Kinky Boots
K D Grace

Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

More from Mischief

About Mischief

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

A girls’ night out with Vivie usually ended up a solo act for Jill. It always started with the best intentions, but then Vivie would hook up with someone hot, shag his brains out and call Jill all apologetic the next morning, or whenever the hangover wore off. Every time, Jill promised herself she wouldn’t let it happen again. But she could never say no to Vivie.

This time they’d been separated at the Bluu Bar just off Hoxton Square. Jill figured Vivie and tall-dark-and-dressed-for-success – who had at least been polite enough to buy them both a drink before he whisked Vivie away – were probably occupying one of the benches in the square having a good grope. From there they would graduate to his flat or hers, possibly even the nearest alley if they couldn’t wait that long. Vivie was a bit of an exhibitionist. Crowded into a standing-room-only corner next to the bar, Jill finished her wine then texted Vivie that she was going out for some air.

It wasn’t supposed to be a late night. Her twat of a boss had informed her an hour before quitting time that he needed her to work tomorrow. More like he needed her to do his work tomorrow. He’d been sniffing around the new receptionist every chance he got. It didn’t take a genius to figure their habitual two-hour lunch breaks had nothing to do with business or lunch. He boned the silicone-enhanced receptionist, and Jill got screwed.

Still, she was in Shoreditch on a Friday night. If she were going to end up alone, she couldn’t think of any place she’d rather be. It was easy to get caught up in the excitement along the streets lined with bars and clubs and interesting shops. She loved the higgledy-piggledy architecture that often involved glass and steel in the personal space of very accommodating Victorian brick and stone that had already gone through who knew how many marriages of convenience before. All around, the concrete ugliness of the 60s groped and nuzzled solicitously at streets that could have come straight from a Sherlock Holmes novel. It was a great patchwork of a place, heaving with frenetic humanity all bound and determined to enjoy the hell out of every last drunken, chaotic, celebratory second of the weekend. She was jostled by the enthusiastic spill-over of people with drinks and fags in front of Juno. A hen party pushed past into an off-licence. People on the busy pavements crowded onto the narrow side streets, impeding the odd taxi or limo. Jill hadn’t walked terribly far before she’d realised two things: her feet were killing her in the suicide shoes she’d borrowed at Vivie’s insistence, and she was feeling very disoriented, not entirely sure where she was. She blinked and looked around to find herself wandering along Shoreditch High Street.

She half stepped and was half shoved into the entryway of a shop to avoid a handful of blokes in Chelsea football jerseys ambling by laughing drunkenly. As she leaned against the rough brick to slip out of the murderous shoes and wriggle her brutalised toes against the paving tiles, the irony wasn’t lost on her that she found herself standing in front of a shoe store. Kinky Boots, the softly back-lit sign informed her in elegant gothic script. Underneath in smaller letters it read, Wicked Vintage Shoes. In spite of the late hour, the place was open.

She hadn’t planned to go in. But when she leaned against the door, balancing herself to slip back into the vicious bite of the red stilettos, it swung open. Quickly she straightened herself and glanced around to make sure no one had noticed her less than elegant move. Then there was nothing to do but act like she intended to come right on in. And the thought of a cheap pair of comfy shoes to walk back home in sounded like a pretty good idea.

The shop smelled deliciously of well-worn leather and shoe polish with a bass note of strong coffee. Immediately she found herself nose to toe with a row of vintage-looking kitten heels flanked by a sexy display of thigh-high boots ranging in style from BDSM du jour to Goth on steroids to sassy sex goddess. She would be the first to admit that fashion was not her forte. But it was very much Vivie’s, thus the enforced suffering of her aching feet.

‘May I help you?’

She looked up to meet the questioning gaze of the store clerk, and couldn’t hold back a little yelp at his unexpected nearness. He glanced at the killer heels, which she still held in one hand, then down at her feet and offered a knowing smile.

‘Just thought I’d stop in for a look.’

She tried to slip gracefully back into the shoes, but he took them from her hand. ‘Leave them off.’ The slight gruffness of his voice was deliciously tactile, rubbing up against her like raw silk. ‘I can see your poor feet need a break.’ He motioned for her to follow him into the bowels of the store, right in deep, between the high racks of shoes and boots and sandals and mules and old and new and quirky and just plain strange. And in the midst of all the funky, freaky, fantastic footwear, there wasn’t a single pair of trainers or Uggs or Crocs to be found. He guided her to sit in a Queen Anne chair upholstered in pale-blue chintz.

‘Are you all right?’ He knelt in front of her and sat the shoes down next to the chair.

‘I’m fine,’ she said. Then she offered a nervous laugh ‘Other than my feet.’

He sat back on his heels. ‘When women come in here alone at this hour, they’ve usually come over from Juno or the office after an argument with their bloke. Of course there are a fair few who’ve simply had enough dancing the night away in ill-fitting shoes.’ He offered her a smile that made her feel warm down low in her belly. ‘There’s a reason I keep my shop open after hours on weekends.’ He nodded down at her aching feet.

‘It was a girls’ night out,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m alone, I mean. We got separated.’ He didn’t need to know that her friend was getting shagged and she wasn’t. ‘These aren’t even my shoes. I borrowed them from my friend Vivie.’ She nodded down to the little red feet-killers. ‘Well, she insisted, actually. And the skirt too.’ She felt stupid for telling him that. Could she make it any more obvious that she was clueless when it came to fashion and dressing to impress the opposite sex?

He glanced fleetingly at the skirt, and she was suddenly aware of just how short it was, and just how much he could see from his position if he really tried. ‘The skirt I like,’ he said. ‘However, wearing another person’s shoes is not a safe thing to do.’ The lines of his face hardened. His lips were suddenly set tight as though he were warning her about a serial killer on the loose. When he smiled up at her, his eyes reminded her of the sea that lapped at the cliffs around Tintagel: neither blue nor grey nor green, none of those colours, yet all of those colours.

The clerk lifted her right foot. She tried to squirm away but he held her firmly, flashing her a concerned glance from under a drawn brow. ‘You could have seriously injured your feet walking around Shoreditch at night in someone else’s shoes.’

The skirt she wore was a denim mini, and the way he sat between her legs made her feel exposed, vulnerable and something a lot more yummy. As he ran his thumbs up her instep and over the pad of her foot, she shifted in the chair, sliding down to accommodate his inspection.

‘Shoes are so important. They protect our feet, our soles, the only part of us that regularly contacts the earth. They allow us that intimate connection with our planet while at the same time keeping us safe from it.’ He continued his inspection of her feet, hands moving gently over her arch to the ball then to her toes as he cupped her heel in a warm hand. ‘No two people’s soles contact the earth in the same way.’

Her pulse thudded at the enthusiasm of his little speech, which, along with his gentle inspection of her feet, felt shockingly intimate, even more so than if he had actually peeked up her skirt. His actions were having a cumulative effect low between her hip bones. ‘Maybe you could sell me something a little more suited to me.’ Her words rushed out breathless and unsteady.

He placed both hands on his thighs and looked up at her. ‘Did you have a pair in mind?’

She gave a quick glance around the store, and her eyes lit on a pair of mauve boots that came up just over the ankle, low on the calf. They sported delicate kitten heels and were threaded with sage-green laces that looked more like ribbons. ‘How about those?’ she said. Then she blushed fiercely. They were lovely, elegant and, any idiot could see, totally not suited for someone like her. ‘Or maybe something a little more practical.’ She avoided his gaze. ‘A little less flashy.’

Ignoring her second thoughts, he stood and walked to the rack. She couldn’t help noticing how nicely his butt filled out his jeans. She could imagine that arse had sold more than a few pairs of shoes to women who liked a good view. It was then she realised he had taken the boots straight off the display. ‘I’m hard to fit,’ she said as he knelt in front of her and unlaced one boot.

‘Trust me –’ he smiled up at her, opened the boot and offered it to her like Cinderella’s Prince Charming ‘– I can fit you just fine.’

Everything in her went warm and liquid. Her breath caught at the feel of the leather as he guided the boot up over her heel. ‘I’ve never felt anything so soft,’ she said. ‘And they’re so pretty.’

‘Shoes should be a sensual experience,’ he said, moving his large hands up to cup her calf while he eased the boot into place. Then his agile fingers began to work the laces, plucking at them, caressing them, stroking them almost as though he were making music on them, like they were some exotic stringed instrument of leather and lace. And though she couldn’t quite hear the melody, she felt the reverberation of his plucking and threading beneath the hem of the short skirt and all the way up into her warming panties.

‘Nice, huh?’

It took her a second to realise he was responding to her response. God, was she actually moaning? And please, surely she wasn’t grinding her bottom against the chintz. The blush flashed hot across her chest but then, instead of spreading to her face, it headed south, settling against her clit with a heated, unexpected nip. And her moan became a yelp, just a tiny one, but a yelp nonetheless. She would have apologised, she would have died of embarrassment and fallen completely through the chair, but he was already working on the other boot, strategically sitting between her legs, breath slightly accelerated, and … Surely she was mistaken. But as he shifted to cup her calf and smooth the second boot against her leg, there was no disguising the erection growing inside the front of his jeans.

Everything below her waist clenched in appreciation and she felt the heavy tingle of excitement up high between her thighs. The urge to rip aside the scrap of denim that was her skirt and the bit of satin that was her knickers, the urge to focus his attention somewhere far removed from her feet, nearly took her breath away. ‘You like your work,’ she managed, not actually looking at his crotch, but not actually looking away from it either.

‘Very much,’ he said, working the laces through his nimble fingers, making no attempt to hide his boner.

Was it her imagination or could she actually smell him now? It was not deodorant, not soap that she smelled but maleness. It was like baked bread and desert heat with some moist thick bass note that she felt at the back of her throat rather than smelled. It made her hold her mouth slightly open to take in the fullness of his scent, like a cat taking in the scent of a rival or a possible mate.

Was it her imagination, or could she actually feel his breath against the place where her thighs rested on the chair, teasing just at the edge of her skirt? The growing warmth she now felt in her knickers was definitely not in her imagination.

For a moment she closed her eyes, shutting out the precision movements of his fingers and the view of his body hunched almost protectively between her legs. Then she allowed herself to take in the picture of him that her other senses were painting so exquisitely. She heard the catch and slide of his breath, felt the velvet flutter of it raising goose flesh on the soft skin of her inner thighs. She inhaled the complex olfactory portrait of him, the scent emanating from his armpits, his pulse points and the place where his cock strained in its tight confinement. She could feel his skin on hers as his fingers brushed her calf. It all created a picture of him almost as vivid as the one she had seen.

She opened her eyes just in time to watch him carefully, precisely, rhythmically tie the bow in the lace of the second boot. And as he tugged the looped ends snug against the knot, she felt a ripple up both legs that accelerated and intensified as it raced up between her thighs. It continued along her spine, flashing red hot behind her eyes, leaving a plum-coloured after-image of the clerk’s engrossed face.

She yelped and jerked in the chair, and the vertebrae in her neck popped. ‘Did you feel that?’ She was a hair’s breadth away from tumbling into orgasm, and the man had done nothing more than lace her boots. He nodded, holding her gaze. His pupils were dilated, his breathing fast. For a second neither of them moved. Time itself didn’t even move, like everything was holding its breath, like everything was waiting, just barely able to contain the anticipation, the excitement.

Then the world exploded back into real time, and she pushed her way out of the chair and onto the clerk who was still on his knees between her legs. He tumbled backwards against the floor with a guttural sound somewhere between a groan and a growl, and just managed to adjust his position as she ground her way onto his lap, straddling his groin. The skirt had ridden up over her hips, and the crotch of her panties was the only thing preventing her from rubbing her bare ache against the tell-tale bulge in his jeans.

Before he could say anything, she took his mouth in a clash of lips and teeth and tongue. He was more than accommodating, tongue darting, lips tugging in an effort that quickly escaped the confines of her mouth to nibble down over her jaw and wage a humid, ticklish assault on her nape, every nip of which she felt between her legs. He made quick work of her buttons, then pulled her blouse open and slid a bra strap aside to lift her right breast free to his cupping and kneading, free to be ravaged by his very expressive mouth. ‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ he whispered against her breast. ‘Not during working hours.’

‘But I need you,’ she said, then gasped and shuddered as he bit her nipple. ‘I’ll never make it back home like this. Don’t force me to take care of myself in an alley.’

‘I’m supposed to be selling shoes, not shagging my customers.’

‘You are selling shoes.’ She wriggled her toes in her boots. ‘See. And who says we have to fuck?’

He offered a wicked chuckle, then rolled with her, and when he was on top, he lifted her legs around his hips so that his still clothed erection raked between her still-pantied swell. ‘You’re absolutely right. We don’t have to fuck,’ he said, looking down at her with his ocean-changeable eyes. ‘I always try to satisfy my customers.’ Then he shifted his hips until his girth pressed her panties tightly into her heat, the fabric binding with a little hitch right against the swell of her clit as he ground and thrust.

She scrambled to meet him with her own thrust upward, and when she did so, when her hips were off the floor, he slipped both hands into the legs of her panties from behind and grabbed her bum cheeks in kneading fistfuls.

She dug her booted heels in just above the waist of his jeans for a better grip.

His whole body was tight, ridged, like it might shatter with the next thrust. The tighter his body became, the more liquid was hers, until she feared she would dissolve into nothing more than a tidal pool of quivering relief.

Each time he thrust she raised her legs a little higher, like she was climbing his body. Each time she raised her legs, his grip on her bottom became more possessive, more demanding. The friction was maddening down where clothing rubbed against clothing, and what was underneath felt the heat like flint and steel waiting for the spark. And when the spark came, it ignited a flash fire that left them both growling and straining like animals. The orgasm that started between her legs snaked up her spine and short-circuited her brain just before it slid down all the way to the tips of her toes in her soft leather boots. Then it curled itself around her like a warm embrace and finally settled between her hipbones like something smug, like something self-assured, like something completely at home there.

After that, it all happened at once. Her BlackBerry buzzed with a worried message from Vivie. Where was she? Was she all right? The phone on the counter rang and the clerk, with his jeans now wet, scrambled to answer it.

‘What do you mean Eleanor’s missing?’ He spoke in hushed tones while making an effort to straighten himself. ‘You know what night it is. You were supposed to keep an eye on her. You know how she is.’ His voice had become a hiss close to the receiver, though he forced an embarrassed smile in Jill’s direction, trying to make her feel more comfortable, no doubt.

But she didn’t feel uncomfortable. In fact, she felt rather delicious. She wasn’t sure why his obvious stress didn’t bother her. She wasn’t sure why she suddenly felt like the cat who just ate the cream. And she wasn’t sure why she wasn’t second-guessing what had just happened. Instead she offered him a seductive smile, blew him an even more seductive kiss, turned in her lovely new boots and walked out the door. She didn’t know why she ignored him when he slammed the phone down and called after her. And did she hear right? Did he actually call her Eleanor? How utterly strange.

Even though it wasn’t a long walk from Shoreditch High Street to her flat, she took a taxi. She was sitting in the back seat, still straightening and buttoning, when her BlackBerry buzzed again with another frantic message from Vivie. She texted back.

No worries, love! Had totally fab time, & the fun is just beginning.

J x

PS

Bought sexy new boots.

She giggled as she remembered she hadn’t paid for them. No probs. It would give her an excuse to see the yummy clerk again. And next time she would fuck him. Hard.

She signed the text E xx

Chapter 2

Jill returned to her flat feeling pretty chuffed with the events of the evening. Nice place, Kinky Boots. Really nice. And the bloke who ran it – hotter than hot. There was something else about him, something strangely familiar, almost like if they sat down together over a cuppa they’d discover that they’d always known each other. She smiled to herself at the thought. She really couldn’t imagine them getting through a whole cuppa together without her ripping his jeans off and shagging him senseless. Even with his clothes on, it hadn’t been hard to tell that he was very nicely equipped for the task. She looked down at her lovely new boots, boots she’d left without paying for. It was the perfect excuse for going back.

* * *

Under the circumstances, she figured she’d be too hyped to sleep, but she did so almost instantly.

And before long the room was awash in mist that floated and swirled around her bed. Had the weather turned while she was sleeping, bringing the fog? Had she forgotten to shut her window? A sudden gust of cool wind cleared the mist just enough for Jill to catch the first glimpse of the woman at the foot of her bed, pale and translucent, lit with way more silver light than even the full moon could provide.

Strange, as she approached the bed, the curvy, feminine shape of her was clear, as though her thin clingy robe were made from the mist itself, but the woman’s face remained out of focus, as though Jill were viewing her from underwater.

She sat down on the bed next to her, and still Jill couldn’t make out the details of her face. But her voice was rich and silky, and Jill had the urge to wrap herself in the caress of it. ‘I’ve waited a long time for you, Jill Hart. Finn is such a spoilsport, not letting me play. But you’re different. He likes you, and he’ll warm to the idea of the two of us. You’ll see.’ She rubbed her hands together in anticipation. ‘Now then, sweetie, let’s have a look. Let’s see our lovely new body.’ As she reached out to smooth Jill’s hair away from her face, Jill was suddenly unable to move.

It was a dream then, surely a dream, Jill thought; one of those where someone important is at the door, but you’re paralysed, lying there in the bed, and, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t move.

The woman leaned down and kissed her on the mouth, and her breath was winter-cold but sweet and hypnotic with its icy in and out, in and out.

With a flick of her wrist she threw back the duvet and sighed her delight. Jill was surprised to find herself naked. ‘Oh, my darling, how I’ve longed to bear the weight of breasts again, to feel the hardening and puckering of their arousal.’ She brushed cold fingertips across Jill’s nipples and they rose to a touch that was irresistible. Jill would have arched up against the cool feathery caress if she’d been able. Instead she lay unmoving, her chest rising and falling faster and faster, her nipples pearled to hard beads begging for the woman’s attention.

The woman continued her explorations. ‘Oh, the delight of belly and hips, and, ah, yes, such softness down there.’ She trailed her fingers down Jill’s tummy and cupped her mons, caressed and fondled her tight curls, and the sound that escaped Jill’s lips was a kittenish mew.

The woman smiled knowingly. ‘The pleasures of the flesh, my lovely, how we shall share them, how we shall revel in them, you and I. It’ll be so delicious for both of us, I promise you.’ Then, with the flat of her hand, she opened Jill’s legs.

Jill was helpless to deny her access, even if she’d wanted to, and she didn’t. It was only a dream, she told herself, and sexy dreams should come as no surprise after her encounter at Kinky Boots. And anyway, it had to be a dream because she was too shy even to undress in front of Vivie, and here she lay practically willing this woman to check out all that she had … down there.

‘Let us see, my darling,’ the woman cooed. ‘Let us see you.’ Jill watched helplessly as the woman forced her knees up and wide until Jill felt herself exposed, butter-cream slick and heavy.

‘Yes, my love. That’s it. Let me see what we shall have such delight in sharing. Oh, yes, lovely. So lovely.’ With one hand still resting in Jill’s pubic curls the woman lowered her face for a closer look. Then with a scoop and a twist she trailed fingers up between Jill’s cleft and brought them to her lips as though she were tasting her favourite dish. ‘Mmm,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Finn’s going to love you.’ She lowered a tongue-flick of a kiss onto Jill’s hard clit, and Jill came. The electrifying power of her orgasm raged through her paralysed body to every nerve ending, every blood cell, every synapse, raging out in all directions, then returning in a hot rush of energy to the hardened node of her clit before settling deep inside her. She could neither writhe nor buck. All she could do was moan and quiver.

‘Oh, yes, my darling, you are delightful, the way your lovely pussy muscles tighten and convulse when you come. How wonderful it will be to have a body with such libido, such hunger. Oh, how Finn will ride you. I think that –’

The woman was interrupted by the call of a man. ‘Eleanor? Eleanor, are you there?’

She put a finger to her lips. ‘He’ll find out eventually, dear Jill, but when he does it’ll no longer matter.’ She brushed a kiss across Jill’s lips, and for the first time Jill got a clear view of the woman’s face. She recognised it well because it was her face. Before she could dwell on the strangeness of such a revelation, the woman lay down in her arms, nuzzled in tight against Jill’s breasts and pulled the duvet up over both of them. From a distance Jill could still hear the man calling for Eleanor, but that was the last thing she remembered until morning.

* * *

Finn scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling poorly slept with. He hadn’t been slept with at all, actually. He gulped back the bitter taste of coffee, which was about the only thing keeping him awake at the moment. In truth, it was the woman he’d been with last night who was keeping him awake, and not in a good way. She was nowhere to be found, and she could very well be in a great deal of danger. ‘I’ve never seen her before,’ Finn said. ‘She stumbled into the shop, bought a pair of boots and left.’

‘Did you fuck her?’ Meinrad asked.

Finn tried to work up the energy to be offended by Meinrad’s bluntness, but he knew better. Meinrad was right to want to know. ‘If I had fucked her then I’d be certain, wouldn’t I? We’d know, wouldn’t we?’

Meinrad’s pale-blue gaze was a study in Teutonic seriousness. ‘You must have done something or you wouldn’t suspect that Eleanor’s with her.’

Meinrad was so damn smug at times, and Finn really didn’t need smug right now. ‘I … we had a good grope.’

‘How much of a grope?’ Meinrad asked. ‘Did she come? Did you come?’

‘Yes, she came, and so did I, all right? And I shouldn’t have. I mean I knew what day it was, but I thought you and Chelsea had Eleanor under control. How was I supposed to know she was out and about?’

Meinrad stopped sipping his coffee and blinked. ‘She wasn’t exactly out and about, mate. Besides, it was you who had the desire to grope a total stranger enough to jizz your jeans. That wasn’t a clue?’

Finn stood and paced, then poured them both another cup of corrosive coffee. ‘I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that the woman was really hot and that she might actually fancy me?’ He dropped back into the chair slopping coffee, remembering the woman whose glorious dark hair looked like she’d just gotten out of bed after a sexy romp, and wouldn’t he love to be on the receiving end of that romp? Then he added, ‘Honestly, I wanted her from the moment she walked through the door, all barefoot with that pouty-lipped smile I could have eaten off her face.’

Meinrad gave him an unimpressed look. ‘Sometimes it’s best to keep your cock in your pants, Finn. If Eleanor’s with this woman and her pouty lips, then you know the kind of trouble she can cause. The woman could be in real danger.’

‘I know this, Meinrad. Don’t you think I know this?’ The thought had knotted his stomach since the moment the phone rang last night, and she sauntered out the door, disappearing into a birthday party stumbling drunkenly down the street from Juno. By the time he’d managed to push his way into the party, she was nowhere to be found. ‘I’ve been using every means I can think of to find her.’

‘If you haven’t found her by now then it’s already too late.’

‘We don’t know that, do we? It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet.’

Just then Meinrad’s iPhone rang. He answered it with a grunt, then a nod, as though whoever was on the other end should be able to see. ‘Right. Well, that’s a start, isn’t it?’

He hung up and offered Finn what could have been a smile or could just as easily have been a grimace. With Meinrad, it was difficult to tell. ‘Chelsea found out who this Vivie is that your girl was talking about last night. You know, the one who lent her the killer shoes? Seems she was frantically looking for her friend Jill about the same time you were giving her the full frontal rub-up. Some bloke Chelsea knows, a banker she’s fuck buddies with, was apparently doing the nasty with this Vivie in Hoxton Square and, after they’d done the deed, Jill was nowhere to be found. He happened to let it slip.’

Jill. Nice name, Finn thought. But what he felt was a sense of relief. If they had even a little bit of information about Jill, even her first name, if there were ways of finding her, then they could call in the rest of the Sole Alliance. If anybody could find Eleanor, they could. Of course once Eleanor had what she wanted, she wouldn’t be hard to find. He shivered at the thought. He wished desperately he’d been more careful, that he’d just asked the woman out for coffee like a normal bloke would have. But then she did practically attack him, didn’t she? Not that he wasn’t willing. God, he had been willing.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Call everyone together. Let’s find Jill, and hopefully Eleanor.’ He left Meinrad sitting at the table calling in the members of Sole Alliance. He shoved open the door that separated his flat from Kinky Boots, made his way around the counter and through the racks of shoes and boots to the front of the store. For a second he stood looking out onto Shoreditch High Street. It was already heaving with traffic, but it was still too early for many shoppers to be out and about. With a sigh, he pulled down the steel shutters over the storefront that he’d only opened a few minutes ago. Eleanor always was the queen of poor timing. Missing Saturday market business wasn’t great, but there wasn’t much choice under the circumstances. Jill had to be found for her own protection.

Chapter 3

Jill woke up before the alarm went off. Thoughts of her encounter at Kinky Boots set off an eruption of butterflies in her stomach, and she couldn’t keep from smiling as she saw the lovely pair of mauve boots sat neatly at the foot of her bed. Still unpaid for too.

The steamy shower felt like a million tiny massages all over her body and the loofah stimulated every pore of her pinkened skin to tingle with delight. It didn’t even matter that, if it weren’t for her boss, she’d still be enjoying a lie-in all snuggled under the crisp, clean duvet. In fact the morning seemed entirely too amazing to waste sleeping. Though the sleep last night had been particularly satisfying, and she seemed to recall very arousing dreams. Not too surprising under the circumstances, she thought. And as soon as she could placate her boss and get free, she hoped for a helluva lot more than just dreams.

Breakfast never tasted so good, even if it was only toast with marmalade. She made the coffee stronger than usual and delighted in the bite of it against the back of her tongue, balanced by the velvet smoothness of the cream. In spite of her lack of interest in fashion, today it seemed a delicious chore to pick out just the perfect clothing. She chose a black pencil skirt, a soft silk blouse that was a riot of rich summer hues, and her lovely new boots. There was a bit more cleavage showing than usual, a bit more colour in the make-up. And the skirt, well, the skirt fitted like a glove. Though it came several inches below her knees, there was a long slit high up the right thigh. Under normal circumstances she would never have worn it to work, but she planned to pop by Kinky Boots afterward and pay her debt. With interest. Before she stepped out of the door into the early-morning chill, she pulled on the matching summer jacket and slipped her BlackBerry into the pocket.

To her surprise, when she arrived at the office, she found no one there but herself and her boss. It felt chilled and overly air conditioned without the complement of warm bodies crowded into the open-plan working space. She shivered and pulled her jacket tighter around her. The situation was almost enough to trash her post-coital morning. Being alone with the tosser always made her skin crawl, but the fact that she really was alone with him this time caused a cold clench in her stomach. She wondered what the hell was going on.

She went quietly to her desk, not wanting to draw his attention. With any luck he’d be too hungover to care what she did, then she could get her work done and leave. She spent an hour tweaking and cleaning up other people’s articles and finalising the layout for that week’s Full On webzine, tasks that he should have done. She was beginning to think she might get by unnoticed when she realised the article on street buskers she’d spent nearly a month researching had been pulled completely. It had been replaced as the lead story by an article on discount holidays lifted straight from an affiliate newsfeed. It wasn’t the first time her boss had promised that her article would be the lead story, then pulled it at the last minute for no good reason. It would bloody well be the last, she decided. Breathing fire, she slammed her laptop shut, crossed the maze of cubicles to her boss’s door and knocked before she had time for second thoughts.

He spoke to her without looking up from his laptop. ‘You’re upset about your busker story.’ He didn’t wait for her to respond, but continued. ‘I made an executive decision, hon.’ He took off his glasses and finally looked up at her. ‘It just wasn’t the kind of professional quality I’d hoped for, and when there was nothing else, I had to make a choice, didn’t I?’

Her body stiffened. She stroked and clutched the BlackBerry in her pocket like it was a talisman. ‘There was nothing wrong with that article,’ a voice whispered in her ear. ‘It was a good article, a damn sight better than what’s up there now.’ It was only the sour look of surprise on her boss’s face that made her realise there had been no voice whispering in her ear. She had spoken the whole thing out loud, and she certainly wasn’t sorry she’d done it!

‘I believe the choice of what’s good and what’s not is mine to make, honey. The name on the door of this office is still H. Devlin, isn’t it? Last time I looked it hadn’t been changed to Jill Hart.’ He pushed his chair back and came around the desk to stand in front of her, giving her a once-over that made her shiver. ‘Nice outfit, by the way. I always suspected there was a nice figure under all that frump.’ He moved closer, breathing stale coffee in her face, then he lowered his eyes to the buttons of her blouse and smiled conciliatorily into her cleavage. She pulled her jacket protectively around her.

‘The wonderful thing about the web,’ he said, ‘is that we can change it, hon. Online publication is so much more forgiving than print. And one of the reasons I had you come in this morning is that I thought we might be able to get your article up as the lead story, if you’re willing to work with me on it.’ He straightened the collar of her jacket, pushed it back slightly and ran a finger along the open lapel of the blouse. ‘You know, tweak it a bit here and there.’

‘All right,’ she said, tugging at her jacket and stepping out of his breathing space until she could feel the wall against her spine. ‘I’ll go get my laptop, and we can work on it, though wouldn’t it have been easier for you just to email me the changes you wanted? I could have done them from home.’

He stepped into her space again. ‘I’m a hands-on sort of bloke, honey, and if you want your story to lead, then we’ll have to work on it together.’

She stood very still, amazingly calm under the circumstances. He placed one hand on the wall just above her shoulder and the other pushed the jacket down over one arm and skimmed the open neckline of her blouse again.

‘Is this what you had me come in for?’ she asked.

He offered her a twitch of a smile. ‘Oh, don’t tell me you weren’t anticipating it, honey. I mean, look how you’re dressed.’ Then his business voice returned. ‘You’re talented and enthusiastic, Jill. I can make sure that you go far in your career.’ He leaned forward and his wet lips brushed her ear. ‘Or not.’

She couldn’t believe how calm she was. It was strange. There was no panic, no fear, no real rage even, just an icy distancing she never remembered feeling before. ‘What do you want me to do, Mr Devlin?’ she said above the strange buzzing in her ear, a sound not unlike the buzz of insects in a field on a hot summer day.

He chuckled, and his breath was heavy and damp against her face. ‘There, that’s better now, isn’t it? I love a cooperative employee.’ He slid a pudgy thumb across the outline of one nipple and sighed. ‘First, I want you to lose the jacket, unbutton that lovely silk top of yours and give me a good look at those tits you’re always pointing at me. And when I’ve had enough time to examine them thoroughly, I want you over my desk, skirt up, arse cheeks parted so I can have my choice of what you’ve got down there. Are we clear, honey?’

The buzzing grew louder. But strangely the world around her seemed sharply focused, more detailed than she could ever remember it being – the smell of cold coffee in a paper cup on his desk, the sound of a jackhammer on a nearby street, the tiny mole just in front of the man’s right ear, the growing crescents of sweat beneath his armpits sharp with the acid scent of nerves overriding the citrus tang of deodorant. ‘Oh, we’re very clear,’ she said, caressing her BlackBerry again. ‘Clear as a bell.’

She placed the flat of her hand against his chest and shoved him hard. He gave a little grunt of anticipation, like maybe he was OK with a woman taking the upper hand. He had no idea, she thought. He stank of his own lust, and she could damn near read his mind. He thought he was in, he thought she was kinky enough to be turned on by him, the little toad. And when she’d pushed him back until his bum rested against his desk, he practically quivered with excitement. The laugh that came from her throat startled even her. The man was pathetic, and her time was way too valuable to waste on such a creature.

She spoke as calmly as if she had just told him the football scores. ‘You disgusting little worm. Do you really think there’s anything you could do to persuade me to let me put your filthy little cock inside me? You have two hands, Devlin, I would suggest you fuck yourself, and, while you’re at it, fuck this job because I no longer need it.’

She heard the pop of joints as he catapulted off the desk into a stiff-necked stance, eyes bulging, chest inflating like a balloon. ‘You filthy slut! Clear your desk, you little bitch. I want you out of my sight. Now!’

‘Oh, don’t worry, Devlin. I’m leaving.’ She stepped back just beyond the range of his anger, and it really was as though her right hand didn’t know what her left hand was doing. ‘But before I go, you’ll agree to make sure my unexpected leaving is nicely smoothed over with HR. You’ll also make sure that I’m very well compensated for putting up with you, Devlin, very well. And finally you’ll make sure there’ll be the stellar references I deserve for my CV.’

‘You fucking little bitch.’ He lunged for her but she stepped back, pulled the BlackBerry from her pocket and hit the playback button.

What do you want me to do, Mr Devlin, Jill heard herself say. Then she heard her boss’s fetid laugh.

I want you to lose the jacket, unbutton that lovely silk top of yours and give me a good look at those tits you’re always pointing at me …

When she switched the recording off, the man looked decidedly green.

‘I think we understand each other, Mr Devlin. I’ll be back Monday to pick up my things and talk to HR. What you do between now and then will determine what I do with this lovely little recording. Are we clear?’

The man nodded. In truth she was afraid if he opened his mouth he might just throw up.

‘I know a lot of the women who work here, and I know how you treat them. I’ll be having coffee with them from time to time, just to see how things are going. You get the picture.’ She held up the BlackBerry. ‘Oh, and one more thing, Devlin. My busker story leads this week’s eZine, according to plan.’

Then she walked out of his office, shut the door quietly behind her and just kept walking with the strange buzzing in her ears reducing everything else to background noise. She felt like her head was too full, too full of everything, colour and light and darkness and texture and scent and sounds and distance and space and time. And everything felt so completely solid. Inside her there was a powerful urge to run down the street laughing hysterically. The job from hell was finished. Finished! She’d never have to face Devlin again.

Right next door to the urge for hysterical laughter was the urge to panic hugely. The battling urges threatened to rip her chest open, threatened to cut off her breathing, threatened to drive her to her knees. But the sun was bright and the air was warm and she was going to Shoreditch to fuck the clerk at Kinky Boots.

* * *

In the end Chelsea called her fuck buddy, the banker, who called Vivie. Because she fancied him, it hadn’t taken him long to wheedle Jill Hart’s name out of her. It turned out Vivie was a bit of a matchmaker and found the idea of hooking up her friend with a hot bloke irresistible. The hot-bloke bit was Chelsea’s embellishment, not Finn’s, but if it worked, it worked. By noon, Finn had tweeted and Facebooked Jill Hart. He was sure it was her because she had a fairly good photo of herself as her avatar. He’d got the number of her landline, but there had been no answer, and he’d had no response from his efforts with social media. Jill didn’t seem like the type who would leave a debt unpaid. He was sure she’d be back once she realised that she hadn’t paid him for the boots, but by then it could be too late. It was frustrating. It was more than frustrating, it was frightening. Eleanor had never deliberately hurt anyone. Not deliberately. But after the last time, Finn couldn’t believe that she would willingly do what she’d clearly done. The thought made him cold inside.

He was getting desperate when he got a call from the Water Poet pub. The bartender was a friend. There was a woman at the bar fitting Jill’s description. She was doing tequila shots.

Chapter 4

It was only when Jill was in the tube heading toward Old Street Station that the impact of what she had done hit her full-on. She probably would have collapsed in a heap, but the carriage was packed cheek to jowl. She had just quit her job! Christ! Not only had she quit her job, but she’d told her boss to fuck himself. She hadn’t even realised she was recording the bastard. How could she not realise? If anyone else had done what she’d just done, she’d be congratulating them, patting them on the back, buying them a drink for giving the arsehole what he deserved. But it wasn’t someone else. It was neurotic, shy, insecure and now unemployed Jill Hart who had done it. What the hell would she do now?

Instead of paying for the boots she could no longer afford, Jill ended up wandering aimlessly around Shoreditch silently arguing with herself amid the Saturday bustle of shoppers. The job, which she would have otherwise enjoyed, had been a nightmare from the beginning, and all because of Devlin. And now she had the man by the short hairs. She would have a bit of a cushion until she could find what she wanted. It was all so exciting, she tried to convince herself. She had just opened the door to all kinds of new possibilities. On the other hand, she had just opened the door to poverty and moving back home with her mother, a thought that made her queasy.

She wasn’t sure how long she wandered about, or which part of her had won the argument, but when she finally came back to herself, leaning against the bar at the Water Poet pub downing her second tequila shot, she figured it was not Betty Bright-Side who had come out on top.

‘Tequila before lunch is not a good sign.’

She was surprised to find the clerk from Kinky Boots standing next to her, if anything looking even sexier in the bright light of day than he had in the mood lighting of the shoe store. He ordered a coffee.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. ‘Are my boots equipped with a tracking device for customers who leave without paying?’

He offered her a smile that seemed to turn inwards, as though he knew a private joke. ‘Something like that.’ Then he added, ‘I figured you’d come back, and even if you didn’t, I can hardly begrudge you the boots after … well, after such a lovely down payment.’

She laughed softly at her own private joke, but then she decided not to keep it to herself. ‘Afraid a down payment may be all you’ll get. I just quit my job.’

‘Oh?’

‘My boss is an arsehole, OK, but that’s nothing new. Up until now I’ve managed to get by keeping a low profile. But today … don’t know what came over me. Guess he finally just pushed me too far.’

The man’s startling eyes darkened like a storm, and he leaned closer. ‘What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?’

She found that she didn’t, which was strange. There was a time, only yesterday in fact, when what her boss had done to her would have embarrassed her, would have made her doubt herself and wonder what she’d done to make him think of her that way.

When she’d finished her story, the clerk’s eyes had gone from stormy to a total cyclone of rage. The muscles along his jaws looked like he could chew bullets, and Jill noticed his fists clenching and unclenching at his side. ‘Sounds like the bastard deserved what he got and then some,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have had to deal with that.’

‘Well, I did. And now I’m unemployed.’ When she started to order another shot, he laid his hand on hers.

‘Don’t do that.’ He held her gaze, and the feeling wasn’t unlike looking over the cliffs into a raging sea. ‘Since you can’t afford to pay for the boots, I see no other option but to have you work off your debt, and you can’t work off your debt if you’re drunk.’

She blinked. ‘But I don’t know anything about selling shoes.’

Ignoring the fair-sized crowd of early lunchers and the press of loiterers at the bar, the clerk tilted her chin with the curve of a finger and brushed a tease of a kiss against her lips. Even though it was barely there, no part of her anatomy missed the flick of his tongue. When he pulled away, still holding her gaze, they were both breathing noticeably harder. She was suddenly aware of just how trimly the T-shirt with the electric-blue Kinky Boots logo fitted across his chest. ‘Though it wouldn’t be that hard to train you to work in the shop, what I had in mind is something that I hope you don’t need any training for.’

‘Oh. Oh!’ There was something delightful, refreshing, regenerating in the fact that he wanted her still, even in the naked light of day, even with her miserable confession of unemployment. She responded by kissing him back, by answering his tongue with a flick of her own, by brazenly resting a hand high on his thigh. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, I don’t get out much.’

‘I like women who don’t get out much. That means they’re focused on things that matter to them, and I like that a lot.’

‘Vivie calls that clueless,’ she said breathlessly.

‘I’m not Vivie, am I?’ This time the kiss included an embrace that jostled the drinkers at the bar next to them and nearly pulled her off her feet. He placed a warm hand against her bare skin, beneath the jacket and under the edge of her blouse. This time there was more than just a flick of the tongue, much more. And Jesus, did the man ever know what to do with his tongue!

Still ploughing her mouth like he expected to find hidden treasure, he fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a tenner and slapped it down on the bar. Then he pulled away for breath. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here.’

They were only a few blocks from Kinky Boots, but it seemed too far. He barely had her out of the door before he crushed her to his chest and ravaged her mouth again, this time running both hands up under the back of her blouse, then down to cup her bottom and haul her up onto her toes until she could feel the rake of his growing hard-on against her pubic bone. He pulled away gasping, grabbed her hand and dragged her at a breakneck pace down Shoreditch High Street toward Kinky Boots. ‘We’d better hurry,’ he said. ‘This time I don’t intend to come in my pants, and I certainly don’t intend for you to.’

Jesus, the man was talking dirty to her right out in the middle of the busy street. ‘You’re taking me back to the shop?’ She balked. ‘We’re going to do it in a shoe store? On Saturday afternoon?’

He pulled her close and gave her another hard, quick kiss. ‘Shop’s closed. I’m taking you to my place.’

They rushed and pushed their way through the Saturday-afternoon shoppers and strollers. She was just barely able to contain the urge to elbow and stiff-arm people out of their way to clear a path when, at last, he led her through a maze of alleys to the back of a building. He unlocked the door and practically thrust her inside with his lips and tongue. One hand slammed the door behind them while the other shimmied the jacket off her shoulders onto the kitchen floor and made quick work of the buttons of her blouse before nimbly dispatching the hooks of her bra. That done, he gave a desperate kneading squeeze to each breast and a hard suckling kiss to each nipple, making her wet her knickers with delight before he returned his attention to her mouth.

‘I dreamed about you last night,’ he said, shoving her skirt up over her hips. ‘I was trying to find you so we could finish what we started.’

‘Me too. I dreamed about you.’ She fumbled with his jeans, in an inelegant effort to free his cock, but he pushed her hand away impatiently. She watched in fascinated arousal as he unbuttoned and unzipped with one hand and, glory hallelujah, if the man wasn’t commando! The swell of him spilled anxiously into his hand, ridged and weighty against the press of his balls and the pillow of dark russet curls beneath.

He rested one hand on his erection, almost like he needed to control it, almost like he were afraid it might get away from him. The other hand slipped aside the crotch of her panties. She thrust her hips forward and gave a little jerk of a gasp, banging her head against the wall at the startling pleasure of him parting the swell of her with two fingers. Then she yielded to his probing.

‘Careful,’ he said. ‘I don’t fuck the unconscious.’ Then he let out a low whistle. ‘Jesus, woman, you’re so slick and soft. Once I’m inside you, I may never want to come out.’

‘Once you’re inside me I may never let you out.’ She reached for his cock. ‘Do it. I need you to do it. Now.’

Cupping his hands beneath her bottom, he lifted her as though she were weightless then pressed her back into the wall so she could shift her hips to open for his cock, so she could have the leverage to bear down and thrust back once he was inside her.

The power of his first thrust left her breathless. The girth of him felt as though it was forcibly spreading her hipbones apart. And when she was certain he’d rammed himself all the way up until he could touch the beating of her heart, he gave a soft grunt and held himself there, deep and tight, while she gripped and suckled and slicked herself down there, down between her thighs, in the painful pleasure of being so full, in the delicious effort to accommodate.

Then slowly, very slowly he began to withdraw, with her body grasping desperately as though it were making an effort to hold him there. All the way, he withdrew all the way, and they both cried out as though something had been ripped from them. Her throat ached from a growl that was barely human, and her body felt fevered and raw and so sensitive that she feared even a touch would abrade skin and bone. And yet she longed for so much more than just a touch. She could smell his animal-dark heat mixing with her own wet summer scent, making her wild with the want of him. Then he slid two fingers inside her and circled her clit with his thumb, never touching the rest of her, only circling, so close that she held her breath anticipating his conquest. All the while his dark seawater gaze was fixed on her face.

‘I love that you’re so wet,’ he said nipping her throat just below her ear. ‘I love that you’re so ready for me.’

He held her there suspended, her legs still wrapped around him, her back still pressed tightly to the wall. The tip of his erection was almost but not quite touching her pout. It jostled and bounced while his fingers circled and probed and dipped until her clit felt like a small, hard mountain raised up by the circumnavigations of his thumb.

Just when she was certain she could no longer stand the heat, the sheer delicious friction of it, he thrust back into her. Hard! Fire shot up her spine and the buzzing returned to her ears, that same buzzing she’d had when she’d confronted her boss. She felt everything, every single pore of the clerk’s skin where it touched hers, every hair follicle, every undulation of muscle, every sweep of breath. As the thrusting grew to a frenzy, he took her mouth with bruising force and when they were both so close to the edge that she was amazed he could speak at all, he forced the words out in a breathless hiss: ‘I’m Finn, by the way.’

Finn? Where had she heard that name? It was familiar. ‘Jill,’ she gasped. ‘I’m Jill.’

He bit her lip. ‘And who else?’

She bit him back. ‘Just Jill.’

This time the impact of his thrust felt like it would go clear through her and the wall behind as well. ‘Oh, you’re more than just Jill,’ he managed. ‘Way more.’

There wasn’t time to question. There wasn’t time for anything because they were there, on the edge, both tight and stretched and ready to shatter. He came first, but only by a breath. ‘I’ll ask you again,’ he cried out. ‘Who are you?’

It was only as she tumbled into orgasm that she realised, and she knew exactly who he was looking for. Even as the mother of all orgasms ripped through her, she was certain that not only was she not alone, but she hadn’t been since she left Kinky Boots last night. In that instant, someone else borrowed her voice as though it belonged to her. That someone else said, ‘I’m Eleanor, Finn, you silly man. You know who I am.’

Chapter 5

As waves of orgasm convulsed her, last night’s dream came rushing back to Jill in vivid detail. She felt like her brain was caught between channels, with visions of the woman sliding in and out of focus in her mind’s eye, with memories of her touching her, exploring her, delighting in her. ‘Who’s Eleanor?’ Jill gasped. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

Finn wrapped his arms tightly around her and held her, still fully impaled, still pressed against the wall. ‘Jill, I’m going to pull out of you now. Just relax, stay calm and I’ll tell you everything.’ She might have been able to do as he asked if he hadn’t, while still holding her gaze, said, ‘Eleanor, I’d appreciate it if you’d cooperate.’

‘Who the hell is Eleanor?’ she asked again, struggling to stave off the rise of panic that wasn’t supposed to be a part of post-coital bliss. But as he slipped out of her, as she felt their combine moisture trickle down the inside of her thigh in a warm rush, the rising panic slipped out of focus and hungry arousal slid into its place. She raked her fingers between her legs, then brought them first to her nose, then to her lips. ‘Oh, my, how we taste together, Finn.’ She repeated the action and brought the offering to his lips.

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