Summer with Sexy, page 1
Summer with Sexy (Forever Rescue 1)
Treva Harte
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Copyright ©2022 Treva Harte
BIN: 010144-03293
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Changeling Press LLC
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Martinsburg, WV 25404
www.ChangelingPress.com
Editor: Karen Williams
Cover Artist: Bryan Keller
Adult Sexual Content
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Table of Contents
Summer with Sexy (Forever Rescue 1)
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Epilogue
Dedication
Treva Harte
Summer with Sexy (Forever Rescue 1)
Treva Harte
Zoe Pappas doesn’t want her new boss, A. Gordon Haigh, as a housemate. She’s not even sure she likes him, much less wants to live with him. But when she discovers the poor little rich boy is broke and his family has decided to punish him for the summer, she has to stick up for the underdog.
She still can’t quite figure out how that leads to her foster dog, Sexy, adopting Gordon, her very Greek family falling in love with him, and her realizing he’s very hot in a corset. But summer is the right time for new adventures -- and also for accepting they end in the fall. This guy is only hers for the summer… unless somehow he changes her mind.
Prologue
“I’m very disappointed in you, Gordon.” His uncle looked at him over the rims of his glasses. Uncle Charles only wore his glasses when he needed to look especially severe. Gordon wanted to tell him he didn’t need any help, but figured this wasn’t the right time. Not that there would ever be a right time or that Gordon would ever speak up even if it was. “Disappointed on every level imaginable.”
“Yes, sir.” Gordon was disappointed in himself too. But he knew that didn’t count.
“You were this close to graduating on time, and then you fail a class. There is no excuse for that.”
“Yes, sir.” Technically he hadn’t failed. He had missed taking a required class. He’d been a freshman and thought he’d taken the right thing but hadn’t. It wouldn’t help to point that out right now anyhow. Plus, he’d probably start stammering or something and completely disgust as well as disappoint his uncle. No one in the family enjoyed listening to him try to talk and fuck it up.
“I had plans for you after graduation, but even for a relative I can’t make exceptions to company policy. You will not be a manager for me this fall without a degree in hand.”
Gordon swallowed. It wasn’t like he wanted to get a job with the family company. He’d looked in other places. And he could’ve gotten an offer that would’ve let him tell Uncle Charles to kiss off. More than one offer even. If he hadn’t fucking forgotten to take a humanities class. Or something that would have clearly fulfilled the cultural requirement.
“I will not be paying for that additional class you must redo this summer, Gordon.”
Hell. This day got better and better. It wasn’t like he had his trust fund yet or an unlimited allowance. The Allbrits weren’t big on giving money away to anyone, even family. Especially family, actually.
“Um. I don’t think I qualify for financial aid, sir.”
“Or a scholarship based on merit.” His uncle snorted. “You can work for your money.”
Doing what exactly? What did a not quite graduated senior do? His internships had all been for managerial work. They’d been the kind of internships that prepared you for jobs where you had a college degree and a promising title to go with your own office.
“Right.” Was he even qualified to flip burgers? And would that pay for his one remaining class? His college wasn’t exactly cheap. Nothing but the best and most expensive for his family.
“I do have a managerial job of sorts for you.”
Gordon knew from the smug note in that voice that all was not forgiven and forgotten. Here came the kicker.
“One of our stores needs an assistant manager. It’s part-time work, so you should have ample time to study. And it pays a bit above minimum wage, or so I’ve been told.”
Like his uncle had ever worked for minimum wage in his life. Probably the only people he knew who worked for minimum wage were his yard staff.
“There’s only one of the family stores anywhere near my college,” Gordon said. Where the store was had been pointed out to him. In fact, that was something the family always did whenever they went by one of their businesses -- the location of everything they owned was important. “It’s --”
No. It couldn’t be the one that was closest to him. Oh hell. Yes, it could. His uncle’s smile confirmed it. His uncle would never have smiled right now unless he had planned to do exactly what Gordon now realized would happen.
He was going to be working as part-time assistant manager at Allbrit Corsets and Lingerie.
Chapter One
“We have a new assistant manager,” Tracey told me.
At one point, the last actual manager who worked here had hinted I was in line to be assistant manager. Right. Like I’d believed that. I yawned to show the depth of how much I cared about the news.
“How many does that make this year?” I asked. “Five? They can’t even hang on to assistant managers, much less hire a real manager. I bet this one lasts a week.”
The crazy thing was, it was easy work. I could do the job with my eyes shut. Of course you got paid less, after bonuses, for managing than you did for sales. At least you did if you were good at selling. I was damn good.
“This is even crazier than usual.” Tracey leaned forward. “Get this! It’s a guy.”
“What guy would work here?” I asked. “Wait. A cross-dresser?”
“I have no clue. But that is just weird. I wonder what the customers will think.”
“Maybe they’ll ask him to do their fittings.” I tried not to smile. Why not a cross-dressing guy as a manager? It was a free country, and some parts were even progressive. Not here, particularly, but there was a first time for everything. “When is he going to show up? Want to bet he doesn’t?”
Tracey hissed and froze. I took a deep breath. I hadn’t heard the front door chime for anyone opening it, but that could mean…
“How do you do?”
The guy’s voice sounded a little peculiar -- but then mine might if I’d just heard an employee saying I wasn’t going to show up when I was right freaking behind her. Or maybe he’d heard about the cross-dressing. Shit. When would I learn to stop snarking? He had to be the assistant manager. He’d used the back door. The one that required a key to enter so it didn’t have to chime.
I needed this job. There were other ones in town, but none of them had such convenient hours and required so little of me. I hadn’t even had the chance to show how good I was at the job before I sabotaged myself in front of the new assistant…
I turned with my widest smile -- it hurt, I was smiling so big and fake -- and held out my hand.
“Pleased to meet you, sir.” I used my sweetest Southern-girl voice. “I’m Zoe. Zoe Pappas.”
If only I’d had a sweet Southern name and face to match the voice. Then again, I was special. Not everyone could have the looks to match their heritage the way I did.
He took my hand to shake it, his face very serious. I kept looking up. Damn, he was tall. And skinny. While I was cataloging his looks, he was a ginger but not really the pretty kind. More the pasty-skinned, big-nosed British inbred kind. He’d make a lousy cross-dresser with that Adam’s apple.
And I was nervous. I had just blown my first meeting with my new boss, and I wanted him to be the problem. That wasn’t being fair, but it was one of my many flaws. When feeling defensive, be offensive. As offensive as possible. “Think nice thoughts, Zoe.” That’s what my counselor had told me in high school when I got into trouble.
Hmm. My boss had a nice, strong handshake. My dad had always said that was important in a man.
“Gordon Haigh. The new assistant manager.” His voice was beautiful. I planned to minor in acting, and I had a thing for voices. His was deep and resonant and… he fell silent again.
Tracey didn’t introduce herself. She was probably trying to look lik
“As long as there aren’t any customers around, we should start today by doing some retraining,” he said.
Yeah?
He walked over to our sign-in sheet -- why did anyone have anything that old-school in a store nowadays? -- and wrote his name and time in. I edged over to the sheet and looked down. Nice handwriting. A. Gordon Haigh was written in a lovely script.
I jerked my gaze back to his face when he spoke again.
“We can start with work on how we introduce ourselves in the store and making that good first impression.”
We all did that the first week of our training. He must know that. Of course he knew.
So. Ouch. I was being spanked for talking about him when he walked into the store. He should have just told me something up front.
I was also pretty sure that he looked a little longer toward me than Tracey after he spoke -- but not directly at me. At the girls. Just awesome. I knew in my corset -- hell, even without a corset -- they were hard to miss. Having big boobs wasn’t all bad. Women looked at me and wanted to buy what I was wearing, which helped with my sales. I usually made allowances for guys who came into the store to shop for their women when they said the same thing -- they bought even more than the women. But I was done being a mature, tolerant Zoe for the day. This guy wasn’t buying anything I was selling.
My assistant manager was officially an asshole. A passive-aggressive asshole. He’d do everything indirectly instead of up front.
* * *
“Have you seen his car?” Dolores whispered.
I glanced around. I wasn’t going to get caught gossiping again, and our new assistant manager moved like a ninja. He wasn’t due in for another half hour, but you couldn’t count on anything. He seemed to be everywhere, checking on everything.
“No. What about it?”
“Beemer. A newish one. What do they pay assistant managers nowadays?” Dolores shook her head.
“Damned if I know. I also don’t know where he gets all those black suits, but they look expensive. I can’t figure out the designer, so maybe they’re custom-made or something. Who the hell owns that when they’re in their twenties?” The new guy had become our topic of the day for almost two weeks now. We probably should have stopped after a week. Usually we did find other things to gossip about within a few days, but he was pretty fascinating. In a what-the-hell-is-with-him kind of way, of course. I got to observe him the most because, for some reason, I seemed to be the one who always worked with him. I’d say he was watching me to see if he could screw me over for the cross-dresser remark, but probably I was just lucky.
“I heard him take a phone call from the vice president of the company yesterday. They were making a date for lunch. Has anyone in our store ever had lunch with the higher-ups?”
“So many questions. So few answers.” I shrugged. “Maybe he’s part of the mob, and they’re taking over the corset industry.”
I could see by the look on Dolores’s face that she was thinking that one over seriously. No one at the store ever seemed to get when I was kidding. Then again, that answer made as much sense as anything else.
“Hey, if he were part of the mob, maybe the A is Italian. Like, um, Alfredo or something. But I think it’s Alvin. Tracey’s guess is crazy. No one would hide a name like Alexander with just an initial,” Dolores said, reverting back to an even older topic. Everyone in the store had a bet on what the A in A. Gordon Haigh stood for.
I shrugged again. I was pretty sure we’d gone through every name in the baby name books by now, and none of them really fit our boss. “I think you are using old stereotypes about mobsters. Anyhow, I’ll stick to calling him the Boy Wonder until we find out for sure.”
“Boy Wonder? What?” Dolores stared at me blankly.
“Never mind. No time to explain. I’m blowing this taco stand. Keep us filled in on the latest with the Boy Wonder, huh? Not that I’m going to think about this place until I’m back and have to.” I waved and clocked out. Right on schedule. We didn’t get paid to do any overtime unless it was authorized.
On the way out the door, I met the Boy Wonder himself. He frowned when he saw me.
“Aren’t you working this shift?” he asked.
“Had to swap with Tracey. She’s going to a bridal shower this afternoon.” And that meant I’d have two days off in a row. Yes. “I called you this morning when she asked.”
“Fuck.” He said it so absently that I couldn’t be thrilled that he’d said a bad word. Really, he hardly said anything, much less obscenities. He might not be human. “I got a call from my family this morning and forgot to check my phone afterward.”
Or turned off the phone because he didn’t want to answer any more calls from the family. Just a guess, but it was possible. It’s what I would do. At least I could now be sure he actually had a family. Like I said, we at the store weren’t entirely sure he was human. Of course, he might have been adopted and no one knew his real origins.
“Oh. Well, I sure hope that works for you since I’m out of here right now.” I took off before I could hear him tell me that it didn’t. I mean, I could admit I liked hearing his deep voice when he did actually say something -- I was even fonder of it when I was leaving for forty-eight hours -- but I didn’t want to hear his voice now.
I had things to do. It wasn’t like I was going to sit on my ass for two days. There was homework, and of course, there was Sexy to take care of. He was going to give me crap about leaving him this long as it was.
* * *
He wasn’t going to see Zoe for two days. That shouldn’t make him feel like shit, but Gordon had already accepted that he was obsessed. It was bad enough that he had planned his shifts to coordinate with hers. But he watched her constantly while she was there and prayed she hadn’t noticed.
He couldn’t help himself. The minute he met her, he’d felt like an electric charge had just gone through him.
She was so fucking sexy. It wasn’t just her tits, although they were really hard to miss. Her corset damn near showed him everything, but it stopped just short of where he’d like it to be. He’d had a few -- a lot -- of fantasies about what he would do if he could see her breasts completely naked. But it wasn’t just that. It was everything.
Her hair was long and dark, and he itched to dig his fingers into that thick mass while he bit her full bottom lip. The whole physical response thing was embarrassing. When she was in the store, he could pick out her scent, for God’s sake, and he got hard. Gordon remembered other guys talking about some hot chick back when they hit puberty and never letting it go. He hadn’t really seen what the fuss was. Sex was all right when you got it, but he could go without if the girl wasn’t worth the effort. Now he understood. He was thinking about sex with Zoe all the fucking time. He thought about every part of her body and wanted all of it. Breasts, hair…
And her mouth. That sarcastic, ever-talking mouth. Maybe some people would be put off by it. God knows lately he was used to being with nice, well-bred girls who knew how to make polite conversation and sometimes even talk dirty in bed if he managed to get them that far. He didn’t mind when females chattered -- he kind of admired it since he was so bad at saying anything out loud. But Zoe? Zoe was in a class by herself. He had to be obsessed. He even liked her brain and how it worked when she talked. She said what was on her mind, and he loved hearing it. He could almost hear the conversations she had in her mind when she worked in the store. Even when she finally did fall silent, her mouth moved -- she would smile or pout over whatever she was thinking.
He wished she was thinking about him. He had a feeling she talked about him when he wasn’t around. Hell, she talked about everyone and everything. But he didn’t think she was talking and thinking about him the way he did her.
He knew he was the pain-in-the-ass boss. And hell, he was paid to be the pain-in-the-ass boss. His uncle might have set him up to look like a tool with this job, but that didn’t mean Gordon wouldn’t do his job properly.
