Training the Receptionist Read online

  It’s her naughty dream job—if they’re satisfied with her performance…

  Eager to escape her miserable existence in Low-Life, Long Island, street-wise Dana Arthur jumps at an entry-level position with the consulting firm Cowell & Dirk. As her training period begins, she quickly discovers she’s required to do more than take messages and order office supplies. Her job description contains some deliciously naughty duties that give receptionist a whole new meaning.

  Simon has almost given up on finding the right woman who will please his clients as well as his demanding partner and mentor, Ethan Cowell. No one measures up—until Dana. Her inner fire and fearless nature are perfect for the job. No matter what wicked punishment he devises to chastise her for her on-the-job mistakes, she accepts with a relish that leaves him wondering which one of them is really in control.

  The last thing he expects to discover is that she’s a perfect sexual soul mate he can’t bear to share. But share he must—it’s part of his business agreement. Unless he makes Ethan the deal of a lifetime…

  Warning: This title contains explicit sex, bondage, ménage, ingenious use of office furniture, lingerie, and the occasional sex toy. Oh, and did I mention the package delivery guy?

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520

  Macon GA 31201

  Training the Receptionist

  Copyright © 2010 by Juniper Bell

  ISBN: 978-1-60504-949-6

  Edited by Laurie M. Rauch

  Cover by Scott Carpenter

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: March 2010

  www.samhainpublishing.com

  Training the Receptionist

  Juniper Bell

  Dedication

  For anyone who’s ever fantasized the hours away at an office job.

  Chapter One

  This may be hard to believe, but when I first walked into the firm of Cowell & Dirk, it was just like applying for any other job. Take it from me, all I’d done for the last six months was apply for jobs. Administrative assistant at Barnes, Diddle and Lipp. Sales clerk at the Gap. Night guard at the Science Museum—I knew I didn’t have a chance at that one, having no security training or a clue about science, but what the heck. By the time I showed up at Cowell & Dirk, I had the drill down.

  “I’m here to interview for the receptionist job,” I told the receptionist. She was a thin, bored-looking girl whose collarbones poked out of her sweater. I chose not to speculate about why she was greeting applicants for her own job. Not my problem. Believe me, for a young person with a barely completed community college degree, it’s a jungle out there.

  “You sure?” she said dubiously, eyeing me up and down.

  “Uh…huh?” I’m not usually at a loss for words, but she’d caught me by surprise.

  She shrugged, apparently losing interest in the topic. “If you’re sure, I can give you the application.” She dug around for it. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Um…you didn’t warn me.”

  She frowned at me, as if I’d gotten my line wrong.

  “Really. You didn’t warn me,” I repeated. “Did I miss something?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, so you’re that type.”

  I snatched the application and plopped myself into a leather chair. I didn’t have time for random idiocy, I needed a freakin’ job. Quickly, I filled in all the usual information.

  Dana Arthur. Age twenty-two. Previous experience: various crap jobs, some waitressing. Two-year degree from Long Island Community College. Strengths: motivated, hardworking, willing to do just about anything to move out of my house. (Okay, so I didn’t actually write down that last one.) It didn’t ask about weaknesses, but I don’t mind saying them. No tolerance for boredom, restless, problem with authority, a couple of hidden piercings and not-so-hidden tattoos, one or two DUIs. Or three.

  I attached my resumé to the application and handed it to Bizarro Girl. Showing absolutely no interest in it, she slid the papers into a manila folder and stood. Something flashed into my eyes, and I realized, after recovering my vision, that she’d taken a Polaroid of me. While I was still blinking, she popped it into the folder and left the room.

  Alone in the lobby of Cowell & Dirk, I seriously debated walking out right then and there. What kind of place took a Polaroid of you without so much as letting you get the McMuffin crumbs out of your teeth? But I let it go. For one thing, there was something very relaxing about that lobby. It was so quiet, like a super-secret, soundproofed vault. Not a single sound came in from outside. The colors were all bland and soothing. Beige carpet, black leather armchair and couch, blond wood receptionist’s desk. The overall look was what I would call Corporate Zombie. I could totally picture the people who worked there—pudgy-bodied, dull-eyed, combed-over drones in yellow ties and brown dress shoes. Every Friday they went out for after-work drinks at the nearest T.G.I. Friday’s. Mondays they spent the first few hours recounting their wild weekends, consisting of football games and blind dates who wouldn’t go down on them unless they paid for dinner.

  Shows what I know.

  When the door opened again, the sexiest man I’d ever seen in my life came toward me. My nipples got hard the instant I set eyes on him.

  I still can’t put my finger on exactly what made him so hot. He was good-looking enough, with eyes like chips of green stone and black hair. Black Irish, I think that look is called. He had a rolling, in-charge kind of walk, as if he were walking onto the deck of his own personal pirate ship. The pirate comparison wasn’t half-bad, he even had a scar on his cheek, a thin, white crescent around his mouth.

  His mouth might have been the sexiest of all. Surrounded by a slight stubble, it curved in a way that implied I know you and I know what you like. He was the kind of man who looked like he had a lot of secrets, secrets you might regret learning. The kind of man any normal mother would never allow anywhere near her daughter.

  But my mother was long gone, and I hadn’t listened to my stepmother from day one.

  “Ms. Arthur. Thanks for coming in.” Those eyes of his were mesmerizing. Half-hypnotized, I barely noticed he was patiently holding out his hand to shake mine.

  I got to my feet. But instead of shaking his hand, I stuck out my chin. “And you are?”

  “I’m Simon Dirk, Executive Vice President.”

  He could have said, “I’m the King of the World,” and I wouldn’t have argued. I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.” Was there some kind of extra electricity when our hands touched? I can’t be sure. I was too bewitched by his eyes. From closer range, they looked more forest than grass-green, more cool than hot. They were slightly narrowed. This man was taking me in. Assessing me. It made sense, of course, he was considering whether or not to hire me. But, in retrospect, I know he was assessing me for something else.

  He looked down at my application. “So, you’re interested in the receptionist job.”

  Something told me he wouldn’t mind a cheeky attitude. “Yes. It’s a lifelong goal.”

  Right away his gaze dar
ted up to meet mine. He gave me a long, cool look. “Do you plan on greeting clients in that manner?”

  “Absolutely not. Clients will get my complete and undivided servitude.”

  “I see.” After another long look into my soul, he pulled my resumé from the folder and scanned it. “Interesting job history.”

  I couldn’t help a wince. “It’s a tough economy.”

  “Yes, but two months at The Lotus Circle? Six months at Chuck E. Cheese? U-Stuff Taxidermy?” He looked up from my resumé, the most endearing frown making a dent between his eyebrows. Oh, how I wanted to feel that crease in his flesh.

  “Only one month there.”

  “What do you have, Job Attention Deficit Disorder?” Those eyes sent me a sexy green sparkle.

  “Undiagnosed.”

  A smile tugged the corner of his mouth and I watched the scar retreat up his cheek. Without the scar, his face would have been almost too pretty. But the scar, and a bump on his nose that I knew meant it had once been broken, kept him on the rugged side of fucking gorgeous. And then there was the animalistic heat he gave off. Quite a feat, under his crisp business suit.

  “Well, Ms. Arthur, I have a feeling you’d fit in well here.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure that was a compliment, given the Corporate Zombie decor. “Thanks.”

  “Can you start on Monday?”

  “Uh…sure.” I inwardly danced a jig. Hired! At last! That meant I could skip my Monday appointment at the hospital to participate in a blood sugar experiment that would pay me fifty dollars. “But…silly question, I know, but what is it that Cowell & Dirk does?”

  “We’ll get to all that during the training period.” Simon Dirk frowned. Had I asked something inappropriate? “Oh, and we’d like you to wear this on your first day.” From behind the receptionist’s desk, he produced a white box with a fancy department store logo I didn’t recognize. “If, that is, you’re serious about working here.”

  What did I need to do to convince him? “I’m serious. It’s either that or sell my blood by the pint.”

  He chuckled. I hoped I would be answering to him personally.

  Little did I know how personally.

  With my first job offer in over six months of looking, I did what any girl would do. I went shopping. In my case, I went shopping for new ink. I needed a new tat to celebrate. For a while now I’d been eyeing this design at Inktation, my favorite tattoo parlor. It was the kind of design you could stare at for hours, making up your own interpretation of what it meant. There was a snake in there somewhere, or was it an infinity symbol, or maybe a road to nowhere. Curvy and exotic, vaguely Asian, I knew it would look perfect on the back of my neck. A risky spot, given the fact I was about to start work at a buttoned-up corporate office. But since my hair was long, it would be easy to hide.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon on the tattoo table, blissed out under the needle. They say tattoo needles are addictive, and if anyone doubts it, come talk to me. It’s a rush, a total high. I’m just glad it’s legal.

  “This spot’s a tad bit sensitive,” said Bobby O, swabbing the back of my neck with alcohol. Even the smell gave me the beginnings of a rush.

  “Bring it on.”

  Face down on the table, I couldn’t see him, but knew he was shaking that dreadlocked, pierced-eyebrow head of his. “You’re the boss.”

  As soon as the first needle jabbed my neck, I drifted somewhere toward the ceiling and floated there like a happy hot air balloon. Bobby O, tattoo genius, doesn’t say much while he works. He’s an artist and has to concentrate. But I told him all about my new job.

  “Receptionist? You?”

  “Why not? Good morning, welcome to Dowell and Kirk. Daryl and Firk. Barrel and Fuck. Whatever.” I shut up and let Bobby O laugh for a while. His breath came out in poofs, warming the back of my neck.

  “You need to practice, you call me up.”

  “Yeah, right.” I knew what that meant. Bobby O and I had fucked a few times, when I’d first realized the scope of his genius and developed a huge crush on him. Then he got all serious on me and I had to cut it off. Highly inconvenient, since I never felt right about accepting the free tattoos he kept offering. Sucks to have a conscience. Anyway, ever since then I had to keep fending him off, which can be hard to do when someone is embedding needles into your flesh.

  “I give it three weeks.”

  “Hey! Have a little faith.”

  “Rebel like you, you’ll never survive. You know why?”

  I tried to shake my head, then, feeling his hands on my neck, remembered that would be a bad move. “Why?”

  “Boredom. That’s your Achilles’ heel, my little rebel queen. You can’t take the boredom. You want to stick at a straight-edge job like that, you better skip the tattoos and get yourself a lobotomy.”

  “Whatever, Bobby. You’ll see. I have a feeling.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Still riding the tattoo high, I spent the weekend moving out of my house. A while ago I’d found a tiny apartment so ratty no one else wanted it, but the landlord wouldn’t let me move in until I was gainfully employed. His definition of gainful employment included getting jiggy on his couch, but I’d preferred to bide my time. The look on his face when I told him about Cowell & Dirk was well worth the wait.

  My father and stepmom spent the weekend fighting, which was their usual form of entertainment. That’s what they’d do—buy a case of beer and a bottle or two, get smashed, find some random thing to set them off—or if they couldn’t think of anything, dig up something from the past—and go at each other. Good times. When they ran out of their own furniture to throw at each other, they didn’t mind raiding my room, which is why I could fit all my worldly possessions into a Kia.

  Said Kia belonged to my friend Brandi, who’d never explained how she managed to buy a brand-new car, even if it was the tiniest car known to man. I always suspected she had a sugar daddy—a cheap-ass one. I knew she’d worked as a stripper for a while, but she didn’t like it. Brandi’s lazy. Stripping’s hard work. My guess is she hooked up with the first guy who offered, and settled for the slacker life and a Kia.

  “Why do you want to do something crazy like work?” she asked as she helped me carry boxes into the Kia on Sunday. She was carrying the lightest box I’d packed. It was filled with pillows. I carried two boxes of books, one on top of the other.

  “A whim. I’m afraid I’ll get bored living off my trust fund.”

  “What?” She reached the car and leaned the box against the door so she could brush the hair out of her eyes. Brandi had lemony-blonde hair that always hung straight, no matter how much she tried to get it to curl. She’d recently had it feathered around her face, which made her look like a disco queen born in the wrong decade. Her eyes were a washed-out blue, her skin lightly freckled. It seemed her body couldn’t drum up enough energy for brighter coloring.

  As friends, we were a strange contrast. My hair is inky black, my eyes such a dark brown that if my hair wasn’t even darker, they would have looked black. My mother, I’d been told, was from Syria or Persia or some other Middle Eastern country, my father was never exactly sure. I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember her. Anyway, apparently I look a lot like her, because my father seemed to pretty much hate me after she disappeared.

  Brandi and I loaded all my boxes, my futon, my one surviving lamp, and a love seat that had escaped unharmed because it was made entirely of foam. “Whew,” I said, collapsing into the passenger seat once everything was onboard. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  She started the Kia and drove at her usual slowpoke pace across town. I live in one of those towns on Long Island that aren’t far from New York City, but might as well be on another continent. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. Crappy, boring, dead-end. As we drove, other drivers honked and yelled, but when they passed us and Brandi gave them her charming, little ol’ me shrug, they did things like yell out their phone numbers or waggle their tongues in the unive
rsal symbol for horny guy. Take it from me, there’s no shortage of lowlifes in my town. They ought to call it Lowlife, Long Island.

  I tried to imagine Simon Dirk waggling his tongue out a car window and completely failed.

  “So when can I come and check out your new work?” Brandi maneuvered her way through a cluster of homeless men milling around on a street corner a few blocks from my new apartment.

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “So you can buy me lunch.”

  The men scattered, shouting at us, and a bottle broke against the rear windshield. Great, the neighbors already hated me.

  “Brandi, do you mind not turning me into a marked woman?”

  “You chose this neighborhood, not me. So, when should I come in? Chinese’d be good.”

  We pulled up outside my new home, which was a former tenement building from immigrant days. The windows on the bottom floor were barred. Broken glass littered the sidewalk. The brickwork looked like it was waiting for a strong wind to turn it into dust. But it was home. “I’ll let you know, Brandi. I want to get the lay of the land first, you know? I don’t want to piss anyone off until I’ve made myself indispensable.”

  “Fine, be that way.” Brandi sighed. “What floor is your apartment on?”

  “Fifth, no elevator. You coming?”

  Brandi turned pale.

  “Just kidding. I got it from here. Stand guard while I’m carting my stuff upstairs, okay? I don’t want to lose my only lamp.”

  “What are friends for?”

  Apparently, they’re for redoing their nail polish while you cart boxes up and down five flights of stairs.

  Brandi took off as soon as I’d removed the last box from her Kia. I spent the rest of the day arranging and rearranging my stuff. It was a good thing I had so little, since nothing more would have fit in the tiny space. It didn’t bother me. This was home. Home sweet home. Home sweet, gunfire-in-the-streets, squalling-baby-next-door, police-siren-all-night-long home. I sure wasn’t complaining.