Read Online Sealing the Deal by Luxie Noir - Free Book Online Page A

howls made her lips curl.
    Okay, she admitted to herself how much she enjoyed discovering that he got off so well, especially because of her.
    She gave him a moment to come back to earth before she nudged him to withdraw and sent him packing. After he was safely out the door she stepped into the shower. She dried her luscious body with the generous hotel towel while admiring it in the bathroom mirror. She dressed and went down to the lobby. She leaned back to scan the bar and there he was, Pretty Boy at a table, with another woman.

Chapter One
    From the outside in, Dionne Ellis’s Eichler House was ugly. Or so she thought when she moved up from San Luis Obispo after finishing up at Cal Poly, to Cupertino. Her first job upon graduation was in the fabled Silicon Valley. Her father wanted her to be a teacher so she could always get a job. He said there might have been a time when computers were a good thing to get into but now everyone was doing it. The market was saturated. Layoffs happened. But they always needed teachers.
    “It’s not computers, dad. It’s electronic design. Graphics,” she explained.
    “Same diff,” he argued.
    “I’ll teach at private school, if that ever happens,” she promised. And she would. Go teach art in one of the private art institutes in California. She had a buddy. Dionne would do it.
    But she was now employed in the field for which she went to school. She was head designer for the biggest game producer in the world. What began as a glorified gopher job turned into a Vice President of Production job. And she was good at it and she had great ideas. But they only wanted her to embellish on their ideas, not introduce her own. So she went out in search of someone who was as interested in her ideas as much as she was. But she didn’t have any luck finding anyone. She found men who would use her in the office and in the bed, but that was it.
    Dionne's Porsche Boxter was low and square. It hugged the road from San Francisco to Cupertino from her bad business moments and her hot moments with a nameless boy toy. She lived in a coveted neighborhood and her Eichler house was practically nothing but windows.
    The tree frogs sang to her as she unloaded herself from the driver seat. The aggregate walk was cracked – a gift from the last earthquake – and the tongue and grove siding was shifting out of square. The house was more like a home more from a caveman cartoon rather than her dream from years of hard work at school and on the job. Location, location, location, she told herself. But was it worth it?
    It was 11:30pm – two hours past bedtime, two hours past when she was sane. She had a day of off the hook stress. After a flop presentation to the competition that was likely going to steal her idea anyway, Dionne would have to wake up bright and early, probably with a hangover. She pitched a stellar idea to the enemy, but bad news, they didn’t like her. Worse news, they had her bright idea. All of which might just mean the end of her going-nowhere career.
    And as her spiked heels clickity-clacked on the walk to the door, Dionne was wondering where her life was going? She fit her key into the door, which with one good kick could be shoved opened, and parked her bags on the table. The door opened into the kitchen and dining area. It was appealing while sitting in the kitchen looking out, but it never ceased to disappoint her when she entered it.
    She didn’t bother flipping on the lights. The windows looking out to the backyard had no drapes and the neighbor’s security light spilled in enough to light her way into the living room and to her bedroom. She reached mid-living room when a shadow came up behind her and braced her gently but firmly to his chest.
    “Lionel,” Dionne said without a bit of affection.
    She didn’t finish her sentence because even though she had just come from a wild hook-up, she let him believe she was into it. She let his hand crawl underneath her neckline,