Talk This Way

by Dakota Cassidy

  She heard Landon’s words, she even wanted to acknowledge them, she just couldn’t stop staring.

  “Would you like to sit, Cat?”

  No. Sitting wouldn’t help.

  Finally, Cat turned to him, taking in his expression, one she’d swear was taking great pleasure in her shock. “You really...”

  His head moved up and down, his eyes reassuring. “Yep. I really do.”

  “You really own a phone sex company?” she asked, pushing the words from her lips.

  He really did.

  Chapter Five

  Cat blinked her eyes again. When she reopened them, there were still five heads just fringing the tops of their cubicles wearing headsets and bobbing animatedly.

  There were phones ringing, and lights blinking and the sound of something thwacking.

  Chatter filled up the enormous room. Phrases like “Baby, that’s sooo nice!” and “You dirty, dirty boy!” flew around like flies buzzing.

  For a brief moment, she thought of Flynn and how uncomfortable he’d be right now. If “Spank me harder” made him blush, “Who’s Mama’s big, hard boy?” would give him a heart attack.

  Cat cocked her head in Landon’s direction.

  Landon smiled sheepishly at her. “Welcome to Call Girls Inc.”

  A woman with fingerless leather gloves and a dozen or so silver bracelets on her wrist looked up, caught sight of Landon and waved to him cheerfully, her smile broad.

  “That’s Sheree.”

  “Of course it’s Sheree. Who else would it be but Sheree?” This was crazy.

  “You’re in shock. Why don’t we sit while you absorb? Maybe in my office?” Landon pointed in the direction of the back of the room, where more double doors were located.

  Disbelief finally gave her a voice. “You’re really running a phone sex company you won in a poker game in Uzbekistan right here in your penthouse?”

  “I am. I have all the appropriate permits and such, if that’s what worries you. Everything’s completely legal. Swear it on my ascot collection.”

  She wasn’t hearing anything but phone sex. Cat waved her hand at him. “How, in all the time you’ve been creamin’ my butt at checkers, did you manage to avoid telling me you owned a phone sex company? Who runs a phone sex company from their penthouse, Landon? Who?”

  “Rich, crazier-’n’-a-bedbug multimillionaires like me?” he asked with that teasing tone he usually reserved for the moment he yelled “Checkmate.”

  “You’re really serious about hiring me to manage a phone sex company? A phone sex company?” She couldn’t stop saying it. Maybe, if she said it enough, it would quit sounding so absolutely insane.

  “It comes with Bennies, you know.”

  “Ah, but the real question is, does it come with latex and nipple clamps?”

  Landon let out one of his hearty laughs—the one that always reminded her it really was the best medicine. “Look, I know you’re shocked, but if you’ll just sit with me and hear me out, I promise you, we can mutually benefit from this. I know you’re the right person for this job, Catherine Butler, and I’m not gonna stop until you say yes,” he said like he was sticking his fingers in his ears and refusing to hear her. He strolled off toward his office without another word.

  That pulled her up short.

  Cat Butler, you have two choices. You can look for another job, another job that pays just above minimum wage and forces you to work long hours for another sleazy boss who shortchanges his customers and makes gross passes at you, or you can finally decide to join the rest of the adults in the real world. You can have a real job, one with benefits and retirement funds—all you have to do is show up.

  And then there’s your mother. She needs you. In fact, if it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t need all this expensive therapy and ’round-the-clock care at Oakdale to begin with.

  It was the last little push she needed.

  Sold.

  Cat followed him to his office, which was equally as plush as the rest of his penthouse, and dropped into a chair facing him. If she was going to consider this, she was going to be as honest as she knew how to be.

  Dropping her purse in her lap with a plunk, she set out to tell Landon the truth. “So, I’m just gonna lay this on the line with you, Landon Wells. I’m a terrible employee. I’m flighty when it comes to commitment, and taken to whims of fancy, and my stick-to-itiveness is a crummy team player. I open my mouth far more often than I should, I’ve never, except at the coffee shop, held a job for longer than a few months and I’m not afraid to make a stink about an injustice. Just ask Arlo.”

  Landon grabbed a pen from his desk and flicked the top of it with a smile. “I know all about your employment history, Cat Butler. It’s as ugly as my mama’s old orthopedic shoes. But I know in my gut you’re right for this job. What you need is a challenge, and keeping this business, these women who work the phones, organized, is a challenge. But you won’t find any injustice amongst them because all the injustice in their lives has already come and gone—it’s what led them here.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  Landon leaned in, bringing that charisma he oozed with him and letting it splash all over his desk. “All of the women who work here at Call Girls have, in one way or another, been down on their luck—just like you. As long as they’re employed with me, they’ll never want for anything. Ever.”

  Landon’s words jarred her. Not in a bad way, though. His tone was protective, caring, but it was so fierce, and his eyes were so determined, she couldn’t help but wonder what the motivation for his intensity was. Maybe Landon came from a poor background? Maybe being gay had brought such injustices to his life that he was out to fix one hard-luck story at a time?

  “Why here? Why right here in your home?”

  “Well, why not? Overhead’s cheap, and I have the room.”

  “Couldn’t they just do it from their own homes? Isn’t that how most phone sex operators work? Self-employed?” Cat remembered seeing a documentary on the business of talking dirty once, and all of the operators were doing dishes and washing clothes while they answered calls.

  They certainly weren’t living in the lap of luxury. Why would Landon bring them all here to his home?

  “Some of them didn’t have homes,” was all he said.

  She looked around, her eyes widening. “They live here?”

  Landon cupped his chin in his hand. “Yep. Most of them do. Though, Sheree has a husband who lost his job. She works a day shift and goes home to him every night. Besides, I like having the girls here. I like the prestige it allows them to say they work in an office and have all the benefits everyone else in the corporate world has. We’re a tight-knit crew, and that’s how I want it to stay. The girls havin’ specific hours and knowing they have to come to the office to work keeps them motivated to stay on the right path.”

  The right path? “I can’t live here.” Who’d want to live here in the lap of luxury when they had a perfectly good studio apartment they were three months behind in rent on with a bed that fell out of the wall if your footsteps were too heavy?

  “Fear not, Kit-Cat. That’s not a requirement.”

  The use of the nickname he’d given her shortly after they’d met made her smile at the familiar. But she still had questions.

  No one hired a crying ex-barista for the sum of money Landon was offering without an ulterior motive. “What are the requirements? What’s the catch here, Landon? There has to be one. I’ve been around the block a time or two, and the block always leads to ulterior-motive alley.”

  His wide shoulders shrugged beneath his suit. “No catches, no ulterior motives, nothing illegal. In fact, you can look Call Girls up at the Better Business Bureau online, and you’ll find we have a pristine reputation. We’re the single most succ
essful phone sex company in the world, bar none. As for you, pretty Cat, I need nothing other than a good GM, and that’s you.”

  Still, she couldn’t absorb it all. “Why?” Why did he let strange women live in his private residence?

  He actually looked as though her were puzzled. “Why what?”

  “Why do you do this?”

  “I’m missing the subtext behind your question, but if I know you, and I think I have a pretty good handle on who you are, you want to know somethin’ more than why I have a phone sex company in my penthouse.”

  “Bingo. Why the fairy godfather act?”

  Landon paused, his eyes purposely catching hers. He latched onto them and wouldn’t let go. “Because I can.”

  Those words held significance; there was a deeper meaning to them. They had more to do with a motive that involved getting richer.

  But her head was spinning. This was a way to help her mother. She had to process that properly—alone. No more whims or jobs that looked like fun.

  “So how would you feel if I told you I’d like to sleep on it?”

  He grinned, boyish and sweet and all Landon. “I’d tell you to sleep well, my friend.” Landon pushed his office chair back and stood up.

  Cat gathered her purse, dropping the pepper spray into it before rising. She took one last long look at Landon’s smiling face—the one she’d seen every day for months, before muttering, “’Night, Landon.”

  “Sweet dreams, Kit-Cat,” he chirped on a cheerful wave.

  As she made her way back through the offices of Call Girls, took in the relaxed poses of the women sitting in their expensive, ergonomic office chairs, eyed the empty boxes of pizza and lively, content faces, she fought the impulse to run back to Landon’s office and accept.

  No, she was going to think this through thoroughly. Weigh the pros and the cons of telling her mother she was the GM of a phone sex company.

  No more impulsive acts, Cat.

  Impulse was how you ended up making balloon animals in the mall as Coco the Clown’s assistant.

  Remember how that ended?

  With mall security running her out on a rail because she’d called out a group of teenagers who’d made fun of a woman breast-feeding.

  Mall security was no laughing matter—those zip ties they used left marks.

  Chapter Six

  “You stood me up.”

  Cat’s arms broke out in goose bumps at Flynn’s voice in her ear. She shut the door to her car and turned to face him. “You got me fired. You still win the fight for supremacy.”

  “Are we still grudging?”

  “Nope. Now we’re even.”

  Flynn smiled, all white teeth and dimples, and he made a sizzling noise with his lips. “Payback. It stings.” He rubbed the spot on his chest where his heart beat.

  She touched his arm before pulling her fingers away, but not before noticing how ripply and muscly he was. How nice he felt to touch. “I’m kidding. It was late when I left your building last night. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  A flash of something Cat couldn’t define crossed his handsome features before he turned whatever it was off. “Listen, I was really serious. I’d like to talk with you about my mother. She really likes you, Cat.”

  Cat’s insides warmed up. “I really like her, too.”

  “So do you mind dropping by my apartment later today? Or maybe I could meet you somewhere so we can talk?”

  Cat cupped her hand over her eyes to keep the glare of the sun from blocking her view. “What’s wrong with right now? I was on my way in anyway. Maybe we could all talk together?”

  Flynn glanced at his phone, his gorgeous baby blues scanning the screen. “She’d kill me if she knew I was talking to you. She always hated anyone making a fuss over her—which could be part of the reason she’s giving everyone but you such a hard time. But right now, I’m on my way to a meeting I can’t miss, but if you’re uncomfortable about meeting me at my place, we can meet somewhere neutral.”

  “Somewhere neutral? You make it sound like we’ll be duelin’ at dawn,” she teased, twirling a strand of her hair and batting her eyelashes.

  “How quickly you forget our boxing match at the coffee shop.”

  “Point. But I have to be in your building tonight anyway. I have an appointment at five. So how’s seven? And I’ll be sure to tell Della where I’m going lest you decide to ravish me against my will.”

  The tips of Flynn’s ears turned adorably red. He held up his hands as he began to back away across the parking lot of the rehab center. “All on the up-and-up. Promise. See you at seven.”

  Cat let out a ragged breath. She didn’t understand this. She was comfortable with men. She liked them a lot. She was no stranger to a bit of flirting, and she was the one always in control.

  But Flynn was different. She’d never had such a physical reaction to someone who’d irritated her quite the way he had in the coffee shop. He made her feel like she had no power, light-headed and breathless, and she kept baiting him because of it. To keep the control.

  She fanned her face with the magazine she held in her hand and watched him stride across the parking lot. Tight blue jeans and thighs thick with muscle.

  Mercy, Flynn McGrady was impossibly hard to breathe around.

  * * *

  “LaDawn Jenkins. Former companionator.”

  Cat sat at a table in the lavish break room of Call Girls that overlooked a park with a pond. Platters were piled high with fresh fruit and muffins and dainty sandwiches with the crusts cut off. “Companionator?”

  The woman with a green-and-red spiked mohawk, KISS-like makeup and an innocent, sweet-as-molasses voice, who’d introduced herself as Marybell Lyman, snorted. “Hooker. LaDawn was a lady o’ the evenin’, weren’t ya?”

  LaDawn raised one penciled eyebrow in haughty fashion. “I prefer to think I gave all those lonely men companionship, not just a bosom to rest their weary heads on, Ms. MB.”

  Cat stuck her hand out. “Cat Butler, former balloon-animal maker, yoga instructor, tae-kwon-do assistant, file clerk, dog walker, plant sitter, bathroom attendant, nanny and, just recently, barista. Companionating was the one thing I didn’t do, but I’m an almost stripper. I say almost because that pole and me? We’ll just never get along.”

  LaDawn cackled, pushing her hair behind her ear. “Go on, girl. You can make balloon animals?”

  Cat grinned. “Like a pro.”

  “I call dibs on an elephant at the next office shindig. A purple one, thank you very much.”

  “So, you’re the new boss?” Marybell asked, her sweet voice like warm honey.

  Yes. She was the new boss. After a long night, where she’d reflected on every bad career choice she’d ever made in order to feed her need for adventure and change, she was going to give this her all. That she was managing a phone sex company was the least of her concerns. Sex was sex, whether on the phone or in a bedroom.

  No judgment from her.

  It was the managing part of this that worried her. There’d never been a time when she’d had this much responsibility—because she’d never wanted responsibility. Responsibilities had nearly killed her mother.

  Being tied down wasn’t her strong suit. Giving her an office of women who talked dirty to strange men to manage was like giving the keys of a car to a ten-year old.

  But when she’d accepted the position earlier today, Landon had just laughed it off. He’s said, “Never you worry, Kit-Cat. I know what I’m doin.”

  She owed this to her mother. She owed it to herself.

  So, Cat bounced her head. “That’s what Landon says, but how about we just call me the wrangler? Organizer, maybe? Boss is so strict, conformist. I’m not much for titles.”

  “So callin’ you the High
Priestess of Smut is off the table?” LaDawn asked with a chuckle.

  Cat barked a laugh as she restacked the reams of paperwork she’d filled out and set it atop the manual with the company’s rules. “That has a definite ring to it. Can we fit that on a plaque?” Turning to Marybell, she asked, “So, Marybell, what’s your...um...” What did you call it?”

  “My kink?” Marybell crumpled up the wrapper from her candy bar and shot it into the wastebasket.

  “Right. Your kink.” Kink. Wow. So much to learn.

  “I’m your go-to girl for all things just the other side of vanilla. A little of this and a little of that. Now, LaDawn’s your dominatrix. All that thwackin’ you hear from time to time is her fly swatter. She uses it as a prop for sound effects to keep her clients in line.”

  LaDawn’s giggle was infectious. “Who knew I’d be so good at bein’ bossy—with a fly swatter, no less?”

  Cat couldn’t get over how happy everyone appeared. All of the operators looked rested and content, and they came in at all hours of the day to begin their shifts with smiles on their faces. “So, y’all like working for Landon?”

  LaDawn’s thickly lashed eyes held Cat’s. “Best damn thing that ever happened to me. Swear it. Came along, scooped me up off the streets after findin’ me hobblin’ along the sidewalk when my heel broke. ’Course it broke because I had to hit a john in the head with it, but neither here nor there. I’ve never looked back since, and it’s been a year. There’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do for that man behind that door.” She pointed to Landon’s office just outside the break room.

  Marybell fiddled with her bracelets without looking directly at Cat, but her words were just as flattering, held just as much reverence. “Landon... I know what you probably thought when he offered you a job at a phone sex company, Cat. We all thought the same thing. None of us believed anyone as kind as Landon truly existed, but he’s the best human being I know. There’s no agenda here. All he asks is the kind of respect he pays us in return. There really aren’t any strings.”

  Still, she was on the fence, a little suspicious even. Everyone had a fault, a bad trait, a defective gene.