Working for the Man, Chapter 3
Title: Working for the Man
Fandom : Moonlight
Characters : Mick, Josef
Rating : R, for some sexual content and strong language.
Summary: Flashback to 1969. Mick takes a job at Kostan Industries before he
becomes a PI. Can Mick and Josef's friendship survive a boss-employee
relationship? A light and fluffy stand-alone fic.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters; no copyright infringement intended.
A/N: I’m sure you’ve been wondering what’s on Josef’s mind…no? Well, I have, lol. So, here’s our favorite smart ass, wealthy, playboy vampire.
Chapter 3
JOSEF
I really had to hand it to myself. It had been a stellar idea to offer Mick a job. He’d taken to it like a newborn to a freshie, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had swum through the murky steno pool and found the perfect secretary for me. It was so great to be able to trust someone at work implicitly, someone who knew me well, understood my needs, was looking out for me. So, I was not disappointed when Mick introduced bachelorette number one the next day.
She was lovely-short, dark hair, ala Elizabeth Taylor. Petite and graceful, the leggy brunette arrived at my office door on Mick’s arm.
“Mr. Kostan,” said my friend formally, “allow me to introduce Mary White. Miss White has worked here three years, and has shining recommendations from her supervisor.”
“Really?” I took her small hand and brought it to my lips. “Enchante mademoiselle.” Her alabaster skin flushed becomingly at the full force of my charm. Mick was trying hard not to laugh.
“Thank you, Mr. St. John. Mary and I will have a little visit in my office. I’ll let you know when I need to see the next candidate.”
He nodded and left us, while I escorted the secretary inside and shut the door behind us. I indicated she sit in a chair while I leaned casually against my desk, my eyes feasting on the delectable Miss White. She wore a cute little pale blue skirt suit, and conservative high heels, that drew attention to her shapely legs as she crossed them demurely. I picked up her file and began perusing it, while she sat tensely waiting. I really wasn’t looking at the pages; I had no doubt Mick had found the best qualified. But I was trying to get a feel for her. I listened to her heartbeat-just slightly accelerated. She was naturally nervous to be meeting with the boss, I’m sure. Her breathing was only slightly shaky. I looked up from the file.
“What’s your blood type, Mary?”
Her heart jolted, then sped up a little, and there were those rosy, blood-filled cheeks again.
“I don’t know, sir,” she said softly, meeting my eyes despite her slight fear. Here would be the real test.
“May I…taste you?”
“Uh…I…” She swallowed, hard. Then: “Yes.”
Good. She really wanted this job. I took the two steps that would bring me close to her, and reached down to pick up her arm where it had been neatly folded in her lap. She smelled lightly of roses, I noted as I laved her forearm with my tongue in preparation. Her pulse picked up speed and her breathing accelerated. I could tell she’d never done this before. I was about to be the one to take her freshie virginity. My fangs dropped down and I knew my eyes must be vampire silver. Her green eyes were closed tightly. I gently slid my fangs into her vein and heard her rough gasp, but she held still and let me taste. Hmmmm. B positive. Nice and rare, like I like it.
I only took a few sips, then detached from her arm, reaching into my pocket for a handkerchief that I pressed to her bleeding puncture marks.
Mary looked a little green around the gills, but she bravely met my eyes and gave a little smile in answer to mine.
“You’re B positive, for future reference,” I told her. “Very good. Thank you for the sample.”
She replaced my hand with her own on her wounds, and I took my place behind my desk.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
She let out a breath she’d been holding. “Yes, sir. I’m fine. May I say…that wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. You were very gentle.”
I laughed softly. “Thank you. You know, some ladies even come to like it.”
She smiled, suddenly, seductively. “I can see how that could happen.” I was pleased to sense that she was a little dazed and more than slightly aroused.
“Tell me, Mary, what do you think is the most important characteristic of a good secretary?”
“Discretion,” she replied immediately. I grinned. Good answer.
I moved to help her up and usher her back to the door. “Thank you , Mary. I’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you sir,” were Mary’s final words. I watched her walk to the elevator, and I wasn’t disappointed.
Back in my office, I called Mick.
“Mary is delicious,” I told him.
I heard the smile in his voice. “She is, is she? I take it she passed the taste test?”
“With flying colors. I don’t know how you’ll top her, but go ahead and bring over my next option.”
He laughed aloud as if to say, just you wait.
“We’ll be right there.”
******
I was not prepared for the vision before me as Mick came round the corner with a Rubenesque beauty in tow. Had I been a cartoon wolf, my eyes would be bulging out of the sockets, my heart pounding out of my chest, my tongue lolling out of my mouth. Goddamn.
“Josef Kostan, allow me to introduce Miss Penny Smith.”
She held out her hand. All business. I smirked, shaking it, allowing my index finger to lightly caress her palm. Her blue eyes behind her ridiculous glasses widened, then sparked briefly with fire. The rest of her face remained professional and impassive.
“A pleasure, Miss Smith.”
“Likewise, Mr. Kostan.”
“Please, come into my office.”
“Said the spider to the fly,” she said under her breath, believing that I couldn’t hear her. She had a lot to learn about vampires. I looked back at Mick, who was grinning uncharacteristically from ear to ear. I didn’t have to be a vampire to notice he was smitten with her. Hard to blame him though.
“Wow!” I said at vampire level.
“I know,” he replied in kind, still grinning like an idiot.
As I walked behind Penny into my office, I noticed her hair was held in a conservative bun with what looked to be two tiny stakes. A bark of laughter escaped me.
“Brought your weapons with you?” I couldn’t resist asking. She turned to face me, so prim and proper I wanted to ravage her right there. She was quick in taking my meaning. Her hand went to her hair, and a tantalizing smile hovered around her sensual lips.
“A girl can’t be too careful,” she said, her voice like smooth whiskey.
“Please, have a seat.” She wore a dress of pale pink, tightly belted at the waist with a black leather belt, allowing her perfect hourglass figure to be displayed to its best advantage-well, as much as it could be, fully clothed. She reminded me of a juicy, ripe peach. She complied with my request, setting her purse at her feet and arranging her skirt efficiently and modestly around her in the chair.
I took up her file, leaning against the desk again, but, unlike with Mary, I suddenly wanted to know everything about Penny Smith. First thing that caught my eye, was the fact that she had a Bachelor’s in Business Administration. I looked up at her with surprise and and newfound respect. She wasn’t just a pretty uh…everything.
“You know,” I began, testing her reaction, “I’ve heard it said giving a woman an education is like hunting with an accordion.”
Her face remained unemotional, but those eyes flashed again. “That’s a new one. Personally, I’m fond of the lipstick on a pig expression.” I smiled…slowly.
“How about nipples on a bull?”
“My father beat you to that one,” she said dryly.
“So, I guess that degree of yours means you’re very smart. But can you type?”
“Yes, but not as fast as I can think.”
I grinned openly in admiration. “I can see that. Now, Miss Smith, where do you see yourself in five years?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Kostan, where can you take me?”
On my desk. Right fuckin’ now! Aloud, I said: “You can go as far as you want in Kostan Industries.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really? Tell me, will this office be available within five years?”
I laughed out loud. “Already planning a hostile takeover, are we?”
She smiled slightly, pushing her glasses farther up on the bridge of her nose. It was an amazingly sensual gesture. “Oh, there won’t be anything hostile about it. I just want the chance to prove to you that I’m fully capable of doing your job, but I’m not too naïve to realize that I’ll have to prove my worth to you as a secretary, first.”
I stared at her, taken aback at her gall, her ambition. “You’re hiding a pair under that sexy dress of yours, aren’t you?”
She smirked. “Maybe.”
We regarded each other a moment; two like souls.
“Tell me, Miss Smith, what is your blood type?”
“O-negative.”
“Aww…the universal donor. Lovely.”
“Is that a comment on my virtue?” she asked, deadpan.
“Not at all. But pursuant to your landing this position, I must insist that I have a sample-just to be sure, you understand.”
“Of course.” Without hesitation, she offered the white underside of one delicate arm.
“You’ve done this before?”
“Yes. For Richard Johnson.”
“Isn’t he your supervisor?”
“Yes. I wanted a day off.”
I smiled at her resourcefulness, not faulting either of them one bit, but finding myself insanely jealous of old Dick for having tasted her before me.
I stepped over to take her hand, as I did earlier with Mary. But I had something different in mind for Penny Smith.
“I prefer the jugular,” I said softly, meeting her eyes. They widened slightly, but held no fear, and for the first time since she’d entered my office, her heart picked up speed.
“Very well.” She inclined her pretty neck and waited patiently. I watched and heard the pounding of her pulse beneath her skin. She wasn’t afraid; Miss Smith was excited.
I knelt down beside her chair, and moved in slowly to her neck. She wore no fragrance, except perhaps from her soap, but her natural scent was so desirable it would have been a sacrilege to mask it by artificial means. She shuttered slightly as my cold tongue flicked at her artery, and I suddenly felt my own excitement mounting. My fangs emerged, and I grasped her shoulders to hold her still. I glanced down at her breasts, her quickened breathing making them rise and fall gently in a totally beguiling way. And then I was tasting her, the hot, sweet blood filling my mouth as her low moan filled my ears. Her shoulders were slim and gave easily beneath my hands, and her blood pumped like a spring from within her, refreshing and reviving. It took all my self-control to let her go, but I did, licking at the two small holes I’d left in her neck until the bleeding stopped. She wore my mark now, and there was no doubt in my mind that soon, this wonderful woman would be all mine. I leaned in for a kiss, but her palms went up to my chest, holding me back, saphire eyes determined.
“No,” she whispered. “It must remain just business between us. I won’t be sleeping with you to get to the top.”
“You could be on bottom, if you like,” I quipped, and I saw her struggling not to laugh.
“I’m serious, Mr. Kostan. If sex is a condition of this job, I must decline.”
I wondered just how resolved she was in that opinion. I got to my feet and stepped away, as she reached down for her purse, giving me a tantalizing glimpse of white lace and cleavage. She pulled out a handkerchief and a flowered scarf, dabbing at her neck with the first, then tying the scarf around the indication of her new freshie status.
She patted that frustrating hairstyle of hers, which was totally unnecessary, since not a hair was out of place. I had this intense desire to pull those damned little stakes from her golden hair and see what she was hiding. I had a sudden vision of long flowing hair, like Rapunzel’s, wrapping around both of us as I plunged into that hot body of hers. To prevent my hands from acting out my fantasy, I clasped them together and brought myself with much effort back to the present.
“But my dear Miss Smith,” I continued, “you may as well have issued a challenge, rather than a demand. I’m a vampire, after all, a hunter by nature. I love the chase.”
“And I’m a woman, sir, intelligent enough not to have to sleep with my boss to get what I want. My rise in a company may not be as fast as a man’s, but I’ll get there, you’ll see.”
“But you have no qualms in letting me drink your blood?”
“I prefer to think of it as a business dinner.”
I chuckled, already a little in love with her. “Fair enough. When can you start?”
She touched her scarf. “I believe I already did, about five minutes ago.”
“In that case, pour me a whiskey, and get Mick St. John on the phone. Tell him I need to see him right away.” Without hesitation, she picked up her purse and rose to her black-heeled feet.
“Certainly, Mr. Kostan,” she replied, going over to the small wet bar. She brought back a tumbler of single malt, setting it gently before me. “Anything else?”
I sat in the chair behind my desk, looking up at her, reveling in her closeness, a million possible suggestive answers to her question buzzing through my mind.
“Yes,” I said finally, “I have one last question for you. What would you say is the most important characteristic in a secretary?”
She thought a moment, and I noticed her tongue snuck out to touch her top lip as she did so. I felt it all the way to my groin.
“Loyalty,” she replied, citing the same requirement I’d told Mick just yesterday. She smiled knowingly at me, then left my office, closing the door with a gentle click. I sat there, amazed, and felt my mouth twist into a wry grin.
“I think I’ve finally met my match,” I said to the empty office. I raised my drink in salute. “Mick, my friend, you deserve a raise already!” And as I downed the whiskey, I suddenly remembered Mick’s pole axed expression earlier when he introduced me to Penny Smith. He had the hots for her too.
Shit.
A/N: Don’t worry, this story won’t be a repeat of “Just a Kiss,” lol. I’m going in a completely different direction with this, as you will see if you keep reading…and reviews are nice also!