She was wearing a swishy blue skirt today, one that caught my eye every time she moved. It swirled around her calves when she walked. And her cardigan was buttoned up properly today, but I could still see the soft curve of her breasts outlined underneath it. And for some inexplicable reason, she’d paired it all with pink flats.
She looked like a rainbow. She always did. All those colors looked perfect against her pale skin and blonde hair.
AllIever wore were blue jeans and a red flannel. In fact, I had a whole wardrobe of them. It made getting dressed in the morning easy.
But Avery was creative with her clothes; a beautiful butterfly.
“Show me how inventory works,” I rumbled, following her to the back of the store.
She grabbed a rolling ladder and positioned it against the tall shelves in the romance section. “We start at the top and work our way down. Every book gets scanned and counted.”
Then she climbed up.
And I got a perfect view of her ass.
The skirt swayed as she reached for the highest shelf, and I could see the outline of her thighs through the fabric. Soft. Round. The kind of curves a man could grab onto.
I forced myself to look at the clipboard in my hands as my cock rose from its resting place.
“You scan the barcode,” she called down, “and I’ll count. Then we compare what the system says we should have.”
We fell into a rhythm. She counted and handed me books, I scanned, and we moved through the shelves section by section. The store was quiet except for the beep of the scanner.
When the numbers didn’t match what she expected in the science fiction section, a little furrow landed between her brows.
Then, later, she bit down on her soft pink lips when the scanning gun malfunctioned.
“Maybe it’s time for a new gun.”
Avery’s head was bent over the scanning gun as she muttered, “Marlene says she can’t afford one. It only takes a few minutes to reprogram it. Hopefully, we didn’t lose our work.”
She had a freckle on the back of her neck, right where her hair parted, and I wanted to press my mouth to it.
I felt like the big bad wolf wanting to eat little red riding hood right up.
Maybe sending Shelly home had been a mistake.
By the time we finished the last section, I wasn’t focused on Avery’s gorgeous ass anymore. A hole had settled in my chest.
The numbers on the clipboard were about ten thousand dollars lower than what they should have been based on the purchase records and sales figures.
Ten thousand dollars.
That was either a theft problem, a damages problem, or shoddy bookkeeping. None of those options were good.
“Avery.” I kept my voice steady even though my gut was churning. “Does Marlene do a tight inventory every month?”
She bit her lip, and I could see the guilt flash across her face before she answered. “Not exactly.”
“What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”
“She guestimates certain sections.” Avery climbed down the ladder. “We count the books but not the costs, and then we average them out, estimating the whole costs at a flat rate.”
I stared at her. “That’s not inventory. That’s creative accounting.”
“I know,” her voice was small. “That’s why I made us do a full count tonight. I wanted to see the real numbers.”
I glanced at my watch. It was after midnight.
