by Sylvia Frost
“Like?”
“Like the biggest cleaning and organizing company in the USA.”
“How do you visualize that?”
When some people talked about topics that were important to them, they looked away, but the more Cynthia blushed, the more fiercely she met his gaze. “Our logo on a building just as big as yours.”
“If that’s what you want.” He brought his glass up to his lips and took a slow sip, enjoying the way the acid of the orange stung his tongue, reminding him of her kisses. “I have no doubt you’ll get it.” He wanted her to know what he’d look like as he gazed up from between her thighs. Put that on your board, Princess.
“Well…” She exhaled out of her nose, pulling a small, pink flash drive out of her pocket. “I have to fix my current mess before I dream up any more. Do you have somewhere I can plug this in so we can talk shop?”
Halfway through the sip, he flipped open the mirrored-plastic cover on the desk, which hid a USB port.
“First the hidden fingerprint scanner and now this? Do you have a fetish for covering things up, Rex West?” She inserted the flash drive with a click, and a corner of the conference table lit up.
“Covers are just protection. I’m sure you can understand the desire to keep dirt from getting in places it shouldn’t be.”
The documents on the drive expanded, illuminating a quarter of the table with spreadsheets, an infographic showing her business model, and plenty of word documents.
“All right,” she said. “I’ve got to admit this is pretty cool.”
He allowed himself a twitch of a smirk. “Thank you. Now.” He tapped once on the spreadsheet, and it grew in size, dominating the glass panel. “This is last month’s gross revenue, right? Talk to me about it.”
Tentatively, Cynthia pushed her thumb against the spreadsheet, zooming into the first column. “So this month, Boxes & Broom has netted almost 100,000 dollars in sales and has added over a hundred new customers.”
“All good news.” The endless row of numbers was almost enough to keep him from thinking about how close his mate’s curvy body was. “Except…” Cynthia swiped right to the next column, which was bright red, “with salaries, and other expenses, we’ve also spent about $120,000.”
“Losing money isn’t bad. Turning a profit right away can mean you’re not reinvesting in the company.”
“That would be right, except we’re not growing exponentially.” Cynthia scrolled out and shifted to focus on their subscriber numbers. Next to the table was a bar graph for number of customers added each month. It sloped gently, but depressingly downward. Worse was the graph next to it for customer retention.
“Any clue what’s tanking growth?”
Cynthia swiped to the results of the latest survey they ran on their customers. “Of the clients that left, eighty percent said it was because of price.”
“What are your fixed costs?” Rex asked.
Cynthia flipped over to her expense reports, and Rex scanned them.
There was good news and bad.
The good news was that Boxes & Broom’s fixed costs such as rent, supplies, and some of the strategic partnerships they’d had to pony up cash to acquire could be easily mitigated by growing faster. The bad news was that they were paying their employees too much, and the problem was it wouldn’t matter how fast they grew, they’d always need to hire more people to keep up with demand. The best news was that solution to Cynthia’s problem was simple. Slash salaries. If Cynthia were the CEO of a company he’d invested in, he’d tell her to do just that, with the assurance that if she didn’t, he’d withdraw his investment.
But that hardline approach wouldn’t work here. Rex scratched at the side of his face. Would he have to control both his wolf and human instincts now? He didn’t think he could wrangle two at once.
Rex leaned over behind Cynthia, their hands touching briefly on the cool glass of the table as he swiped to another document containing yet another line of numbers. “What about this?”
Cynthia stiffened against him. “That’s the wages of our staff. Payroll.”
Rex patted the bottom numbers with two fingers. “You’re paying them above going rates now, if the math I just did in my head is correct.” Which it always was.
“Lowering salaries is not an option,” Cynthia said, low and firm.
Rex sighed, needing to take two steps back. The answer to all of their problems was so obvious and she couldn’t see it. Wouldn’t see it, he corrected himself.
He ran a hand through his hair, for the first time happy that he made it wilder by the time he was done. He had to let out his frustration somehow. “What’s the business model then? Is there anywhere else to cut?”
“Hold on.” Cynthia folded her lips together, humming in concentration as she sifted through the documents. It was an expression he had never seen on a woman’s face before; well not one who he was romantically interested in. She was totally engrossed in something that wasn’t him or her reflection. Really, it was a shame he had wasted so much time casually dating models when he could’ve had this.
Slowly, his frown gentled.
“Here!” Cynthia’s index and thumb spread outward, bringing forward Boxes & Broom’s business model illustrated in a cute infographic. It began with a cartoon couple in a messy house before branching into three directions. “Cleaning, Organizing, and Cleaning and Organizing.” Below each branch were listed the costs to the company, the price the company charged the consumer, and the percentage of consumers who picked each given path.
One number stood out.
Cleaning & Organizing. It had by far the highest cost to the company and the lowest profit. Worse, it was the biggest path on the screen. Below the couple skipping merrily down to another cleaner house, was listed, “Sixty percent of customers choose to have Boxes & Broom both clean and organize their house.”
At the very top was a newly written pitch to highlight this fact,
With most cleaning services, you have to organize your house or apartment before the cleaner comes. If you don’t, the cleaner spends all of their time moving knickknacks, and then you’re left with dirty windows, rugs that don’t get vacuumed, or worse. Hire Boxes & Broom, and we’ll clean and tidy your house.
“Doing both is a good competitive advantage,” Rex said. “I don’t know of any other cleaning services like this.”
“But…?” Cynthia cut in.
“But…” Rex exhaled through his nose. How could he put this delicately? “It does require personnel who can both clean and organize, and the rates you’re paying those personnel are too high.” Cynthia took in a sharp breath, the healthy glow his nearness brought to her cheeks fading like a snuffed-out candle. “You’re right.” She brought her hands together into a fist so tight, he worried she might cut off circulation to her fingers. “But I’m not going to be a company that pays people a wage they can’t live on in this city.”
“If you don’t change something, you’ll be a company that can’t pay anyone anything at all. You have two months. At best. You’re running out of time.”
Cynthia pivoted. With the way her hands flew to her hips, she clearly had a comeback ready to hurl at him, but she stopped before opening her mouth, her hands falling to her sides. “Time…”
“Cynthia?” he asked tentatively. Perhaps overwhelmed by her lack of sleep, she had finally snapped.
She stepped closer. “You,” she pointed at him, “just gave me a great idea.” Hunger twinkled in her expanding pupils.
He truly hoped she wasn’t going to kiss him. If she did that, he wouldn’t be able to stop from ripping off that tantalizing blouse and sucking on each of her nipples while he pressed a finger inside of her, rocking his palm against her clit until she came. And that was just the beginning of his wolf’s plans for his mate.
“Cynthia,” he growled.
She whirled back to the table, typing madly for a minute, tucking a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear every few second
s when it got in her eyes. “Yes, it works.”
“Care to enlighten me, prin—darling?” he corrected at the last minute, but she didn’t notice. She was too caught up in her epiphany. Both man and wolf admired her dedication, but both also craved her attention. His man wanted her to listen to his goddamn business experience instead of trying to reverse-engineer another solution, and his wolf…
Well.
The hard-on in his pants was about as articulate as his wolf got.
Rex cut the distance between them from inches to centimeters. The way she was bent over made her jean-clad ass painfully visible, and he wasted no time grinding himself against it. His hands came to either side of her waist, gentle enough to not startle her, but firm enough to let her know he wasn’t going anywhere. And until he got what he wanted, neither was she. “I asked you a question.”
“R-ex,” she stuttered, twitching, sending the strand of hair back into her eyes. As she reached out to tuck it back, he stopped her, putting it behind her ear himself.
“Darling, answer me.”
“Hours,” she said softly. Her body weakened against his own. Just as all the chemicals in his brain were commanding to take her, hers were trying to convince her to give in, to let herself be taken.
“Hours?”
“Yes,” she said throatily. “If we can find a way to cut the hours required to clean and organize a single house, we can have each of our organizers do more houses, while still charging the same or a slightly lower fee to the consumer.”
“That sounds like a good plan.” This close to his mate, Rex couldn’t help but nuzzle into her mass of golden hair. “You just have to figure out how to streamline your process.”
“Uh-huh.”
The smell of her wetness in the air distracted him from the obvious truth that no matter how much she streamlined her process, it still wouldn’t be enough to save her company unless she cut salaries. Only yesterday, he might have had the arrogance to say this aloud. But not anymore. She deserved the chance to make her own mistakes. He had said his piece. Now he was done with words.
The one hand still on her waist could feel her legs, shifting, spreading. Conscious of it or not, she was preparing herself to be fucked by him. He knew he was already ready for her.
He squeezed her right hip, guiding their bodies closer together so that she could feel how stiff he was for her. Not just for her body and the bond, but also for her determination. The other hand crept closer to the button of her jeans. He undid it with a flick of his thumb. “I’m sorry. I can’t control myself around you.”
“Oh,” she rasped.
His wolf roared with excitement at the idea of bending her over the conference table. The human side of him warned him that the table was expensive, and not exactly sturdy, but this only goaded his wolf on.
Pushing her hair away from her shoulders, he trailed a line of kisses up her neck, until he reached a small, purple bruise left over from where he had nipped her last night. He had to have her. But not if it meant hurting her.
“Cynthia…” He breathed over the bruise, stroking it with his nose like he was a pup, brow furrowed like he was a man with the weight of the universe on his heart. “Are you ready for me again? I know—”
“Jesus Christ,” she hissed.
His heart clenched.
Her hand reached back around for his zipper, and she pulled it down with a graceful motion of her wrist. “Just take me already.”
Rex gave in, letting the heat of the mating take them both. Her jeans went first. He peeled her out of them just delicately enough not to rip the denim. Once that was done, the scent of her thickened even further. By the third sniff, he could do nothing else but flip Cynthia back to face him and fall to the ground to bury himself between her thighs.
She hopped up onto the table, neither of them caring as it whined from her weight. Now with him half-kneeling and her up on the table, her clit was just about level with his nose.
He shuddered, inhaling, and then forced her legs apart further. Taking a fistful of his hair, she moaned, pulling at his scalp. Normally, Rex liked to take his time when eating pussy, to consider the anatomy of a woman to make her come as quickly and as deeply as possible in the minimum amount of time. Now there was none of that.
Rex dove in and began sucking at her clit, trying to slurp all the sweetness out of her he could. When she tried to direct him by wiggling her thighs, he grabbed her by her now-naked ass, squeezing her in a wordless command to let him take what was his.
She relaxed, her legs stretching further apart until her opening gaped in front of him as she rocked backward. He plunged his tongue inside of her, staking swirling claims on his territory. As he did, he couldn’t just taste her, but he felt her as well. The promising tremors of her coming orgasm vibrated against his mouth.
He gave no thought to trying to prolong her pleasure. He wanted her coming. Now. For him.
With the heel of his palm, he pressed down on her clit, rolling it around with such force it might leave an imprint on his hand.
“Ah!”
It was her first orgasm of the evening. Smiling, his wolf was if not sated, than certainly pleased. Rex kissed the place on the inside of her thigh right before her pubis. Her landing strip was so straight and even that he could’ve used it as a ruler. Rex never had a preference for particular brands of female pubic hair before, but now he found he liked how vulnerable and plump her labia looked with only a wispy line of hair to obscure it.
Before she could make any other suggestions, he hoisted her up around him, carrying her in a kind of front piggyback over to the glass wall. The office on the other side was dark. Thankfully, Rose had gone home. Not that it would’ve mattered either way. Let the world see him take her. She was his.
He slammed Cynthia against the glass wall, enjoying the way her curvaceous, full ass smashed against the glass. Gods, there was so much of her and he wanted to devour it all. Snarling, he ripped her shirt over her head, a button popping off.
Panting from surprise, Cynthia’s hands flew to cover her breast, even as she lunged toward his lips, nipping at him like an overexcited pup. It was time to show her who was dominant. If the wall hadn’t done it, maybe the floor would.
Rex took them both down to the ground. The carpet would’ve been scratchy on his mate’s back, but her scattered clothing cushioned the landing. When she tried to scoot her hips closer to his, he pinned her in place with his hands at her wrists and his dominant gaze. She obediently calmed.
Obeying his own instinct, he leaned down, meaning to kiss her neck, but he ended up biting it to press the point of his dominance. Even as lost as he was to his wolf, the moment his teeth let go of her delicate skin, he realized he had made a mistake.
She whimpered.
“Cin…” he tried to say, but words felt like rocks between his teeth. His cock, still constrained by his boxers, pulsed toward her entrance. “Cin.”
Shocking him to his core, her whimper turned to a growl of her own, and she nipped him back.
His wolf screamed, howled, in a combination of delight, anger, and pure, unbridled hunger. Grabbing her hands, he placed them over the band of his boxers. He grunted in a command, and she ripped them downward. Her human, female strength meant that she couldn’t get them all the way over his muscled thighs, but it was enough to free his member.
Just as he was about to thrust himself inside of her, she reached for his cock. Her plump fingers wrapped around the head. Man and wolf in unison shivered and he threw his head back, dangerously close to coming himself. Without his usual ironclad restraint, he might not be able to hold out much longer.
He watched in wonder as she guided him to her entrance. There was something soul satisfying about the way her lush, curvy body opened to his hard cock. This was home, and she wasn’t just letting him in. She was welcoming him.
Rex felt the orgasm tightening behind his balls, and with another grunt, he pushed away her hand and thrust the rest of the
way inside of her. Her velvety hot walls closed around him, squeezing him tight. Fuck, he was coming.
He got in one good last thrust before he began to spill his seed inside of her, long and hard. His wolf howled in pleasure, secure in the knowledge that this mating would make her bear him many strong werebeast sons. She would look even more beautiful swollen with his child. This thought alone had him still hard, even as he unsheathed himself from her.
Words were beginning to return to him, just enough that he was able to bark out, “Again.”
His mate shook her head in wonder, certainly about to agree, but then her body let out the strangest sound. She grumbled. But not from her mouth. It was her stomach. It was moaning. In hunger.
Second by second, more human coherency returned to him, along with unease. He had forgotten all about dinner! He frowned. How could he ever be trusted to claim his mate if he couldn’t handle as basic a task as making sure she was well fed?
He nodded at her once, feeling slightly helpless and adrift, like a man washed ashore after a storm. His throat was dry. “Maybe dinner first?”
Chapter 26
Cynthia Cinder’s List of Unobtainable Traits to Look for In a Prospective Boyfriend Once Boxes & Broom is Fixed
1.) Knows how to properly make a bed.
2.) Knows how to properly unmake a bed. ;-)
3.) Is stylish.
4.) But not too stylish. Matching cufflinks to socks is a hard limit.
5.) Can manage his own life.
6.) Without trying to take over yours.
7.) Doesn’t cheat on you.
8.) Or badmouth your entire company.
9.) Because that’s not what someone who loves you does.
10.) Have any of your boyfriends or one-night stands ever loved you?
11.) Probably not.
12.) Oh God, probably not.
13.) Well, that’s depressing. Time to clean.