Satisfaction Guaranteed

A
CCLAIM FOR THE
N
OVELS OF
C
HARLENE
T
EGLIA

"This is great erotic fiction! . . . Fresh, sexy, and humorous."

—
Romantic Times BOOKreviews

"Action-packed and ferociously seductive."

—
Romance Reviews Today

"If you haven't heard of Charlene Teglia, you soon will. . . . An absolute winner."

—
Romance Divas

"A great book full of action and adventure . . . Charlene Teglia has a knack for creating wonderful stories with characters that will keep readers coming back for more."

—
Romance Junkies

"Don't miss out on this incredible new talent."

—
Love Romances

"A must read."

—
The Road to Romance

"A gem of a tale."

—
Fallen Angel Reviews

"Ms. Teglia is a terrific writer who has penned a story of love and magic that left me sighing at the end."

—
Just Erotic Romance Reviews

"As usual, Ms. Teglia's sex scenes were small doses of TNT and the tension was perfect."

—
Ecataromance

"I laughed, then I sighed and had tears in my eyes at the end . . . a book I intend to read again and again!"

—
Joyfully Reviewed

Also by Charlene Teglia

Wild Wild West

CHARLENE TEGLIA

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED
. Copyright © 2008 by Charlene Teglia. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Book design by Spring Hoteling

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Teglia, Charlene.
       Satisfaction guaranteed / Charlene Teglia.
           p. cm
       ISBN-13: 978-1-4299-3104-5
       ISBN-10: 1-4299-3104-3
    1. Dating services—Fiction. 2. Seattle (Wash.)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3620.E4357S28 2008
813'.6—dc22

2007042122

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedicated to my own hero of a thousand faces, who helps me get guy stuff right

Thanks to the Wicked Writers, to Jordan and Sam for speed-reading and giving feedback in a crunch, and to the husband for technical support and emotional support and rigging up endless workarounds during all the power outages that happened during the writing of this book. A big thank-you also to Rose for patience and encouragement!

Satisfaction
G
UARANTEED

"You've been staring out the window for ten minutes," said Sabrina. "Since the view isn't that exciting, you must be taking a mental trip. Where'd you go? Tahiti? I'd go to Tahiti. I bet it's not raining in Tahiti."

"I think it rains in Tahiti, too," Rachel Law answered, but in an absent tone. She continued to stare blindly out the window at the drizzle that was characteristic of Seattle's winter weather.

"Winter's getting to you," Sabrina said. "And it's worse for you than it is for me, because you're a blonde. Blondes are supposed to have more fun. You are not having fun. You work all the time because you wanted that promotion, and you got it, and now you're just staring out the window wondering if it rains in Tahiti. You need to do something fun."

"Fun." Rachel wondered if Sabrina had a point. When was the last time she'd done something just for fun? Lately she'd had the nagging sense that something was missing.
The promotion hadn't cured it. Maybe what she was missing was fun.

Dark-haired Sabrina Daniels wasn't heading for early burnout, and she was always taking off to either ski or sail on weekends, depending on the season. She also liked to skydive. And lately she'd been mentioning cruises a lot.

Skiing and sailing weren't really Rachel's ideas of fun, and the very thought of skydiving nauseated her, but a cruise had potential. Seattle was a popular place for cruises to start and stop. It'd be convenient and easy to book a short cruise. Rachel considered the possibility. "Maybe I should do that three-day Baja cruise you were talking about."

"Excuse me. Are you Rachel? Rachel Law? Or have aliens taken over your body and left a strange being in place who wants to experience planet Earth outside of this office?"

"Ha ha," said Rachel. She stopped staring out the window and turned to look at Sabrina. "I like having a corner office. I worked hard for this office. I sold a lot of insurance to get this office."

"Yes, you are the golden girl, and the home office loves you." Sabrina picked a random award off the top of Rachel's bookcase and buffed it with her sleeve. "You're number one. You are now the regional sales manager, and you left three of the top men in this company choking on your dust. I'd envy you, since I'm destined to remain forever number two and in your shadow, but I'm not the one who says 'fun' in a voice that sounds like you've forgotten what it is."

Sabrina probably had a lot of fun, Rachel thought wistfully. Fun that included the opposite sex. There had been a man involved on more than a few of her ski trips, and Rachel
suspected they hadn't spent much time on the slopes. And there was another man Rachel was pretty sure hadn't just liked to take Sabrina sailing.

Although now that she thought about it, over the five years she'd known the outgoing brunette, a couple of men didn't seem like very many. And how long had it been since Sabrina had mentioned the most recent man?

"What happened to Richard?" Rachel asked, wondering when he'd faded out of the picture and why she hadn't noticed. Of course she'd been busy, but—too busy to notice who her closest friend was dating?

"The truth?" Sabrina put the sales award back down and threw herself into the comfortable leather chair on the opposite side of Rachel's desk so that they faced each other over the gleaming cherry expanse. "I asked him to play pirate and Spanish prisoner with me. I should have known better. Richard was not adventurous or creative in bed. Of course he wouldn't be interested in role-playing."

"I thought he was interested in
you
," said Rachel.

"Well, I thought so, too, but not interested enough. My fantasy of playing captive while he played pirate on his boat went down like the
Titanic
. Richard couldn't get rid of me fast enough. He suddenly remembered a presentation he had to make on Monday and never called again. I called once, and he was too busy to talk. Said he'd call back. That was in September."

Sabrina swung one leg back and forth, pausing to admire her shoes midswing. "I don't think he's going to call back. Do you?"

"Forget Richard," said Rachel. "Tell me about the Spanish prisoner thing."

"He's forgotten. And I'm not a deviant or anything." Sabrina pouted, managing not to look like an idiot in the process.

Rachel was pretty sure if she tried to pout, she'd look like a sulky six-year-old. Sabrina just looked sexy as she continued, "But, you know, those pirates had English authority to seize ships, and of course they seized Spanish ships because they had the gold. Suppose an innocent and sheltered Spanish maiden happened to be on board, where she'd fall into the hands of a wicked pirate . . ." Sabrina let the sentence trail off and waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Rachel sat up, fascinated. "He'd carry her off. She'd be his prisoner. And he'd try to be noble at first, maybe, but she'd have to stay in his cabin because there would be all those unruly, sex-starved crewmen."

"Right." Sabrina grinned at her. "Or maybe he'd just order her to his cabin to strip and tell her she'd better be good in bed, amazing, the best he'd ever had, or he'd give her to the first mate. Who would of course be hot, and hung, but not quite as hot as the captain. Ooh, maybe she'd have to do both of them. At the same time."

Rachel felt her eyebrows shoot up along with her body temperature and her interest level. "Kinky."

"Hot." Sabrina fanned herself with an insurance flyer. "If I keep talking about this, I'm going to need to buy more batteries on my way home."

Sabrina wasn't the only one, Rachel thought. She couldn't remember when she'd last replaced the batteries in the bullet vibrator Sabrina had given her two years ago for Christmas, saying that naughty girls needed something from
Santa, too. After this conversation, she was going to need the bullet operational.

She dragged herself back to the present with an effort. "So you told Richard about this and he ran away?"

That seemed unbelievable. It was one hot fantasy. Why hadn't it gotten Richard's attention? It certainly had hers.

"He ran like an Olympic track star. But it's okay, I'm not bitter. I stole three of his accounts the next week." Sabrina gave her a feline smile outlined with cinnamon lipstick. Rachel found herself grinning back and then laughing out loud.

"Spanish prisoner," said Rachel when she'd stopped giggling. "Now that sounds fun. Too bad I can't book a cruise with that package."

"Well . . ." Sabrina gave her a thoughtful look. "Maybe you can. Look at this." She reached for her slim leather briefcase, pulled out a brochure, and tossed it onto Rachel's desk.

Rachel picked it up. "The Capture Agency? What is that, something to do with image capture technology?"