He slides both hands around my waist, then down, skimming my hips, smoothing over my bottom, my dress a flimsy barrier between us.

‘You know,’ he says from behind me, his hands moving over me, ‘when I was working my way up the ranks at the company, my dad made me do six months in each division. Sales was where I smashed it. I’m an excellent salesman, love, and I’m particularly good at closing deals. But you might be the most fun I’ve had closing a deal in a very long time.’

That makes me laugh. He’s a charming fucker; I’ll give him that. ‘Knock yourself out.’

‘The plan is to knock you out and have a ball doing it. Put your hands on the glass.’

Oh God.

I do, and he drags his palms up my sides and over my rib cage. Then he slides them over my breasts, cupping hard, and I gasp at the fierce physicality of his big hands on my body like this. I may be horrifyingly rusty, but I’m pretty sure that’s not a mobile phone pressing against the base of my spine. He’s crowding me, and it’s not awful.

I’ve come here tonight with one objective: to put on a good enough performance that I land this job. Contrary to what Brendan said, I am most certainly the one auditioning here. My goal is survival, not pleasure. But if I can relax into this sufficiently, it’ll be far less of a challenge to pull off my performance. So I force myself to lay my demons, my insecurities, my nerves aside and focus on the reality of the present moment.

And that reality is this: a very hot man is pressing his dick against me and fondling my boobs.

‘Given you won’t tell me what you like, I’ll have to pay close attention, won’t I?’ he murmurs. ‘That sounded like a good gasp. How about this?’

This is deft fingers pinching and plucking at my nipples. There’s a double layer of ruched fabric at the top of this dress, but no padding, and the feel of it is an instant shot of electricity to my core. I’ve been blessed with extremely sensitive nipples, and they react to Brendan’s touch like two little whores as the pleasure of his pinches shoots through me.

I don’t even realise I’ve made a sound until he chuckles, low and pleased.

‘Bingo. You like that.’

‘Yeah.’ I feel shy even admitting it.

‘Yes, you do. That’s my girl. Fuck, they’re hard.’