took my breath away.

Conscious of his gaze but trying not to show it, I squirted a line of
moisturiser
down my shin.

'You know,’ he said. 'You should think seriously about opening a second shop.'

I looked at him sideways. He fiddled with the end of the towel rail. Did he feel it, too - the sense of forbidden intimacy? The only rule we'd ever made was that none of us step outside the trio. But if Sean and I didn't feel guilty, why did Joe's absence make us edgy? Why didn't we jump on each other the way we would have if he were home?

'You've paid off the mortgage on this house, haven't you?' he pressed, ignoring the heightened tension.

'Yes.'

'And the

'Almost. But how did you know?'

He brushed the hand towel against its nap. 'I ran into your sales assistant, Keith, at the Campus India restaurant last week. We had a nice chat over our curry. He's hoping you'll keep him on full-time after he graduates, but I'm thinking a bright kid like that ought to have a shop to run by himself.'

I smiled at Sean's reference to Keith as a kid, but he hadn't finished making pronouncements yet.

'Another thing - your mail order business is getting too big for you to handle. You've either got to farm it out to a jobber or grow it big enough to make it worth the hassle. Buy ad space in a few women's magazines or, better still, establish a presence on the Internet.'

I tilted my head to the side. 'Congratulations, Sean, you've finally told me something that hadn't already occurred to me.'

He had the decency to flush. 'I guess I sounded cocky.'

'A bit.'

He grinned at the hem of the towel, then met my sardonic gaze. 'I am right,' he said, 'and I'd be happy to prove it to you.'

I shook my head and resumed creaming my leg. 'I can't ask you to help me. Between working for the lawyers and school, you've got enough on your plate.'

'I can handle it,' he said. His eyes followed my hands down my calf. 'Once the accounts software is installed, the computer does most of the work. Anyway, I know

Marianne's type. She'll take ten hours to do what ought to take one and then gripe about being too busy.'

The
moisturiser
bottle let out a startled blat, as though impressed by his insight. Marianne used to complain about her workload all the time. Sean had met her twice in his life. Why had he sniffed out her tricks when I hadn't?

'Don't you trust me to do a good job?' he said.

That brought my head up. 'Of course I do.'

"Then you don't want to owe me.' The words were flat, a bald statement of fact. He rubbed his thumb up the meeting of his ribs, the only indication that I'd hurt his feelings. My throat tightened.

He was right. I didn't want to owe him. To me, debts meant dependence and dependence meant vulnerability. I didn't want to owe anyone. Never mind that was already too late to avoid. Sean and Joe had given me more than I could ever repay: they'd given me back my confidence.

So why don't you act like it? I asked myself.

Unable to answer, I switched legs and started on my second foot. The position bared the outer curves of my sex, now pink and clean and fragrant. I wasn't trying to be seductive, but before I could work past the ankle, Sean plucked my foot off the lid and scooted on to the seat himself. When he set my sole on his hairy thigh, a carnal shock streaked towards my sex.

'I'll take care of this,' he said, and tugged the bottle of
moisturiser
from my nerveless fingers.

He squeezed a cool line up the length of my leg and massaged it into my skin with long, voluptuous strokes. His cock stretched as he worked, becoming a bold silhouette beneath his briefs. It might have belonged to a different person for all the attention he paid it. He murmured a compliment for my shaving job. I guess he thought that ankle-to-groin sweep was for his benefit -and maybe it was. I grimaced at the private admission, but didn't pull away, not even when his lips brushed my kneecap. The ghost kiss set off sparks in my clit, making

it swell and pulse within its warm, plump trap. His circling hands climbed my left thigh. One finger teased the edge of my towel-fluffed pubic hair.

I knew it wasn't an accident, especially when he wound a crisp auburn curl around his pinkie and tugged my labia apart. I couldn't hide what he'd done to me, what the whole evening had done to me. His middle finger stroked my frilled inner lips, slipping easily along the arousal-slicked channel.

'See what a good employee I'd be.' He cruised round the crucial delta and tickled the other side. 'I'm so good at anticipating your needs.'

'Well.' My voice came out an octave higher than normal. 'I'd appreciate your help - but only until I can find someone permanent.'

'Hire someone to input data,’ he said. With an abruptness that startled, he set my foot on the floor and began rubbing
moisturiser
up my belly. 'I can handle the rest in no time. I'll even train the person.'

His creamy palms slid over my breasts. He splayed his fingers and pressed my bosom back against my ribs. My resistance weakened. I shifted my hands to his shoulders and inclined my body into the delicious pressure. 'You really want to work with me? Even though you know I can't pay what the lawyers do?'

'Of course, I do. Mostly Romance is a great shop. You've got satisfied customers, happy employees, and all the coffee they can drink. What more could a number-cruncher want?'