Talking Dirty with the CEO - By Jackie Ashenden Page 0,2

and just keep the Ugg boots on?

Nice. If this was an example of her dirty talk, then he wanted more. Discovering something new and different was always a turn-on. Shifting in his seat again, he answered:

Studman500: A naked woman in Uggs. This is getting better and better. Though I want you to turn down the tops of your boots so that when you wrap your legs around me, I can feel the sheepskin lining against my back.

Would she like that? Would she find it as much of a turn-on as he did? Oh, he hoped so.

Naughtygirl25: Phew *fans self* I can go you one better, though…

The cursor blinked for a long moment. Then the text came back fast, as if she had to get it down in a hurry:

Naughtygirl25: …if I’m on top, you could lie down on the sheepskin rug and have the whole thing against your back.

Hot. Extremely hot. He couldn’t wait to hear more:

Studman500: Now you’re getting into the spirit of it. Perhaps we could

“Sorry about that, boss.”

Joseph cursed under his breath. Quickly he erased the chat history and closed the chat window as Karl came back to his desk.

Jesus, the guy’s timing sucked. Especially when things were just getting interesting with Naughtygirl. Couldn’t he have continued his bloody phone call for another five minutes?

It was crazy but for the rest of the meeting, Joseph hardly paid attention. He was too busy thinking about the mini-flirtation with Naughtygirl25. E-mail and chat were part and parcel of his business but he’d never gotten into anything like that before. Although he’d never needed to. He had women coming out of his ears. And he didn’t need to go to the Internet to find them.

But there was something about that Naughtygirl25. Witty, flirtatious, with the quirkiest sense of humor. Man, he’d never had such an off-the-wall conversation with a woman before.

Joseph sat there, listening but not really taking in what Karl was saying. All he could think about was how he could possibly get the other man to leave again. At least long enough so he could find out more about Naughtygirl25.

…

He’d gone. Just like that. At least she thought he was gone. The cursor had been motionless, blinking steadily in the middle of the last sentence for a while now.

Christie St. John leaned back from her laptop, her hands shaking, unable to repress the genuine stab of disappointment at Studman500’s no-show. God, that chat had been something else. Possibly flirty. Definitely naughty. And yeah, go on, downright sexy, too. Except that sexy flirting wasn’t something she did often—correction—at all. Ever. It had been as if someone else had been typing those things for her. A vampish part of her she’d never known she’d possessed.

Christie stared at the screen, willing Studman500 to keep going. But the chat window remained stubbornly blank. And then a notification popped up saying Studman500 was offline.

Damn.

She sat back on the couch and took a sip of her wine, her hands trembling. What on earth had gotten into her? She’d logged on to the New Zealand site of Zombie Force Online for a quick game. A game she’d then ditched just to talk to him about sex in Ugg boots.

Her cheeks felt hot. What an idiot to mention those. But the group she’d been with in the chat room had started a jokey conversation about what clothing they gamed in, and she’d gotten a tad stupid with the whole garter belt/Ugg boot thing. Yet he’d seemed to get it, hadn’t he?

A small grin crept up on her. She was no stranger to online forums or chat rooms but that was the first time ever she’d actually flirted in one. It was kind of a rush.

Letting out a breath and fighting feelings of disappointment at the lack of response from Studman500, she minimized the chat window and brought up her e-mail program. There was a new e-mail from Marisa, her boss’s PA.

The e-mail only had one line: “Have you set up any dates yet?”

Ben, her boss and editor at Total Tech, the gadget/computer magazine she wrote for, had given Christie the unenviable assignment of writing an Internet dating piece in a bid to gain a few more readers for the magazine. Marisa, self-acknowledged dating expert and Christie’s friend, had volunteered to “help” with setting up the dates. Help meaning nag.

Christie made an irritable noise. She liked Marisa, but the other woman had an annoying habit of trying to get her to come out of her shell. Annoying