Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 42185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 211(@200wpm)___ 169(@250wpm)___ 141(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 211(@200wpm)___ 169(@250wpm)___ 141(@300wpm)
“What is this?” she asks, looking inside the box.
“Shoeshine kit.” I smirk at the look on her face. “I’m guessing you don’t know how to shine shoes.”
“No,” she admits.
“That’s okay.” I put my feet up on a small stool and gesture at the box. “I’ll teach you. And yes, I made my other assistants do this.”
She glares at me for a second before catching herself. “Yes, sir.”
I laugh softly. “First, take the polish and the soft rag.” She follows my directions, opening the little polish bottle. “Dip in the rag and apply it to my shoes.”
She nods and gets to work. She starts slow, being careful, and I watch her the whole time. I get glimpses of her breasts down her loose blouse, and I realize she left one extra button undone this morning. I wonder if that was on purpose, or if it was a mistake.
“Do you always have someone else polish your shoes?” she asks me.
I frown a little. “No, not always,” I say.
“You did it yourself?”
“When I did it at all,” I say, smiling a little. “I didn’t really care all that much about my clothing back then.”
She glances up at me. “Really? You seem very… particular.”
I raise an eyebrow. She’s not supposed to be talking right now, let alone commenting on my personality.
“I wasn’t always,” I tell her. “When I was a younger man.”
“Got particular in your old age. I guess that happens a lot.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Old age?”
She smiles up at me, a little embarrassed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I’m only forty, you know. It’s not that old.”
“Right, totally. Not at all old.”
I smile a little bit. “This coming from a girl that’s clearly practically a teenager.”
“I graduated college,” she says.
“With a painting degree.”
She glares at me. “This painting degree is killing these shoes right now.”
I laugh as she finishes rubbing the polish into the right one.
“You’re doing fine, I guess,” I say, grinning. “Okay, now you need to take the brush and brush the whole shoe.”
She puts the rag and polish down and starts to brush the shoe. “Lots of steps for this. Do I get tips?”
“Only if you’re lucky.”
She smiles. “What’s a girl got to do to get lucky?”
I laugh a little and she instantly turns red.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” she quickly says.
“I think that’s exactly what you meant. Don’t try and backpedal now.”
“No, I just mean, I want a tip.”
“I’ll give you more than a tip.”
She looks shocked and I laugh at her expression. She goes back to brushing my shoes, almost feverishly.
“Done,” she says after another minute.
“Now, take the clean rag, wipe it down one more time to get off any excess polish, and that shoe is finished.”
She nods and does it, wiping it thoroughly. When she’s done, my shoe looks good, clearly better than the one she hasn’t polished yet.
“Good, now do the left.”
She nods, and starts the process over again. I watch her work in silence for a few minutes, marveling at the line of her neck, the thickness of her hair. I have this strange urge to grab it in my fist, pull her up toward me, and kiss her right here.
It’s stupid, and I have to push it from my mind.
“What sort of painting do you do?” I ask her, trying to distract myself from thoughts of fucking her senseless.
She hesitates. “Modern stuff,” she says.
“What’s that mean?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Now you’re into art?”
“Only if you make it.”
She smiles a little. “I guess you could call it contemporary modernism.”
“So you’re mixing modernistic styles with contemporary themes?”
She stops what she’s doing and looks up at me. “I thought you thought art was stupid.”
“I never said that.” I smirk at her and lean closer. “I just think getting an art degree is stupid.”
She glares at me and goes back to work. “Sorry for trying to do what I love.”
“That’s okay. You should bring in a painting sometime, show me what you do.”
“Maybe,” she says, sounding distracted.
“If I like it, I’ll buy it.”
That makes her pause. “Really?”
“If I like it,” I emphasize.
She laughs a little. “Of course you’ll like it. I’m amazing.”
“I bet you are.”
She finishes scrubbing the shoe and wipes the remaining polish off with the clean rag. When it’s all finished, I stand up and look down at myself.
“Well done,” I say, just able to see myself in the leather.
“Thank you, sir.”
I walk over to my desk and sit back down as she puts the shine kit back together. When she’s done, she slides it back into place.
“Anything else from me, sir?”
I watch her for a moment. “Come closer,” I say.
She walks nearer and stops just in front of my desk. I stare at her body, at her skin, and she looks back, undaunted. Of all my assistants, she’s the first one that hasn’t wilted under my gaze.