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.
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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”
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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.
* * *
Mr. Valenti-Kirby (it was getting annoying calling him that – how pretentious!) smiled at me as I entered Nash Equity's offices the next morning. I got a good night's sleep after scouring the Internet for articles on Mr. Bachelor. Single, obviously, and to say that he was the most attractive man in IT wasn't doing him justice. The lawyers, doctors, and firefighters making up the rest of the top 10 paled in comparison. And well off was an understatement. He had done well in the dot-com boom, leading a small startup to a multi-million dollar buyout. The fact that he was still single was astonishing. While he had been a bit gruff at times to me, there was a definite attraction. The gruffness almost made the glimmers of his (hopefully true) personality shine that much more. If yesterday was him on a bad day, I'd swoon to be near him on a good day. Women had to be throwing themselves at him.
“Good morning, Mr. Valenti-Ki
rby.”
“Please, call me Eddie. After all, I'm calling you Schroeder.”
“Okay, Eddie.” I said, emphasizing the nickname, and was glad for the reduced formality.
"You want some coffee?"
No, what I want is a Coke, but that's not socially acceptable. Damn Juan Valdez and his morning caffeine monopoly. "Yes, please."
"Let's go," he said brusquely, and led the way out of the office. Great, gruff Eddie again. Maybe this was him normally? I expected to be shown where the break room was, but instead we got on the elevator.
In line at Starbucks, I debated whether to go back and get my purse, not get anything to drink, or mooch off of Eddie. I was still debating when the barista asked about my drink choice.
"Nothing, I forgot my purse."
An amused look crossed Eddie's face. "No problem. My treat."
I glanced at the menu, and ordered the same drink as yesterday. This way I could blame my pounding heart on the caffeine and not Eddie's proximity.
"So are you enjoying New York? Have you been here before?"
"I did the touristy thing with the folks when I was a kid. Never been here as an adult, though." I mentally kicked myself for saying 'kid', instead of a more formal and professional 'child'. Even though I could call him “Eddie” doesn't mean that I needed to lose my professional small talk cred. Although I may have lost that the first time Eddie flashed his wide grin at me.
"Are you seeing everything you'd like?" He repeated.
"I was hoping to catch a show, actually. I was going to do the whole TKTS experience either later today or tomorrow, see what sort of shows I can get into."
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