InstructionbySeduction Page 8

  Leah blushed.

  “Good. Busy. I spent last night with Kelly, fixing my hair.”

  “You swinging that way now?”

  “No!” Leah laughed. “It was girl time.”

  “I see. And your new position as queen of the universe?”

  “Fine. I really didn’t do anything but learn scheduling and stuff today. Tomorrow’s the big day. The big test. I’ll be out on the floor as a manager for the first time.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Excited. Nervous. Scared. A little cocky.”

  “I see. Then I guess my job tonight is to help you relax.”

  Leah smiled. “That sounds like a great idea.”

  “Tonight’s lesson is to let yourself be pampered.”

  “I like the sound of that. My easiest lesson yet.”

  Hale took hold of the belt around Leah’s waist and pulled her to him. He leaned in and whispered in her ear.

  “What if I used this,” he said softly, “to tie you up? Just in case you resist?”

  “Resist being pampered?”

  “Well, you never know what my kind of relaxation might be.”

  “That’s true. Nothing’s ever simple with you.”

  Hale kissed Leah’s ear then ran his lips down her neck. She didn’t even try to suppress the shiver it caused to rush through her. Immediately the heat began pooling in her abdomen.

  “No,” he said. “Nothing’s ever simple with you.”

  Hale pulled on the belt, releasing it. He pushed the front of the robe out of the way and pushed his hands lightly across Leah’s exposed, nude body. He skimmed across her nipples and she shuddered at the sensation.

  “Come here.” He stepped backward, taking Leah with him by the ends of her belt. Hale pulled her into the bedroom, then toward the bed.

  “Lay down. Facedown.”

  Leah shed her robe and obliged him, half-afraid of what his brand of spa would be like. She felt cool droplets on her shoulders and back, then Hale’s hands rubbing up and down, massaging in the lotion.

  “Mmmmph,” she said into the pillow. God, it felt like heaven on her sore muscles.

  Hale rubbed the moisturizer all over her back, over her ass and down her legs, taking care to massage all of it into her skin. Then he leaned over her and said, “Now roll over.”

  “Time for the other side?”

  “Something like that.”

  Leah rolled over, looking up at Hale’s naked body in the dim light of the room, wondering when he took his clothes off. He came down over her, coming to rest lightly on top of her. He brushed her bangs away from her face and said, “You feel like satin sheets now. Let’s see how you taste.”

  As Hale slid down her body, his head moving between Leah’s legs, her heart began to pound. Was he really going to do that? To her? Leah trembled a bit as Hale kissed her inner thighs, moving from just above her knee almost up to her pussy.

  “Why the nervousness?” Hale asked. “Are you afraid of feeling good?”

  “No, it’s just that…well…”

  “No one’s ever done this to you before?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Why does a new experience make you nervous? You think you won’t like it?”

  “It’s just the newness. No other reason.”

  “Then you should be excited. Ready. You should be pulling my head down and asking me how come I didn’t do this sooner.”

  Leah smiled and tried to laugh but instead what came out was a startled grunt as Hale buried his face in between her legs. He licked up over her flesh, which felt hypersensitive to her, causing her to shift beneath him without her control. Hale slid his tongue into her folds, seeking out the one spot that would make her scream in ecstasy.

  As Hale’s tongue pushed against her clit, Leah gasped and shook with surprise. It was intense. It was wet. It sent a rush of heat through her like she’d never experienced before. She reached down and touched Hale’s hair, then began to absently brush her fingers through it while he licked, sucked and nuzzled.

  Hale raised his hand and began to play with Leah’s hole with two of his fingers. She was more than wet, so when he pushed they slid in easily. Leah pulled Hale’s head closer to her at the added sensation and murmured, “Oh my lord.”

  Hale pushed his fingers in as far as they would go, then pulled out and slowly pushed back in. Leah’s moaning encouraged him all the while. She tried to stay still but the stimulation was too great. She arched her back. She shook. She whimpered. Then she came like a roaring lion, screaming, shouting and coming all over Hale’s tongue as he licked and sucked at her most sensitive bud.

  Leah fell back, soaked in her own sweat, panting. She couldn’t even speak at first, just trying to come to terms with the explosive orgasm she’d just had. Finally, she parted her lips and said, “Wow.”

  “Wow,” Hale repeated. “I like wow. You know what comes after wow?”

  “Will I survive it?”

  “We’ll find out.”

  Hale returned his mouth to her slick folds, sucking and licking with renewed vigor. Leah moaned and stretched her arms up to grasp the rods of her headboard. She held herself, trying not to move and disrupt Hale’s expert performance. His fingers moved back inside her, pumping and rubbing, escalating the power of the time bomb in her clit. Then he pulled his fingers out and she felt that odd pressure against her anus.

  “Oh shit,” she whispered as Hale parted her flesh there with his fingers saturated with her own slick juices. He pushed in slowly, dividing her while he continued to give her clit a royal tongue-lashing. Leah gripped the rods in her hands and said, “Okay. Do it.”

  Hale laughed, the vibrations against her heated flesh sending her into overdrive. He laughed again and she screamed. Leah felt him push into her ass, that raw awareness of herself overtaking her once again. He sucked on her clit and she thought she was going to cry, the wash of pleasure was so great.

  “That’s it,” Leah encouraged. “That’s it!”

  Hale doubled his efforts. Leah thought she was going to crush the rods in her hands as she held on for dear life. The explosion hit, this time sending her into orbit, a rocket blast through her entire body and firing out of every orifice. She screamed and cried out something that included Hale’s name and that was about it.

  Panting, Leah released the rods on the headboard and wiped her hair away from her face. She released her muscles from duty, sending her legs flopping and her arms to rest over her head.

  “How was that? Relaxing?”

  “I don’t know if that’s the word I would use,” Leah sighed. “But it was incredible.”

  “Want another one?”

  “Yes.”

  Hale was pleased to oblige her, not once more but twice, until she was nearly hoarse from screaming his name.

  Chapter Seven

  Leah arrived early for her two o’clock shift the next day, sore as hell but with a spring in her step. Hale’s spa treatment had her sleeping like she’d run a marathon. Leah was awake, alert and in control. It was going to be a good day.

  Running the beginning of shift meeting was a breeze. She’d heard the spiel so many times it came out of her mouth almost on auto-pilot. She re-briefed everyone on the specials, went over the laundry list of items that Bob had given her and reminded everyone to smile as they delivered exceptional service to every FoodSmart customer. She beamed her own bright smile as an example.

  Then Leah’s perfect day took a turn for the worst. A kid threw up in aisle four. They completely ran out of one of the special sale items. A customer found rotted lettuce in a package and threw a fit, threatening to call the health department. One of the high school kids failed to show up at four-thirty for his shift. Leah dashed from one department to the next, shouting orders, bagging groceries and calming customers. But it was okay. She could handle it. Until the shift was ending and the store was closing.

  Leah was moving some empty boxes back into the storeroom when she saw
that the back door was open. She walked over to shut it and realized that two of the employees were outside smoking and talking…about her.

  “So what do you give her?” Rusty said. “A week? Two?”

  “If that,” the other guy said. Leah figured it was Harmon, a relatively new employee. “Can you believe all that shit that happened today? Fuuuck. I’d quit.”

  “She can’t handle it anyway. Barely knows what she’s doing. And all that smile bullshit. Puh-lease. If I was happy I sure as hell wouldn’t be here.”

  “I hear that. She can smile all she wants but she’d look a whole lot better sucking my dick.”

  Rusty busted out laughing like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Leah’s stomach turned and she felt sicker than the kid in aisle four.

  “And did you see her hair?” Rusty asked. “What, suddenly she’s an adult now? She looked about four years old with that red. I guess she thinks she’s in charge now. I’ll tell you one thing, if she tells me to clean up puke again I’ll tell her she can kiss my ass. I’m not taking direction from that fat bitch.”

  Leah staggered away from the door and into the closest bathroom. She leaned over the toilet and heaved, only she’d barely eaten all day and had nothing to give up. Instead she just gagged over the toilet, choking on her own tears.

  The final twenty minutes of cleanup and lockup felt like twenty hours. Leah continued to put on her happy face for the employees but inside she couldn’t wait to get home and cry her eyes out.

  Leah had hoped the ride home in the cold wind would break her out of the funk but it only made it worse. It was bitterly cold and her nose ran all over her face. She started crying half a mile from home and her tears nearly froze to her face. Leah finally stumbled through her door, shut the door and kicked it twice.

  “Who the fuck lives like this?” she shouted at no one. “I’m a God damn twenty-seven-year-old teenager trying to play grownup!”

  Leah tore off her jacket and threw it on the couch. Then she picked up her phone and dialed Pizza Hut.

  Two hours later the empty pizza box taunted Leah as evidence of her weakness and failure. She couldn’t even think about seeing Hale right then. He would certainly turn away from her in disgust. She couldn’t even handle one bad day without going back to her old ways. He would feel like he’d wasted all of his time on her.

  And so she cried. She cried and felt pathetic. She cried and felt like a worthless failure. She cried until she was sure she’d squeezed out every last drop of water within her.

  Leah stumbled back into her bedroom and looked at the box. It’ll make your dreams come true. She paused, considering. Her body was spent from tears but the endorphins her tears had released suddenly had her on the upswing.

  “I’ll show those motherfuckers. They’ll do what I say, fat bitch or skinny bitch.”

  Leah went back into the living room and grabbed the empty pizza box. She marched out to the trash bin and tossed it in. She didn’t need to be looking at that and thinking about a moment of weakness. No, she needed to be thinking about how she was going to a better job tomorrow.

  The next day Leah roused herself out of bed at the crack of dawn and showed up for her kickboxing class. She told herself she was going to carry that feeling with her all day long—kicking ass and taking names. She would take crap from no one. She would handle her shit and it would be right.

  Through her morning classes, Leah tried to maintain that feeling. A less-than-stellar grade on an exam threatened to bring her down but she shook it off. She made it into work a few minutes early, a chip on her shoulder and an attitude to boot.

  “Okay, everybody.” She addressed the group for the shift meeting. “Let’s get through this and get going.”

  Leah ran through the usual info. She reminded everyone to smile and deliver exceptional service. Her smile seemed forced, even to her. As the crowd dispersed Kelly walked over to Leah and said, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  “It was a rough day yesterday.” Leah shrugged.

  “I heard.”

  “Oh great. Word got out, huh?”

  “Well, Rusty was saying…”

  “I don’t give a shit what Rusty says. If I had any authority I would fire his ass in a second.”

  “Whoa, what happened?” Kelly crossed her arms in front of her.

  Leah hesitated. She shouldn’t be talking about it. Not to Kelly, not to anyone. She shouldn’t be thinking of it at all.

  “I overheard Rusty and someone else talking last night. About me. It wasn’t nice.”

  “Oh, Leah,” Kelly said sadly. “They were just talking out of their asses. Don’t pay any attention to what they think or say. Their opinion doesn’t matter.”

  “I know. Didn’t make it any easier to hear.”

  Kelly nodded.

  “I just feel…” Leah sighed. “I don’t know. Inadequate. Unprepared.”

  “Welcome to management.” Kelly smiled. “Managers are just like the rest of us—they just have more responsibility bestowed upon them. You’ll get used to it, girl.”

  Leah tried to smile back.

  “Come on now,” Kelly continued. “Let’s get out there and deliver exceptional service. I know you want to help some customers, don’t you?”

  The smile came out of Leah naturally this time.

  “You know what turns me on, don’t you?” Leah laughed.

  From the moment Leah set foot on the floor she was running. Bob wasn’t there to offer any support that night so she was being called over to override registers and deal with customer problems and take phone calls. They were still a little shorthanded, even more so after Bob fired the high-schooler who hadn’t shown up for his shift the day before, so she was also running around helping to bag groceries.

  “Hey, Leah,” a voice called. She ran from one of the registers over to a newer employee, Nick, who was standing by a stack of boxes full of merchandise for shelving.

  “What’s going on, Nick?” she asked.

  “Rusty’s been gone for like half an hour. I need him to help me with this shit.”

  “Nick, please do not use profanity out here. A customer could hear you.”

  “Sorry. But I can’t do this all by myself.”

  “Do you know where Rusty went?”

  “He went for a break and didn’t come back.”

  “Okay. Please get done what you can and I’ll go look for Rusty. If I can’t find him I’ll come back and help you.”

  “Thanks, ‘cause there’s more boxes where these came from.”

  Leah walked back into the storeroom and glanced around. No Rusty. He’s probably out back smoking, Leah thought. She headed to the door through which she’d overheard Rusty’s rude comments the night before. She pulled it open and sure enough, there he was, leaning against the building and having a smoke.

  “Rusty, what are you doing?” She lifted her hands in exasperation.

  “Um, smoking,” Rusty said with a snarky laugh.

  “You’re supposed to be working. You left Nick all alone with all that work. Your break is fifteen minutes, not thirty.”

  Rusty shrugged. “I’ll get back in there in a minute.”

  “You’ll get back in there now,” Leah said, her heart beating in her ears. She hoped she wasn’t shaking on the outside like she was on the inside.

  “No.”

  Leah nearly gagged.

  “What do you mean no?”

  “I mean no. I’m not doing it now.”

  Leah didn’t know how to respond. She wanted to tell him to clock out and never come back. But she couldn’t. She didn’t have the authority to fire him. As she thought about it, she didn’t know exactly what she did have the authority to do. She just expected that everyone would do what she said because she was the manager.

  “Okay, Rusty. Have it your way.” Leah turned to go back into the building.

  “Why don’t you run and tell Bob on me. Tell him how bad I’m being.”

  Leah ignored h
im, but he was right. She would have to tattle to her manager to get Rusty in trouble. Leah gritted her teeth. Why did he have to be such an asshole?

  “Rusty may not be coming back,” Leah told Nick. She pulled a box off the stack and began shelving canned cat food. “I’ll help until he gets here.”

  “He sick or something?”

  Sick in the head.

  “No.”

  “Then why isn’t he coming?”

  “He’s just not.”

  “Uh huh.” Nick looked at her like she was incompetent.

  Maybe I am, Leah thought. I can’t even get a belligerent jerk to come in and do his job.

  Leah got home with just enough energy to crawl into bed. She curled up into a ball and hugged herself. When Rusty had finally come back from his “break” he’d been nothing but an ass, smarting off at every chance he got whether other people were around or not. It didn’t matter what Leah said to him. He just wouldn’t stop.

  Leah knew she was going to have to turn him in to Bob. She couldn’t handle Rusty on her own and his attitude was infecting the other employees.

  Leah tossed and turned trying to sleep but every time she closed her eyes she saw Rusty and his shit-eating grin. Scott, she thought. Think of Scott. His image appeared in her mind and she smiled. She didn’t know anything about him but she could invent something. By the time she drifted off to sleep she’d created an entire life for Scott, from where he was born to the color of his toothbrush.

  Saturday morning brought an early shift for Leah. She rolled out of bed, wanting nothing more than to roll right back in. She didn’t want to look like a failure already to Bob but she had no choice.

  Leah cast a glance at the box as she left her bedroom. What will Hale say?

  * * * * *

  “Bob,” Leah said, knocking on the office door. Bob was in the middle of a cheese Danish. He looked up at her, nodded and motioned her in.

  Bob washed down his bite with a drink of coffee. “How did everything go yesterday?”

  “Well, that’s what I need to see you about.”

  “Uh oh.”

  “It’s not…well, it is kind of bad.”