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of us, Kate, and I’d lay you down in the sand in the darkness and taste every soft, sweet inch of your
body with my lips.”
Her breath caught at the passionate intensity in the words. “I ... I wouldn’t ...”
“Like hell you wouldn’t,” he whispered. His mouth took hers hungrily, his hands slid down to
grasp her hips and grind them sensuously into his until she cried out at the sensations it caused.
“Want me, Kate?” he taunted in a deep whisper. “God knows, I want you almost beyond
bearing.It was a mistake for me to touch you the way i did . Now all I call think about is how much
more of you I want. Kiss Me,Honey. Kiss me...”
She did, because at that moment it was all she wanted from life. The feel of him, the touch and
taste and smell of him, Blake’s big arms riveting her to every inch of his powerful body while his
mouth took everything hers had to give. It seemed like a long time later when he finally raised his
head to let his eyes blaze down into hers.
With a suddenness that was almost painful, the door swung open and Vivian’s high-pitched
voice shattered the crystal thread of emotion binding them.
“Well, hello,” she said in her clear British accent. “I do hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
“Of course not,” Blake said, turning to her with magnificent composure and a smile. “I promised
you a tour, didn’t I? Let’s go. Kate,” he said over his shoulder, “you come along, too.”
She was still trembling, and she longed to refuse. But Vivian’s eyes were already suspicious,
and she didn’t dare.
Blake escorted them through the huge manufacturing company, pointing out the main areas of
interest - the training room where the new seamstresses were taught how to use the latest modern
equipment; the pants line, where each sewing machine operator performed a different function in the
manufacture of a pair of slacks; the cutting room, where huge bales of cloth were spread on long
tables and cut by men with jigsaws through multiple layers of thickness.
Kathryn remembered the terms peculiar to the garment industry from her childhood “bundle
boys” who carried the bundles of pattern pieces out to the sewers; “foreladies” who were the
overseers for each group of seamstresses,“spreaders” who spread the cloth; “cutters” who cut it; and
“inspectors” who were responsible for catching second and third quality garments before they could
be shipped out as “firsts.” Then there were the pressers and packers and the “lab lady” who washed
test garments. Hundreds of sewing machines were running together in the room where the shirt line
was located, and this section had button-holing machines as well as the other equipment found on the
pants line. Kathryn’s eye was caught by the brilliant colors.
“That shade of blue is lovely!” she exclaimed.
Blake chuckled. “I’ll have to take you through the yarn mill sometime and show you how it’s
made. Bales of cotton go through a process that takes a rope of raw material and runs it through a
volley of spindles in different rooms to produce a thread of yarn. We use cotton and rayon now. In the
old days, the mill ran strictly on cotton.”
“How interesting,” Vivian said with little enthusiasm. “I’ve never actually been in a mill.”
Kathryn gaped at her. This wasn’t her first trip by a long shot. She was forever tagging along
after Blake and Phillip in her younger days, because the whole process of making clothing had
fascinated her. But she hadn’t been in a yarn mill since her childhood, and she’d been too young to
understand much of what she’d seen then.
“How many blouses come out of here in a week?” Kathryn asked, watching blouses in different
states of readiness at each machine row as they walked past. She had to practically yell in Blake’s
ear to make him hear her above the noise.
“About ten thousand dozen,” he told her, smiling at her shocked expression. “We’ve added a lot
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