The Hard Sell

by Wright,Lulu

  I don’t even want to think about how Mr. Hamilton is going to react when he reaches Basics and finds it covered in images of men wearing tiny scraps of cloth with pronounced bulges. If he disapproves, heads will roll.

  Likely mine will roll first.

  Frankly, it’s the worst possible time for me to be distracted. I need my head in the game right now, not lost over Lily.

  Lily, who is responsible for all these changes shaking up Basics.

  Lily, who knows exactly how to drive me from normal to insane in 0 seconds flat.

  Lily, who has not replied to any of the three follow-up texts I sent in response to her curt No.

  Lily, who I need to find. The sooner I can get this conversation over with, get her back on my side, the sooner I can focus again.

  It takes me until 6:15pm to find her. By that point, I’ve lost my chance at any alone time. She’s got a team of ten huddled around the Basics Department, ready to start the big overnight reorg in advance of tomorrow’s visit.

  I try to catch Lily’s eye, but she avoids my gaze as she shows the layout map to our beefiest stock guys. “We need to move this one first,” she’s explaining, pointing to her largest fixture in the front. “Be careful. It’s really heavy. Then we’ll start on the smaller pieces once that’s situated.”

  Annoying as it is not to be able to corner her alone, I do enjoy watching her boss all these buff men around. They probably bench 200 easily, and yet one word from little Miss Brook and they’re jumping over themselves to obey her.

  A small smirk grows on my mouth. At least I’m not the only one who reacts that way to her.

  In a matter of minutes, the overnight crew is a choreographed force filling Basics with new merchandise, propping up mannequins and sliding images into place. When the store closes at 8pm, the pace picks up and by midnight I can see the floor is pulling together. It’s not there yet, but it’s close. My exhausted team needs to take five.

  “Break time!” I shout over the floor. Lily shoots me a sideways glare, but this is still my store, after all. “Everyone back on the floor in thirty,” I order.

  The troops drop merchandise in place and scatter out of the department. Lily stubbornly continues working, dressing a butt form in a Flash Fit yellow jockstrap. She keeps her back turned to me when I approach her, even though she must know it’s me.

  “Lily. I said it’s break time.”

  “You aren’t my boss.” She continues dressing the form. I notice the jockstrap is the same one she once left me, though not the hot pink variety.

  “No. But I would like to talk to you.”

  She glances over her shoulder at me. Then her eyes dart around me, toward the rest of the floor. She confirms what I already know—we’re alone.

  “Fine.” She storms off without another word, clearly expecting me to follow. I practically jog after her to keep up.

  I can’t read her expression, but I follow her out to the main room and we duck into one of the temporary storage rooms for fixtures and visual displays pulled off the floor. The only light is from a dingy overhead bulb, so dim I can barely see her. My eyes adjust to the darkness and I step around scattered mannequins and hardware to get to her. I can read her expression now. She’s in the corner looking like a pissed off alley cat.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she hisses. She’s keeping her voice low. “I can’t believe how you treated me after we had sex. You practically threw me out of your apartment like so much garbage—”

  “I told you, my sister was visiting—she’s nosy as hell, I really mean it, Lily. She would have told the entire store what happened within hours of finding out.” Not strictly true, but she would have posted it enough public places that eventually word would trickle down to the whole of Hamilton’s.

  Lily frowns. “Even so, you could have explained that while you were throwing me out in your clothes, and leaving mine all over your floor in a heap. And then, your only texts after that were to tell me to come pick up my crap.”

  “I didn’t know what else to say.”

  “Maybe gee Lily, thanks for the hot fuck, had a great time, let’s do that again, literally anything else?” She scowls.

  I wince in response. “Look, Lily …” I try to catch her eye, but she stares at the floor stubbornly. I swallow hard. “I understand now why you’re upset with me. I come across cold sometimes, because I try to be efficient, practical about everything. But with you, I … it’s even worse, because …”

  This is going well, Jack, my inner sarcastic jerk comments. I’ve never been good with emotions, and right now when I need to explain them, the words seem to flee right out of my mouth.

  Even in the dim light, I can see a different emotion behind her anger now. I see pain in her eyes. Her lip trembles slightly, and if I didn’t know her better, I’d swear the corners of her eyes are glittering in the dim light. “Because you’re ashamed of me?” she asks, keeping her voice hard and sharp as always.

  The pain on her face hurts, actually physically hurts. I want nothing more than to wipe it away, to never let her feel that hurt again. “Of course not, Lily. Come here.” I hold my arms open to her. She pauses for a second, but steps up to me. Folding her into my arms, I kiss the top of her head, but I can feel her body is rigid. She needs me to say something definitive, but sensitive and I am better at one than the other. “No,” I say. “You are silly.”

  As cringe at my own words, she looks up at me and rolls her eyes. “That’s seriously the best you’ve got?”

  As I take a deep breath to buy myself time to think, I can hear the laughter of the overnight team above us, flooding back onto the floor. I put my lips to her ear and whisper. “I can’t be efficient or practical about you, because the way I feel about you is completely impractical. You could get into trouble with Brenda if anyone found out about us; Crystal is already taking out her insane misplaced anger on you, and I don’t want you to get hurt, and …” I bite down on my tongue. Dammit. I’ve done it again. Strayed right into the practicals. Also, good job Jack, remind her why she shouldn’t date you, right when you’re trying to woo her. Real smart.

  She looks up at me and I see her eyes are searching my face for something more and I desperately want to give that to her. “What do you want me to say, Lily? Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”

  She pulls out of my arms and leans against the wall. My skin feels cold where her warm body was just pressed against me. I want her back in my arms. I want to hold her tight and never let go.

  But she’s staring at me with her chin raised, defiant. “I want you to know how I felt when you asked me to leave. When the only thing you said as you threw me out was ‘that was

  fun’ …”

  “Well, but it was fun—”

  Her glare cuts me off mid-sentence. I clamp my mouth shut. “Sorry. I’m listening.”

  This is the right approach, apparently. Her body relaxes a little, and some of the anger dissipates from her glare. But she’s still glaring. Then she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. “I felt ashamed,” she says, her voice low. “I felt like the store playboy Jack Hammer tricked me into to sleeping with him, and now he was tossing me out like all the rest.”

  Playboy? Jack Hammer? I fight the urge to groan in frustration.

  This again. “Who have you been talking to?” I ask, too loudly. We both glance toward the door, which is only mostly closed. Luckily, no one seems to have overheard. “Who said that about me?”

  She shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me.”

  She folds her arm across her chest. “Everyone, Jack. Half the store. I’m not going to name names. I’m sure you know all about it well enough.”

  My frown deepens. “I dated three women when I first got here,” I finally say. “They all knew about each other. Nothing was serious. It was years ago, but apparently I’ve never dropped the reputation.”

  She studies her fingernails in a failed attempt at looking casual.
“So, it wasn’t a pump and dump?”

  “A wha …” I stare at her, open-mouthed. “Jesus, is that what you really thought?”

  “Was it?” She says this so softly I can hardly hear her.

  “I shake my head so hard it feels like it will come off my shoulders. “Of course not. I wouldn’t do that to you.” I can’t take it anymore. I cross the space between us and take her face in my hands, staring deep into her brown eyes. “No, Lily,” I whisper. “I’m sorry I am a complete idiot.” I press my forehead to hers; our eyes are open. Our lips hover inches apart. But I won’t kiss her until I know she’s forgiven me. “I’m sorry I hurt you. Tell me you forgive me.”

  Her eyes bore into mine. The hurt has started to melt out of them—I see that hot flash of desire in her gaze instead. It takes a long time, so long that my heart has nearly stopped beating, but at last, she whispers, “I forgive you.”

  I close the gap between us, crush her lips to mine in a long, slow kiss. Her body melts against me, and I wrap my arms around her waist, savoring the feeling of her soft curves pressed against my hard chest. I trace my hands along her sides, measuring her curves, running my hands up her back to cup the back of her neck and pull her closer to me, deepening our kiss. Our tongues intertwine, her breath hot on mine. She smells like perfume, something light and floral, and underneath that, a heady, dark scent that’s all her. Absolutely delicious.

  Her hands tangle in my hair, tight, tugging, and we collapse sideways against the wall. I turn to press her against it, already hard, and she thrusts her hips against mine, making all the blood rush straight to my cock.

  Fuck. I want her. I need her.

  I draw back just far enough to meet her eyes. She’s grinning at me, little minx. “How quiet do you think we can be?” she murmurs, her eyes darting to the door and back. It’s a thin door that doesn’t latch all the way. Our coworkers are out there right now, returning from break, getting back to work. They’ll notice us missing. Wonder where their bosses are.

  For the life of me, though, I don’t care. “I’m very discrete, Miss Brook.” I lift an eyebrow at her.

  In response, her hands drop to the clasp of my belt. “Let’s see about that,” she practically purrs.

  I push her yoga pants down, trapping her ankles with them. She’s just as fast, undoing my pants in record time. I step out of them, but she stops me with a smirk and a toying tug at my boxers.

  “Flash Fit, huh?” she lifts an eyebrow.

  “What can I say?” My eyes bore into hers. “You’ve got me addicted.”

  “Just what a good saleswoman should do.” She winks, and I can’t take it anymore.

  I push her undies down after her pants, and wrap my hand around her waist to spin her sideways. There’s a stack of boxes beside us, and I bend her backwards over them, face-up so I can enjoy every inch of her body, and catch her sexy eyes as she stares right back up at me.

  I run my hands over her breasts, keeping her shirt on, but toying with her nipples through it. She reaches down between us to shove off my boxers, and I spring free, already harder than I’ve ever felt in my life. Several days of constantly thinking about this moment will do that to a guy.

  She lifts her legs to wrap them around my waist, and it’s magnetic, the pull I feel toward her. I lean over her body to kiss her as I roll a condom from my pocket over myself. I trace her lower lips with two fingers, and find her already soaked, ready and waiting for me. I toy with her clit for a second, circling it with my fingers, but Lily is impatient.

  She grabs my shoulders and hauls me down over her. “Fuck me,” she commands, and who could disobey an order like that?

  I thrust into her in one smooth motion, and her back arches, her tits pressing into my hands. “God, Lily, you’re gorgeous.”

  There’s a sound outside the storage room, a light footstep, and we both freeze in place, silent.

  Be quiet, she mouths to me, her mouth a grin. Then she deliberately contracts around me, squeezing her pussy tight around my cock, and I have to bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from gasping.

  There’s still someone out there, walking around. It could be anyone; they could walk in at any moment.

  Too bad. Lily’s started to rock her hips against mine, gently, and I’m not about to let her have all the torturous fun.

  In dead silence, as best I can manage, I pull back and thrust into her again. Her eyes open wide, and her mouth forms a perfect little O of surprise. But she doesn’t let a sound escape.

  We both start to move now, thrusting against each other, and every time I plunge into her, it gets harder not to release a sound, to moan in desperation as I near my peak.

  She’s almost there too, her body twisting on the boxes, though she manages not to utter a noise aside from her gasping, hard breathing. Outside, the footsteps have gone, or at least I think they have. We’re both too far gone to notice anymore.

  I lift her up from the boxes with both hands wrapped around her ass. She tightens her legs around my waist, clinging to me, and I spin and lean her against the wall instead, thrusting into her harder at this angle.

  I reach down between us to stroke her clit, and she lets out a louder gasp than before. Without warning, she presses her face into my chest and bites down on my shirt. She desperately tries to stifle the moan that floods out of her as her pussy spasms around my cock and her orgasm hits.

  I keep thrusting into her, my own breath coming hard and fast now. Luckily, she’s a quick thinker. Just as I’m about to come, a moan building in my throat, she grabs my chin and pulls me into a hard kiss. I groan into her mouth, the sound muffled between us, and come hard inside her, my whole body shaking with the force of it.

  When we pull apart, we’re both panting, our eyes glazed with the force of our orgasms. I want to pull her back down on the box, spend the rest of the night here. Hell, I’d spend the rest of my life in this dark dingy room if it meant being with her the whole time.

  But she’s already unfolding her legs from my waist, standing on them shakily, as she leans down to collect her underwear.

  Before she does that, I cup her chin in my palm and tilt her head up to mine again. I steal one more long, slow kiss, then smile at her. “We got everything backward,” I murmur as I stroke her hair. It’s a mess. “Will you go on a good old fashioned date with me? Tomorrow night, before the opening hits us.”

  She laughs and raises an eyebrow at me. “Are you going to bust out some romance?”

  “I’ll try. Pick you up at 7?”

  She nods and I peck her cheek. Then her neck. Then back up her neck toward her earlobe, which I nibble as she giggles in protest and swats at my chest. “Don’t wear yoga pants,” I breathe against her ear.

  She tickles my ribs. “I’ll try,” she echoes with a grin.

  17

  Lily

  No yoga pants.

  This is a problem. Rejected items are thrown across my bed and that pile is getting bigger as the closet assortment gets smaller. There must be something I can wear tonight.

  Wait. Little black dress! Aha!

  I wiggle it out of the closet, but my excitement ends in a sigh of disappointment. There is a huge stain on the skirt and I belatedly remember the slice of 4am pizza landing on my lap.

  Who shoves a dirty dress back into the closet instead of taking it to the dry cleaners?

  Oh, yeah. Me.

  I need to buy a dress ASAP. Jack is picking me up in three hours for our date, so I have time, but not much. I grab my wallet and race to the only store in my neighborhood, Bingo.

  As I catch my breath outside, I eye the store’s window display and let out a groan. Bingo? More like Bin-ho. The cheap mannequins are wearing what I hesitate to call dresses. Each crotch-brushing frock is sleazier than the next, designed in such flattering hues as neon green, electric yellow and hot pink. The neck lines are open-heart-surgery low. If I wear something like that on my first date with Jack, he might think he needs to pay me for m
y services.

  But I scan the street around me, and realize I’m going to have to make this work. There aren’t any other options near enough to get me a dress in time.

  Besides, why am I being such a prude? Jack’s cock has been in my mouth and I’ve begged him to impale me.

  Glass houses.

  I shrug my shoulders and enter. I am a retail professional. Surely I can find something in here worth salvaging.

  The music pumping inside is stripper pole friendly and the sales staff is, well, what I expected. The nearest one is too busy texting to even greet me. I clear my throat a couple times, but she’s deep in that text message. “Excuse me!” I finally shout over the music. “Can you please help me?”

  She snaps her gum. “Yeah?”

  I struggle to hide my annoyance. “I need a dress …”

  “We got dresses.”

  “Yes.” I sigh, trying to keep my patience. “But maybe something less …” Skankalicious? Slutastic?

  She lifts an eyebrow like she’s reading my mind and daring me to say it.

  I shrug. “Just less,” I finish.

  Her attention drifts back to her phone. “Look in the back.”

  As I walk through the shop, I sort through the most expensive stuff first, the $20 racks. But it’s all mesh sparkly trash with thready seams and flammable fabrics.

  I’m about to give up when I spot a mannequin in a black tube dress out of the corner of my eye. Clingy, but the length is mid-thigh. I can make that work.

  Unfortunately, the mannequin’s display model appears to be the last of that dress in the store. I beg the employee of the year to take it off the mannequin. She refuses, but an Andrew Jackson waved under her nose changes her mind.

  After my shower I shimmy into the tube dress. It hugs my body, highlighting my curves, but doesn’t give away too much, surprisingly. I don’t have a strapless bra, but the spandex is thick so my nips are polite nubs of naughty.

  Lycra. Black.

  Ok, so if my usual yoga pants were a dress, it would be this dress. But I look amazing, dammit. It’s a sexy little number. And if Jack wants to complain, well, I can always hike the hemline a little farther up my thigh and mortify him into silence.