Fast and Loose

JUSTINE ELYOT

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Mischief

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

Copyright © Justine Elyot 2015

Justine Elyot asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008148782

Version: 2015-06-30

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

More from Mischief

About the Publisher

Chapter One

I could stare at the screen until the skies fell but the message wasn’t going to be any different. ‘This blog has been removed.’ No explanation, no apology, no clue as to why.

The blank blandness of the words made my skin prickle. There was something sinister about the whole thing. It reminded me of old drama programmes about apocalyptic events when the TV pictures frazzled into test cards. What could it mean?

What had happened to her?

Never had I been so grateful for my habit of saving favourite posts to my hard drive. I went straight to her last – and most exciting – update and read through it again.

Mia stands on the brink.

The next time you hear from her, she will have crossed a Rubicon from player to professional, from ingenue to sophisticate. Most importantly, she will be what J wants her to be: his perfect submissive.

She heard from The Academy today. She is to pack nothing but her toothbrush – everything else will be provided. On her arrival, she will be stripped, bathed and measured for her new costumes. For one week, she will wear nothing that restricts access to her, and she will be open and obedient to all.

Would you be unnerved, in her place?

Sweet little Mia has never given herself in submission to anyone but J before, and now she anticipates being used and whipped by anyone who wishes it. She wishes she could say the idea does not arouse her, but it does. It always has. And this is how she knows who and what she is. She wants to be owned, but she wants to be shared. She wants everything of her to be subject to the will of her master. And if her master wishes that she offer every one of her openings to faceless unknowns, then that is what she will do.

She will glory in it, and with every stroke of the whip, every thrust of an anonymous cock, she will have his name upon her tongue.

He will love her for it.

Your Mia is trembling in anticipation, my darlings, and she hopes that you are too. She will be back in one week, to give you every dirty last morsel of her experiences at The Academy. Nothing will be hidden, because she is permitted to hide nothing.

She kisses your boots.

XOXO Mia XOXO.

My greedy eyes lapped up her gorgeous illustrations – line drawings of her kneeling, naked and in profile, at a man’s feet, sucking on him. Only the man’s lower portion was visible, the picture ending at Mia’s bowed head. She had drawn the remains of faint whip-marks on the portion of her buttocks presented to the viewer. Her hands were bound behind her back.

There were other pictures, too. One of her standing, her back to the viewer, before a huge and ornate front door, holding a cute little handbag. One of her standing naked in front of two stern and unyielding-looking characters – a suited man with a riding crop, and a woman of a Mrs Danvers cast, in housekeeperly black.

God, I had been so looking forward to the next update. I had my vibrator ready and everything.

And now this.

I kicked at the desk leg and pushed my computer chair back on its castors, frustrated in the extreme. Now I was going to have to use my imagination.

I cocked an ear, listening to the silent flat.

Jess and Mehra were both out, one at lunch with parents, the other at IKEA with boyfriend. I should be safe for another hour at least.

I eased my pyjama shorts down to mid-thigh, the feel of the leather on my bottom taking me back to another of Mia’s posts. The one where she sat on a high stool in a crowded bar, waiting for her first meeting with J. He had ordered no underwear and a skirt loose enough to make this skin contact with the stool top possible. She had sat there, worrying about getting the leather wet. She had been so worried that she had taken a pack of wipes with her, meaning to run one over the round red seat once she was off it. But in the end J made her lick it up. Right there, in front of everyone. I cringed, just as I had when I first read it, but at the same time I reached for my vibrator.

Later that night, after dinner and champagne in a restaurant that sounded a lot like Wystan Place, he had taken her to a hotel room and made her bend over the bed.

I switched on my vibrator and applied its smooth round head to my parted under lips.

After making sure she was bent to his total satisfaction, he had lifted her skirt and smacked her bottom, six times, hard enough to leave handprints.

Then she had moaned and begged for more, but he had refused her. Instead, he made her stay like that, bent over with her thighs spread, while he made a slew of business calls. The last call was to a friend, and he had spoken to this friend of Mia and how she was positioned just then.

I tried, as I rubbed my vibrator up and down and around my clit, to remember his exact words.

‘I’ve got a little slut up here with me – you’d like her. We’ve hardly spoken to each other and already she’s bent over the bed with a red bum and the juiciest pussy you ever saw. I’m making her wait, though. Maybe I won’t even fuck her tonight. What do you think?’

I thought of what must have gone through Mia’s head; the jumble of humiliation and outrage and frustration and sheer horniness.

He had laughed before speaking again. ‘Yeah, I might do that. She needs a bit of training first, though. Do you want to see her?’

And he had photographed her upturned bum, with its scalded red spots and her open lips below, for his friend to look at and pass judgement upon.

I gasped, feeling my pussy clench uselessly on nothing while warm sensation pulsed around my clit.

‘Ohhhh,’ I moaned, thinking of J and his friend. But in my imagination his friend looked a lot like Tom Crowley, and that spoiled the moment for me.

‘For God’s sake,’ I muttered, standing to pull my shorts back up before heading to the bathroom to wash the vibrator. I put my tongue out at my tousle-headed reflection in the mirror, thinking it was no wonder Crowley had never called me for a second go if this was my morning look.

But then I told myself that no amount of last night’s mascara or this morning’s dull skin would have influenced Crowley’s decision. He was a one-night merchant. That was common knowledge.

I sang a few lines of Britney’s ‘Womanizer’ into my vibrator mic, scowling at myself. I needn’t have given in to him so quickly, though. If I’d held out, we could have had a month of lovely flirtation. A month would have been my limit before the knickers came off, I reckoned. He was a bastard with a terrible reputation, but he was also an astonishingly attractive bastard with a terrible reputation. A girl could treat herself to a one-off, couldn’t she?

I dried the vibrator and went back to my bedroom, where I pulled out my little bag of tricks from the bedside drawer to replace the vibrator with its fellows. The bag of tricks was full of stuff I’d never used and probably never would. A satin blindfold, a silky bondage rope, a little heart-shaped leather paddle. What I needed to distract me from Tom Crowley was somebody I could use these things with. But I’d never summoned the nerve to bring it up with any of my past boyfriends, and I doubted that was going to change. Once I knew a man, the desire to surprise him with the information that I was actually a person who enjoyed being tied up and spanked faded away. How could I throw that into the carefully constructed and cherished image of me he’d built up? It would ruin everything. Unless – and it was a massive unless – he turned out to be into it himself, the sex would become awkward and…ugh. No. It didn’t bear thinking about.

Of course, I could always try it the other way around. Look for somebody who had a declared interest in the subject. It was easy these days, with sites like Fetlife and so on. But I’d register and spend fifty hours trying to write a personal profile, then end up deregistering because I couldn’t stand the embarrassment any more. If only cringing turned me on, I’d have had it made.

So I was stuck with virtual kink. I trawled the net for sites that chimed with my tastes, and had to wade through a lot of unappealing material in my travels. The amount of surprised-looking blondes in red ball gags! Seemingly lots of people were all about that, but it wasn’t for me. I was looking for a particular aesthetic to go with my kink – no lurid intimate close-ups, no skulls and tattoos. I was looking for corsets, seamed stockings, ribbons and slender-handled riding crops.

Luckily, there was plenty of that, and nobody did it better than Mia Culpa.

I think what drew me in was that she started from the same point as me – curious inexperience. Her first posts were all about her fantasies, flashes of erotic fiction that chimed with my own yearnings. I would never know her, and I wasn’t one to comment on blog posts, but in a funny way I felt she was a kind of soulmate.

Her fantasies were wonderfully extravagant, often based on a pretty lingerie set or toy she’d seen in one of the luxe sex boutiques, and I began to look forward to my late-evening browse of her blog. She posted every day – sometimes with a story, sometimes with an opinion, sometimes with one of her drawings.

Then, one day, she posted an announcement. She had made the decision to seek that experience we both longed for. I didn’t know how to feel about this. On the one hand, I admired her courage, and I was desperate to read her accounts of this new stage in her life. On the other, I felt a little bit sad, almost betrayed, that she was moving on from my stationary position. I was the bridesmaid, watching the bride leave the reception, with only my bouquet to cling to.

I soon forgot my disappointment when she started posting the most riveting series of updates about her experiences in the D/s dating pool. They were funny, then despairing, then hopeful – then she met J.

That was when her blog switched from first to third person. The significance of it wasn’t lost on me. It meant it was serious. Sometimes I could imagine that J was writing it himself. It pulled me in deeper at the same time as it distanced me from her. Gone was the breathless intimacy of her virtual voice in my ear. Now I read about a fully-fledged submissive, giving all agency – even down to the pronoun she used – to her master.

I lived that deviant education by her side. I was there for her first spanking, the first time he tied her up, the first time she put on latex. All those firsts, and I had yet to break my duck.

And now, six months later, she was about to obey J’s command that she take her place at an exclusive ‘training school’ for submissives and the blog had disappeared!

I typed in the address again, hoping for a resurrection, but those foreboding words filled the screen once more.

I had to face it. Mia Culpa was no more.

Of course, I couldn’t just leave it like that.

Over the course of the next two hours, I clicked around between her online friends. A good many of them had posted updates about her sudden disappearance, but not one seemed to be in real-life contact with her. ‘Mia is M.I.A.’ was the upshot, with dozens of commenters lamenting her loss, but none having any news of her.

Many expressed fears for her safety. Did anyone know anything about this Academy? Where was it? Had anyone been there?

Everybody had drawn a blank.

I, at least, had a little bit of knowledge they didn’t, though, because it had become clear to me, over the course of time, that Mia lived in the same city as me – or at least somewhere near it.

I worked it out from little details about local bars and restaurants, or beauty spots, or shops, or even the weather. The bar where she met J – the one with the leather-topped stools – was Rum & Rose Petals. The restaurant where he made her touch herself under the table was Wystan Place. She’d had sex bent over the bonnet of his car at the viewing point on Golbury Hill.

Wherever Mia was, she was likely to be somewhere within a few miles of me.

The thought took me over to the window.

Was The Academy near here too? If she didn’t have to pack a passport, at least it had to be in this country. In fact, if I remembered correctly, J had mentioned that she’d be surprised how close to home it was.

My flat overlooked a church, and as I watched people mill about the porch, I wondered if any of them had been to The Academy. Or knew someone who had. Or had the kind of skills they taught.

Conjecture was useless.

I switched off the computer, got dressed and went to meet Tilda at the Arts Shed for our pre-arranged lunch and film date. Mia had decided, for her own reasons, to pull the plug on her blog. She was entitled to do so. And that was all there was to it.

Of course, my overdeveloped sense of intrigue was never going to let me leave it at that.

When I wasn’t working, or messing about with my fellow subeditors, or trying to avoid Tom Crowley, the disappearance of Mia Culpa impinged on my thoughts with relentless force. I looked at her blog site every evening, and every evening the message was the same. The conspiracy theories on her friends’ blogs blossomed and multiplied, with one poster even suggesting she might have been murdered.

It was possible. Anything was possible.

The prospect of never finding out was too maddening. I knew I had to step away, for the sake of my sanity, but how could I? Especially when I might be in a position – geographically speaking – to investigate.

On a Thursday night, four days after the disappearance, I went back over all her old blog posts, right from the beginning, raking through them for clues.

What a bittersweet blast of nostalgia it provided. Her first post, back in May, reminded me of those times. Up to my eyes in books, preparing for my university Finals. My desk had been littered with Pro-Plus and cue cards. I’d been browsing shops for a dress to wear to the June Ball, drawing a blank until I fetched up at an independent boutique that sold gothic and alternative gowns for special occasions. I gorged on the dark jewel-coloured silks and delicate laces, the corsets and ribbons and daring décolletages and giant black corsages. Then I noticed that they had an underwear section and I clicked straight away. I’d always been a sucker for posh knickers.

A feast of frills and tight lacing met my gaze. When I was earning, I’d come back and buy that bustier, and those cami-knickers, and that suspender belt. I already had fishnet stockings galore, but they were cheapies from the alternative market. I wanted some of these, finespun as cobwebs. They would feel like angels’ breath on my legs. And as for the matching knickers…

But for the time being I had no money and no time to get a job until after the exams. I would have to dream on. All the same, I was tempted to Google the underwear brand to see if anything came up on eBay. It didn’t, but something else did.

Hi, my name’s Mia and I want you all to know that I bought a pair of knickers to die for today.

I want you all to think of me, and picture me wearing them.

Before you can do that, I’ll introduce myself. I’m a twenty-one-year-old student, living in a medium-sized English city, doing all the ordinary student things like studying and going to bars and gigs and clubs with my friends. But there is something my friends don’t know about me. Nobody knows it, and you are going to be the first to hear it.

I’m kinky.

There. It’s out in the open now, although none of you knows me and it feels a little strange to have revealed this dark secret part of myself to anyone and everyone who might click this way.

Of course, with you being the first to know, you’ll guess straightaway that I’ve never explored this side of myself with anyone else. I’ve written stories, hidden deep in password-protected folders, and I’ve drawn pictures that I’ve ripped straight up and thrown in the bin. But I’ve never spoken of it, never bought anything relating to it and certainly never given my vanilla ex-boyfriend any kind of clue that I might want something different.

But you and I are going to find out what it’s all about. I can’t wait, can you?

But first – the knickers.

I finally decided, after weeks of shilly-shallying, to order something from a clothing website I’ve been obsessed with lately. They sell the most beautiful, most shocking, most scandalous underwear and I covet it all, but I’ve never dared buy any for myself.

Until last week, after finishing the bottle of wine that was left in the fridge from a house dinner party. The Dutch courage chose me a pair of the most exquisite little barely-there panties – a scrap of flimsy lace, held together with satin ribbon. They’re a little like boyshorts and a little like French knickers. When I put them on, they don’t quite cover my bum cheeks, and you can see everything through the filmy patterns of grey-black lace. You can see where I’ve shaved myself especially for you – something I’ve never done before, and the Ladyshave was shaking in my hand. Next time I’ll try wax. So I’m bare and smooth and my knickers feel so light I think they might dissolve at any second. But I can’t forget I’m wearing them, even if I put something on top of them. It’s like having nothing on, and yet it’s also like being marked in some way. The thought of the wind blowing up my skirt and them being seen on the street has made me so excited I can hardly keep still.

So I’m sitting here at my computer, wearing nothing else, and wanting to touch myself through the lacy nothingness. Can you see me? Can you see my nipples and my thighs and the satin ribbon running over my hips? Can you see how ready I am?

I’m so very ready.

Look at me.

Underneath were several line drawings of her, from neck to knees, in the knickers. One a front view, one from the back and one of her sitting spread-legged on a chair. They were erotic in a classy, alluring kind of way, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

That night I ordered the same pair of knickers and to hell with the expense. My ballgown came from eBay and had a cigarette burn in it the vendor hadn’t declared.

But it was worth it.

And so was Mia. I minimised the screen, my fingers trembling on the mouse. I loved the girl. She was me, but with the ability to write and draw. I couldn’t let her fade away, I just couldn’t.

Chapter Two

‘Ella, what the hell’s up with you today? If I’d wanted a zombie I’d have hired one.’

Dean, the chief sub, had reason to bark at me.

My copy was littered with typos and I’d put the wrong name in an article about a pensioner’s massive premium bonds win. The truth was, I hadn’t slept at all the night before, spending the darkest hours trawling Mia’s blog for clues about the identity of J and the whereabouts of The Academy or her flat. But I hadn’t turned up anything I didn’t already know. Her flat was in the city somewhere; The Academy was a short distance outside it; J was an older man in ‘a distinguished profession’ that remained nameless.

Contrite as I was to have made such an uncharacteristic slew of errors, I couldn’t help resenting Dean’s timing. His reprimand coincided with the departure of the journalists from an editorial meeting, and they filtered out into the open-plan office, looking curiously at us. The last to saunter into my line of sight was Tom Crowley. I ducked my head, but the damage was done. I’d seen his glorious gorgeousness in tight jeans and a biker jacket, and now I wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on anything else.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered to Dean. ‘Didn’t get much sleep last night.’

‘So it’s true.’

The voice was Crowley’s. The vibrations of my skin told me that he was standing very near, near enough to smell the leather, and the divine aftershave he wore. Fuck. My head was swimming.

Don’t look at him. Don’t answer him.

I knew I was blushing and I hated the heat that suffused my cheeks, my forehead, my neck, my bloody chest – where would it stop?

‘You are a vampire,’ he finished.

God, I hated him. But at least he’d said it only to me, lowering his voice so that nobody else would hear it. He could easily have played it for the cheap office laugh. So he was vile, but not super-vile.

‘That’s right,’ I said tightly, tapping at my keyboard and keeping my eyes glued to the screen. ‘I shrivel up at the sight of fake tan.’

He laughed, and I swallowed as his hand materialised on my desk. What lovely long fingers they were, splayed out elegantly next to my Slytherin mug. Where those fingers had been…

‘Well, that’s what I wanted to hear,’ he said, and I couldn’t stop myself from looking up at the hint of something promising in his tone.

Electric-blue eyes caught me in their beam. It was appropriate that they reminded me of one of those fluorescent fly-zappers in fast-food restaurants. I was the fly in this scenario.

‘Did you?’

He reached into his inside jacket pocket, drew out a folded piece of paper and handed it to me.

When I unfolded it, I found it was a flyer for the opening night of a new bar.

‘The Crypt,’ I said, deciphering the gothic font.

‘Yeah. I’ve been invited to the grand opening. Thought it might be up your street. Up your graveyard path,’ he corrected himself with a flash of dazzling teeth.

You’re asking me on a date? I stopped myself saying the words. I didn’t want to give him an opening to tell me it was just that nobody else wanted to go.

‘So you want me to go to this thing with you?’ I said instead. Once again I’d missed my opportunity to showcase an effervescent, cynical wit. When I thought of all the amazing repartees I’d perfected over the last few weeks, for use in just such a situation, I wanted to weep. Wasted hours.

‘Well, why not? Could be fun. Don’t you think? I might need you to do my eyeliner for me though.’

Mm, Tom Crowley in eyeliner.

At this point, I should have given him one of two responses. (A) The aforementioned effervescent, cynical wit, deployed in the delivery of a devastating putdown. Or (B) A ‘who the hell do you think you are?’ rant.

So which did I choose? I chose (C).

‘OK then. What time?’

‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down! Eight thirty? Outside the bar. It’s in Pitman Street, used to be Silvio’s nightclub.’

‘I know where it is,’ I said.

‘Of course you do. You’re a sub. You’re omniscient. See you there, then. And don’t forget the eyeliner.’

I watched his tight backside slink out of sight, leaving me free to spend the rest of the day deconstructing his ‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down’ comment.

As the marketplace chapel clock struck eight thirty, I still hadn’t decided what he meant by it. Did he mean that I was just a reliable type of person in general? Did he mean that he was staking a lot on my consent to his request? Or did he just mean that I was easy? A sure thing?

I’d accepted the last explanation, and it was giving me a nasty weight in my chest that provided a more than adequate counter-balance to any excitement I might have been feeling.

I consoled myself with the knowledge that I looked fucking amazing. I’d used a whole can of hairspray and most of the contents of the Barry M section in the local goth shop. Black velvet, fishnet, spiky heels, ultra-violet manicure and a spritz of Femme Fatale body spray. The body spray was fighting with the hairspray to see which of them could make me cough the most. On balance, the hairspray won.

I didn’t often get glammed up like this – mostly I was a Doc Martens and band T-shirt kind of girl – but the occasion seemed to demand it. It was not for Crowley’s benefit, oh, no. Not a bit of it.

I stopped for a sneaky peek into a shop window at the corner and reapplied my vamp-red lipstick. Would Tom meet me inside or outside? It was November and a spot of blustery wind threatened other, less rigid, hairstyles, but mine was tornado-proof.

I strutted down the street, channelling Siouxsie Sioux, unfortunately turning an ankle on one stiletto heel just before I reached the door.

‘Fuck!’ I gasped, handing my flyer to the doorman.

‘You all right?’ he said with some concern.

‘It’s OK…just a bit of a wrench…ta.’

I got my breath back and tried to put some weight on it. The pain nearly killed me. I flailed wildly, ending up clutching the doorman’s arm.

There was no way I was going to be able to style this out. I was going to have to limp into the bar.

‘What have you done to yourself now?’

There was laughter lurking in Tom Crowley’s voice as it crept up behind me.

‘Nothing,’ I said crossly, all the blood rushing to my cheeks. So much for my white face powder.

‘Done her ankle in, innit?’ said the doorman, ceremoniously handing me over to Crowley, who put an arm around my shoulder and held me upright.

How delightful this would have been under other circumstances – but all I could feel was hot and flustered and completely idiotic.

‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘You can lean on me.’

It took absolutely ages to get down the stairs that led into the basement bar, but Tom was suspiciously kind and sweet about it, helping me to a dark little booth and seating me gently on the black wrought-iron and blood-red velvet banquette.

‘Anaesthetic?’ he asked politely, patting his jacket.

For the first time, I saw what he was wearing and nearly swooned away. I could have blamed the pain for it, but dear God! He looked good enough to sink my fangs into.

He wore a long black Victorian-style frock coat and a ruffle-fronted white shirt over tightish black dress trousers with a satin stripe. Pointy-toed polished boots and a ruby-red collar stud completed the look, as the fashion pages might say.

‘Vodka,’ I said faintly. ‘Love your outfit.’

‘Thanks. Kind of Jack the Ripper meets Dracula, isn’t it? Anything in the vodka?’

Bromide, perhaps.

‘Oh…tonic, maybe,’ I said vaguely. My mouth was watering indecently.

‘Coming right up, milady,’ he said, with an elaborate little bow that made matters about ten times worse.

I put my foot up on the opposite banquette and took a look around. It was dark enough that passers-by could loom up at you like graveyard bats, but there were lights here and there among the fog-effect dry ice and I could see that I was not the only way overdressed person in the vault. Which was good.

Loud music – Nine Inch Nails, I think – was being played quietly, which didn’t really suit it, but the night was young. And it meant Tom and I would be able to have a conversation. Not that that was necessarily a plus point. My chest collapsed with nerves. What would we talk about?

Everything, anything, but that night we spent together.

In the six weeks since it had happened, I had been telling myself it wasn’t that good, but now, here, with the perfumed fog swirling around me and his frock-coated back leaning over the bar, I couldn’t spin myself that line any more.

It was that good. It was…

Think about something else.

‘Thanks,’ I said, as he put the drinks down on the table. My elevated foot meant that he had to sit beside me rather than opposite. I wouldn’t have to look him in the eye, which was a relief. On the other hand, his elbow and knee were in constant dangerous proximity.

‘No running from zombies for you tonight, then,’ he said, taking a sip from his bottle of lager.

‘I’ve never had trouble with zombies,’ I said. ‘It’s the incubi I have to watch out for.’

‘Incubi,’ he repeated with relish, apparently oblivious to the little dig at his expense. ‘I love you subeditors. So precise. So correct.’ He paused and flashed me a devilish grin. ‘Of course, you wait an hour for an incubus, and then three turn up at once.’

‘Ba-doom-tish,’ I said, lifting my hand to his for a weary hi-five.

‘You’re not classing me as an incubus, though, are you?’ he said.

Dread knotted in my stomach. He was going to talk about That Night.

‘I mean,’ he continued, ‘you definitely weren’t asleep.’

‘Wasn’t I?’ I said guardedly. ‘Oh. My mistake.’

Damn. He moved an inch away from me and nursed his pint with a faint, sickly smile.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Fair enough.’

Gah, now I felt like a bitch. It wasn’t on. He was the one who hadn’t called. Though…come to think of it…neither had I. A change of subject was definitely in order.

‘So, how are you going to review this place?’ I asked with an unconvincing display of casual interest.

He brightened a little.

‘I thought you could help me out,’ he said. ‘It can be a joint effort. I mean, this is probably much more your scene than mine, so my personal opinion might not be all that relevant.’

‘What is your personal opinion?’

He shrugged. ‘Bit dark. Can’t see anyone’s face. How do I know who to chat up?’

‘Right,’ I said, feeling that I’d asked for that one.

‘I mean, half the blokes are prettier than the girls. Speaking of which – eyeliner!’

He produced a stick of kohl from his inner pocket and presented it to me, point uppermost.

‘You really want me to do this?’ I asked, taking it from him.

‘Why not? I felt a bit naked up there at the bar. I need something to make my eyes flash villainously.’

‘They already do,’ I said, looking right into his heart of darkness. ‘OK. Hold still then.’

I started at the inner corner and began to draw a sweeping line across his eyelid, but his lashes flickered so madly that I had to keep giving up, laughing at his obvious panic.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But God, that feels unnatural. I keep thinking you’re going to poke me in the eye.’

‘I won’t if you just keep still.’

‘Hold my face, then.’

The invitation sounded absurdly intimate. I held his chin and lower face in one hand, giving him no chance to jerk it back and away from my pencil, and started again. He was in my power, leaning down to me, his eyes half-closed and twitching. His skin was a little bit velvety, a soft growth of new stubble in my palm. He smelled of alluring spice. If I moved just an inch nearer, our lips would brush.

The memory of how they had done so before broke into my body, stealing inside with my breath. It wrapped my lungs, then my heart, then it flowered in my belly, its bloom descending between my legs. I lived and breathed desire for him. My hand faltered and the black line went beyond his eyelid, smudging the side of his eye.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered.

My sigh mixed with his. Lager and vodka and a trace of something sweeter. It felt luxuriously daring, to be so close to him, knowing the danger.

I wetted my thumb and rubbed at the smudge.

He caught my wrist, so quickly I almost screamed. He was wearing black leather gloves and his fingers felt cold and slick on my skin.

‘Did you just share a bodily fluid with me?’ he whispered.

I opened my mouth but the words had packed up and gone home.

‘Want to share some more?’

His mouth was getting closer, a lush-lipped omen of doom coming right for me.

What was I going to do? I knew you wouldn’t let me down. The words popped into my head at the critical moment, giving me the impetus I needed to escape from his glorious, wicked clutches.

‘Tom, can you work out a person’s physical location from their IP address?’

He halted in mid-smooch-approach and jerked his head backwards.

‘What?’

‘I mean…I’ve heard you’re good at a bit of cyber espionage. You worked out who that whistleblowing blogger was at the council, didn’t you? Would you be able to do something like that?’

‘Jesus, Ella,’ he said, looking almost fearful in his incomprehension. ‘Do you think this is really the moment?’

‘Sorry, but it’s been on my mind,’ I said. The implications of telling Tom about this had thrown themselves into the forefront of my mind, and they were messy. In fact, I didn’t want to think about them at all. But I’d said it now.

The kiss would probably have been the easier option, after all.

He shook his head and rubbed one eyelinered eye, making it look as if he’d been punched in the face.

‘What’s been on your mind? Are you being cyber-stalked? Ella? Is somebody hassling you?’

‘No. Actually. Forget I mentioned it. I don’t think you’d be able to help anyway. Oh, is that The Cure? Fancy a dance…oh.’ My foot on the table reminded me. ‘No. Scratch that too.’

Tom failed to erase the memory of my words from his expression and reset to his normal drinking-and-flirting-in-bar setting.

Instead, his stare lingered on and on and on until I wanted to hide under the table.

‘You look like I’ve given you a black eye,’ I said. ‘There’ll be rumours.’

‘Well, you have, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘Ella, talk to me. What’s this about? I have to admit, I was surprised when you accepted my invitation. You obviously want my help with something, though I was hoping it was just your desire for my body.’

‘Can you do it or can’t you?’ I said, seeing that he wasn’t going to let things drop. ‘The IP thing, I mean.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not unless I can convincingly pretend to be a police officer, which I’d rather not, to be honest. The council whistleblower was different. He had a particular style that I was able to identify just from familiarity.’

‘OK. Well. Thanks, anyway. It was worth asking.’

Would that be enough for him?

‘Oh, come on, El. Don’t leave it there. Why was it worth asking?’

‘I can’t tell you. Not without several more of those vodkas inside me, anyway.’

‘Oh, well, if that’s the key…’ He stood up, took my empty vodka glass and headed back to the bar.

Oh, God. Why had I even brought it up? Surely there had to be other ways to deflect the Crowley lips? Why had none of these suggested themselves to me at the crucial moment?

If I told him about Mia Culpa, then he would know that I read her blog, and if he knew that I read her blog, then he would know…argh! It couldn’t be done. Not if I didn’t want an eternity of Fifty Shades jokes in the office.

On the other hand, Crowley loved a good story, and this had the potential to be just that. If only I could take out the potentially embarrassing nature of the material…no. It couldn’t be done. I’d have to fob him off.

‘Come on then, Coxy,’ he said, handing me my second vodka. ‘Get it down you. I can’t have you holding out on me.’

‘Is this a double?’ I said, squinting at the clear, slightly effervescent liquid.

‘Might be. Who do you want to track down? An ex-lover? A potential future one? A long-lost family member? I’m intrigued – and you can’t intrigue Tom Crowley and expect him to leave it there. Sorry, but my professional pride won’t stand it.’

‘Professional pride,’ I snorted. ‘Professional sticky beak.’

‘Same thing. C’mon. Who’ve you been in a Twitter storm with? Who’s been viewing your Facebook profile?’

‘Shut up,’ I moaned. ‘Talk about something else. Who’s up for the deputy editor job? Have you heard anything?’

‘Nice try, but if you want me to shut up, you’ll have to shut me up.’

I took a deep breath, downed the vodka in one and turned back to him.

‘Ask me one more time and I’ll –’

‘I won’t stop badgering you all night. And you can’t even run away from me. So just give it up, girlfriend.’

I gave it up. I took his face in both my hands and fastened my lips on his, as assertively as I knew how. I was answered by a growl low in his throat and the secure tightening of his arm around me, one hand on the back of my neck.

I’d forgotten how brilliantly he could kiss. He did it with one hundred per cent commitment, like a drowning man clinging to you for your life-giving snog. Everything in me that was tight slackened, everything that was defensive collapsed. Why would I fight something so sublime? It was like running into battle against an army of cream cakes and kittens. Embrace it, for God’s sake. It won’t hurt you.

Ah, what a deceptive voice that was.

But it entirely shouted down the other voice, the one that nagged faintly from its crushed position about how he wasn’t to be trusted and he would let me down and break my heart and so on and so forth.

Shut up, nagging voice. I don’t care about that. Let me have this moment.

I let my head slide against the back of the banquette, opening my mouth to let his tongue inside. I pushed my cheek against his, revelling in the slightly fuzzy warmth of his skin. I was drinking him in, and pouring myself back in return.

His hand – the one that wasn’t holding me in position by the neck – started fidgeting with my fussy fishnetty bits. He moved skilled fingers inside my velvet and lace bra top and, although it only covered more fishnet, he found the outline of my breast and traced it through the diamond pattern. My nipple protruded, stiff and enlarged, straining against the mesh. It would be patterned too if it didn’t subside soon. Crowley’s thumb found it and rubbed it. The gentlest pressure was shocking enough and waves of overstimulation coursed through me. I clamped my thighs together, feeling a steam heat between them.

Tom Crowley was playing with my nipples, here in a public bar, and I had absolutely no problem with it. Good manners and decorum were for other girls. I was just a horny slut, and he knew it.

The increasing fever of our embrace was causing my legs to squirm and twist, which hurt my ankle.

I whimpered into his mouth, hoping he would recognise pain rather than pleasure, but it only seemed to drive him wilder, so I had to put my hands against his chest and push him away forcibly.

‘Wha–?’ he said, and I wanted to kiss him again immediately, in his rumpled, lustful confusion.

‘My ankle. I’m getting all twisted up and it hurts.’

He let out a few heavy breaths before making a response.

‘Shall we leave?’

I misunderstood him for a moment. He was pissed off that I’d complained and wanted to walk away?

‘Come on,’ he said, pushing away his half-drunk pint. ‘I’ve seen more than enough to scribble a paragraph. Let’s get out of here.’

He helped me out of the booth and then, unexpectedly and dizzyingly, swept me up into his arms. The continuing throb in my ankle dulled in comparison with the unmatched thrill of sailing through the dry ice in Crowley’s arms, cutting a swathe through the top-hatted and veiled clientele.

The doormen said goodnight to us at the top of the stairs, and he bore me onwards to the taxi rank while I clung on for dear life, dreading that, at any moment, his arms would give and I’d end up amongst the KFC cartons and trodden-in gum that constituted pavement furniture around here.

We made it on to the smooth back seat of a cab in the nick of time.

‘What’s your address, Foxy?’ he said, sliding in beside me.

‘Rutland Avenue. And what did you call me?’

‘It’s what they call you in the office,’ he said, without apology, having given the cabbie his instructions. ‘Foxy Coxy. Well, the polite ones do.’

‘And what,’ I said, after a pause to register this, ‘do the rude ones call me?’

He gave me a sympathetic smile and rubbed my knee. ‘Ah, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before,’ he said. ‘You’ve lived with that name all your life.’

‘Cocksucker,’ I said resignedly. ‘Yeah.’

‘I don’t,’ he said quickly.

‘Ironic,’ I replied. ‘Given that you’re the only one in a position to know whether or not it’s accurate.’

He smirked.

‘Mm hmm,’ he said smugly. His fingers made a light but devastating return to the back of my neck. ‘If it weren’t for your ankle,’ he whispered into my ear, ‘I’d have found the darkest corner of that bar and had you right there, against the wall.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Can’t resist you.’ He kissed the spot beneath my ear. Dire peril. I loved being kissed there.

‘You managed…pretty well…for six weeks,’ I gasped. The ear-kissing was ongoing and had spread to the delicate skin of my neck.

‘I’m a fool,’ he breathed. ‘I wanted to call you. But…’

‘But?’

‘Thought you’d say no.’

‘Well, what a shit journalist you are, then,’ I said, and he left off the kissing and sat up, blinking madly.

‘Ella!’ he protested.

‘That’s such blatant bull,’ I continued. ‘You’re trained to deal with people saying no to you. And you’re trained to carry on knocking at doors that get slammed in your face. If you’d wanted to see me again, you’d have called.’

He looked away at the spattering of raindrops on the dark window, then back at me.

‘I’m sorry, then,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be honest with you. I fucked you because I fancy you. Nothing complicated about it. And I still do. So…?’

I took a deep breath.

‘Well, same here, essentially,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I was the new girl and you were the old hand with a reputation I didn’t know about at the time. I was vulnerable and I needed a friend, and you made me feel like a twat. Well, not you, to be fair. Everybody else. All I got all week was “Oh, God, you let Crowley charm your pants off. Well, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last.” Really lovely introduction to my new career, that was.’

Contrition was written all over his face, with its drooping mouth and its glistening eyes. I wanted to reach out and stroke his cheek and say, ‘There, there.’

‘For what it’s worth,’ he said, holding out a hand and taking one of mine, ‘I wanted to call you. But you seemed pretty anti. Well, once Tilda and Miles got their hooks into you.’

‘They only told me what you were like. Don’t blame them.’

‘What, you don’t think they might have their own agendas? Tilda’s my ex, and Miles fancies you.’

‘What?’ I hadn’t been party to either of these nuggets of information.

‘She won’t talk about it, and he won’t admit it, but come on. Isn’t it obvious?’

‘To you, maybe. But you’re a dirt-digger. You see sleaze in everything.’

‘I see what’s in front of my nose,’ he said. ‘And right now, my nose likes what it’s seeing.’

I laughed despite myself. Tom had just shifted my perceptions of all my office relationships, but he’d done it very charmingly and I was less dismayed than I might have been.

‘So all that…was a misunderstanding, then?’ I said, wanting to believe it.

‘Classic romcom,’ he said. ‘She thinks this, he thinks that, neither of them are right, it all works out in the end.’

‘And is this the end?’

‘This,’ he said, kissing my knuckles with a decorous flourish that went well with his Victorian-style outfit, ‘is the beginning.’

Chapter Three

I won’t lie. I had considered the possibility that Tom might end up in my room and had set-dressed accordingly. My supermarket magazines were all in the recycling, replaced on the bedside table by a selection of intellectual heavyweights from my university reading list. All discarded, inside-out garments had made it into the laundry bin, and my perfumes and makeup were impeccably arranged on the dressing table, with no open eyeshadow trays or capless lipsticks.

The bed was not only made – it smelled of summer meadows. Or so the linen spray I’d used claimed. To be honest, it smelled more like the time I tried to boil up potpourri in a saucepan as a child, to see if you could make soup from it. (You couldn’t.)

Tom didn’t notice the order of things, though, having eyes only for the fringed shawls pinned to the wall and my unworn Victorian-style corset on its little dressmaker’s stand.

‘Whoa, you should’ve worn that tonight,’ he said, supporting my hobbling self over to the bed, where I collapsed gratefully.

‘I’m saving it for a special occasion,’ I said.

‘Isn’t a date with me special enough?’ He turned to me and pouted.

‘I couldn’t be sure at the time of dressing,’ I said, smiling crookedly at him. ‘But perhaps it might turn out to be corset-worthy, after all.’

‘Oh, the pressure,’ said Tom, swooping down to join me on the bed. ‘I have to be corset-worthy.’

‘You have to earn that lovely fob watch you’re wearing, anyway.’

He took it out and dangled it in front of me. The light from my cheap chandelier twinkled on the gold engravings.

‘Got it at the antiques mart,’ he said. ‘Of course, it doesn’t work. But I don’t need a watch to tell me the time.’ He winked and leaned forward to take off his boots.

‘Oh, don’t take the boots off yet,’ I said, my voice dying away in embarrassment as I realised how eager I sounded.

He raised his eyebrows.

‘No?’

‘Just…you’re so beautifully dressed. It seems a shame to undress in the wrong order.’

‘Wrong order? You mean there are rules for Victorian striptease?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said with a giggle. ‘But surely it should be frock coat first, then collar and cuffs, and…so on.’

‘So on?’

‘I’m sure you can work it out.’

‘OK,’ he said, rising to his feet and standing in a louche, dandyish pose in front of me. ‘I’ll undress the way you want. And then I’ll undress you the way I want.’

‘Seems fair,’ I said.

Oh, to have had the nerve to film him on my phone. I thought about doing it all the way through, but I couldn’t quite summon up the nerve.

I had to make do with trying to burn the memories into my brain instead, in order to rerun the way he shrugged off his coat, unscrewed his cufflinks, wrenched off the lace collar – and all with his eyes fixed uncompromisingly on me.

My throat was dry by the time the top button came undone, revealing the rest of his neck and his Adam’s apple. At this rate, I’d require intravenous rehydration by the time he got to his trousers.

The white linen parted slowly, revealing his taut bare chest, then lean but well-muscled arms. He stood with one hand on a hip, twirling the shirt seductively, his mouth curved upwards on one side.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’m half-naked. How about you?’

Boots and tight black trousers advanced towards me, matador-like. He threw away the shirt and pounced, his palms flat on either side of my legs, his forehead touching mine.

‘I suppose you’ll need some help,’ he said.

I nodded, my brow bone pushing at his as I did so.

‘Those killer heels first, then,’ he said, positioning himself at the foot of the bed to remove them. I winced and mewled as he released my hurt ankle, then laid it gently back on the bed.

‘Looks like a sprain,’ he remarked, frowning. ‘Nasty. Perhaps we shouldn’t…’

‘It’s OK,’ I said quickly. ‘There’s painkillers in my bedside drawer. I’ll take a couple.’

‘I like a broad who knows what she wants,’ he said in a cod-noir Noo Yoik drawl. ‘Especially when what she wants is me.’ He pulled off the other shoe, grinning broadly. ‘All right, Foxy. Arms up.’

The bra top was removed, leaving my fishnetted breasts exposed to his gaze. He made the most of it; in fact, his gaze wasn’t the only thing they were exposed to. His hands got their fair share too.

He pulled off my elbow-length, fingerless lace gloves, then got to work on my velvet skirt. I had to lie down while he pulled it along my legs, revealing the very pair of knickers Mia Culpa’s first blog post had inspired me to buy. Lace patterned hold-ups were the last item on the dressing-for-sex menu. He seemed to want to keep those on, running a hand along my thigh, tracing the curls and curves of the lace down to my knee and then back up to the garter.

‘Mm, nice,’ he said, bending and kissing the bare flesh between hold-up and knicker edge. ‘You should have come out dressed like this.’

‘Er, I’m not sure that would have been a good idea,’ I said, but my breath was jerking the words around. He had his hands on my bum while his mouth and tongue moved ever closer to the inner sanctum inside the knickers.

‘Why not?’ he said, raising his face for a moment. ‘I’d have laid you on the table in that booth and given you what-for right there and then.’

‘Yeah, that’s why,’ I said, but the image was tantalising enough to make me cringe with lust.

He shimmied up my body until his face hovered over mine, his hands on my breasts, the hardness inside his trousers parked between my thighs.

‘Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have loved it,’ he crooned, dropping lascivious, licking little kisses on my lips. ‘You could have pretended to be a Victorian whore in a dark alley, at the mercy of a vampire lord. Or something. That’s the sort of thing that turns you on, isn’t it?’

I pushed my tongue into his mouth and grabbed a fistful of his hair. We kissed savagely, our bodies writhing against each other. God, I needed that painkiller, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to stop this in order to get it.

‘You have no idea what turns me on,’ I whispered harshly, pushing his face away from mine.

‘Oh, haven’t I?’ he said, his eyes shining. He shoved one hand inside my knickers and put his long fingers to work, parting my pussy lips and tracing circles around my clit. ‘You’re very wet, Foxy. How do you account for that, if I don’t know what turns you on?’

I couldn’t answer, I was all lost and drowning in the way his fingers worked me.

‘Mm,’ was about all that sprang to mind.

Tom laughed, rubbing more persistently, getting the tip of a finger inside me.

‘Soaking,’ he said. ‘Getting these naughty knickers in a right state.’

I squirmed, the lace of my knickers chafing my bottom, getting bunched in between my cheeks. I peered down to look at the outline of Tom’s hand, a busy mound inside the gossamer fabric. Seeing it like that turned me on even more. I jerked my hips upwards, wanting more of his fingers deeper inside.

He took the hint and sank two of them in, then three. I was exquisitely full, and his thumb still tended to my clit, drawing wave after wave of wetness out of me. I couldn’t have believed I had that much juice in me, if I hadn’t felt it pooling in the crack of my bottom and spreading a damp patch all over the back of my knickers.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ I gasped, my heart hammering. I was going to come like this, under the hand of my bare-chested, booted master. Yes, he was the master and I was at his mercy…My mind filled in the details it needed to bring my orgasm closer.

I shut my eyes and clutched at his arm, needing to steady myself before the wave crashed.

He pulled his fingers out! All the way out of my knickers.

My eyes flew open and I stared at him stupidly.

‘Wha? Whassup?’

He leant right over me, his nose touching mine, his eyes demonic, and said, ‘Tell me about your secret computer stalker, Ella.’

I wailed out my frustration.

‘You’re evil.’

‘I’m evil,’ he agreed, ‘and I’m relentless. And I want to keep you coming until you can’t see or move any more. But not until you tell me your little secret.’

‘This isn’t fair,’ I said.

‘I know,’ he said, and he kissed me hard, flicking the tip of his tongue over mine, pushing it down as if to show me he would do the same to my resistance.

‘Don’t make me,’ I said, reaching down for the bulge in his trousers, in the hope that I might be able to distract him. ‘I want this.’

He batted my hand away and held my wrist tight.

God, it was turning me on even more. I didn’t remember him being this masterful the first time. Then again, we were both much drunker on that occasion.

‘You’ll get it,’ he promised. He kissed my neck, sucking on it, but not hard enough to leave a mark. Just enough to make me want to howl with need. ‘As much of it as you can handle. When you’ve told me what I want to know.’

He flexed his hips, pushing his hard mound into the junction of my spread legs so that my clit tingled madly.

‘Please!’ I said, having to contend with his tongue on my nipples now, its tip probing past the fishnet. He was winning. I wasn’t going to be able to last much longer.

‘You know what you have to do,’ he said. He rotated his hips, achingly slowly, then withdrew a fraction so that my clit was left to throb untended.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, it’s a blogger whose blog has disappeared. I want to find out what’s happened to her, OK?’

He grinned roguishly and kissed the tip of my nose.

‘There, you see. Not so difficult, was it? Now you’re going to show me everything you’ve got on this blogger…’

I clenched my fists and beat them on the duvet, my teeth gritted with frustration.

‘…but don’t worry. You’re going to get what you’ve been begging for first. Painkillers?’

‘In the drawer…top drawer…there’s a bottle of water on the side.’

He got the necessaries and gave them to me to take. He’d also managed to find a pack of condoms, and he shed his boots and trousers while I downed a brace of Nurofen, getting himself rubbered up in double-quick time.

‘Right,’ he said, once I’d put down the water bottle. ‘What’s the best position for getting fucked with a sprained ankle, Foxy? Any ideas?’

I scooted back and put a pillow under the offending joint.

‘This is probably the easiest,’ I said, eating him up with my eyes. Long legs, long arms, long…everything.

He put one knee on the edge of the mattress, striking a manly pose with his chest out and shoulders back.

‘Are you ready for it?’ he said, thrusting his hips forward.

‘I think so.’

He placed himself on his knees between my thighs and fixed his lips to my ear.

‘I bet you are,’ he whispered. One finger descended on the lace strip that covered my pussy and began to stroke it, from bottom to top, slowly. His fingernail tickled my fattening clit. The material was soaked already. Surely it couldn’t take much more.

I knew I couldn’t. I threw back my head and whimpered.

Harder, please.

But I didn’t say it. I didn’t want to give orders. I wanted him to be in charge.

The next thing I felt, through my delirious haze, was something soft and wet, lapping at the sodden fabric. He pushed his tongue into every crevice, getting the lace barrier wetter and wetter, taking it all into his mouth in a bunch then releasing it to tease me some more. I was beginning to hate these knickers. But I was pretty sure he didn’t feel the same way.

‘All right,’ he said at last, hoarse but determined. ‘Tell me if it hurts, OK?’

I caught a breath and stared at him. But he meant my ankle.

He didn’t even take the knickers off to fuck me.

He pushed the gusset aside and slid his cock inside, fast and smooth, and exactly the way I needed it. My unsprained ankle found its way to his shoulder and I lay in a slightly twisted position, my bottom half off the bed, giving him the best angle of penetration I possibly could.

He used that angle to the fullest, thrusting hard, using his fingers to work at my nipples or my clit whenever he wanted to see my face change. He watched me all the way through, so intently that I shut my eyes in the end. I gave myself up to the feeling of helpless ravishment. I was his to take, and he took me.

I don’t know if my ankle hurt or not. I only knew that furtive, needy creep towards climax, letting him build it inside me, helping him stoke my fire with little movements and silent hints. He read me perfectly. He knew what turned me on.

I’d been wrong about him.

When I was so close there was no chance of turning back, I opened my eyes for a peek at him. His sweat-sheened determination helped me over the edge. His utter focus on what he was doing to me would stay with me, helping me through the dark and lonely nights to come.

I fell helplessly into his ownership. That was how it felt, to come with him inside me. Like being owned and known in a way I could never take back.

‘That’s it, that’s it,’ he whispered with a ferocity matched by his thrusts. ‘Got you now.’

Then he came too, his face at once so wild and so vulnerable that it pierced my heart.

He stayed inside me for a while and we just held on to each other, waiting for our bodies to stop falling and our heads to clear.

‘Mm,’ he said, his eyes dazed and half-closed, as he pulled out and flopped beside me. ‘That hit the spot.’ He kissed my ear. ‘How’s your ankle?’

‘Ankle? Oh, yeah.’ I was suddenly aware again of the pain, though it was muted now, and seemed far away.

He was amused. ‘You’d forgotten about it?’

‘I think I had. They should prescribe you on the National Health.’

He smiled, running his hand over my fishnetted curves again.

‘You too,’ he said. ‘Take three times daily after meals.’

‘I think I could handle that,’ I said.

He sat up and put his hand around my ankle.

‘It needs bandaging,’ he said. ‘Have you got anything?’

‘Not bandages per se,’ I said. ‘A dressing-gown cord is as close as it gets.’

‘That’d do.’

The robe was hanging on the door. He took the satin belt from its loops and wrapped it slowly and carefully around the swollen area, down to my heel.

I shut my eyes and imagined he was tying me up for real, about to hobble me or bind me to the bedpost. He would keep me spreadeagled here, ready for sex whenever he felt the urge.

‘Is that all right?’ he asked. ‘Too tight?’

‘A little tighter would be fine,’ I said.

I opened my eyes to watch him pull it taut and let out a shuddering breath, excited again, despite my post-coital limpness.

‘Did that hurt?’ he asked, all concern.

‘No,’ I said unevenly. ‘’Sfine.’

One side of his mouth twitched up, but his brow was furrowed, as if trying to solve me like a riddle.

‘Good,’ he said.

I knew I was blushing. I felt I’d given something away.

‘Right, well, I’m going to get you a bag of frozen peas or something, to put against it, and then you’re going to turn on your computer and tell me all about this blogger of yours.’

Oh, bugger! He was supposed to have forgotten about that. The mind-blowing sex had failed to blow enough of his mind.

He helped me up from the bed, supported me over to my desk and sat me in the chair. My knickers felt cold and slimy and the fuzzy upholstery of the cushion prickled my sensitive skin. My hold-ups were clinging damply to my legs and I didn’t dare turn my head far enough to catch my reflection in the dressing-table mirror.

He dealt with the condom and wrapped himself in my beltless robe, then disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

What was I going to do? Could I make something up? But what? Couldn’t I just say it was a news blog or a fashion blog or a…

He came back in with a bag of Bird’s Eye’s finest and rubbed them against my ankle.

‘Christ!’ I yelped, kicking away as fast as I could. ‘It’s freezing!’

‘You seem surprised,’ he said, laughing at me.

‘I’m not – it’s just…wouldn’t a bit of coldish water do?’

He rolled his eyes and left the room again, giving me a bit more time to play with.

A fashion blog? But then it would seem weird to be so concerned about its disappearance. And if I spun some yarn about a news blogger disappearing, he’d jump all over it and want to investigate.

Would it be so difficult to tell him the truth?

He returned half a minute later with a basin of cool water. I put my foot in it and he pulled up my dressing-table stool and sat on it, hands on his knees, leaning towards me with clear and eager expectation.

‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘You promised me something.’

‘It’s nothing really,’ I said, fidgeting with the keyboard.

He shook his head sternly.

‘I don’t think so, missy,’ he said. ‘Spill, or there’ll be trouble.’

Trouble, eh? Despite my nerves, a spark ignited between my tired legs.

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘You don’t want to know,’ he said. ‘You’re not too grown-up to go across my knee, young lady.’

Oh, my God! Did he actually just say that?

All I could do was stare foolishly at him, my jaw apparently frozen.

‘You think I’m joking?’ he said, his voice now low and seductive. ‘Come on, Foxy. Out with it.’

He was joking. He must have been.

I held my breath for the time it took to log on, a torrent of possible things to say rushing through my mind, all of them inappropriate and embarrassing.

‘So there was this blogger,’ I said, much too fast, my words pouring out with the long-held breath. ‘She seemed to be getting into some kind of weird stuff. And she was about to go on this maybe quite risky, uh, journey, and then she never updated and her blog has been taken down.’

‘And you think something’s happened to her?’

I nodded.

He put a hand on mine.

‘Hey, sweetheart,’ he said, so gently I wanted to cry. ‘You’re shaking. You’re really that worried about her?’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ I said, running a fishnetted forearm across my eyes. ‘Dunno. It’s probably nothing. Anyway.’ I made a dive for the off switch, but Tom was having none of it.

‘You’re worried,’ he said firmly. ‘So it isn’t nothing. And you can’t leave it there. You haven’t told me anything yet.’

‘I…it’s difficult,’ I muttered.

‘Why is it difficult? What’s the weird, risky stuff you were talking about? Is she an undercover journalist or something? Getting in deep with criminals? Terrorists? The government? MI5? Old TV personalities of the 1970s?’

I snorted despite my anxieties.

‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re miles off track. It’s nothing like that.’

My ears burned. They must have been bright red. I could always put it down to the vigorous activities we’d recently engaged in, but somehow I didn’t think he’d fall for it.

‘Oh!’ He clapped his hands. ‘Online dating. Meeting strange men off the internet? I’m right, aren’t I?’

I stared at my Ripper Street wallpaper. The lawmen of Whitechapel stared accusingly back out at me. They would have guessed it by now, I bet.

‘I’m right,’ said Tom, sitting back with a self-congratulatory grin. ‘Oh, Foxy. You haven’t resorted to Plenty of Fish, have you? You only had to call me.’

‘No,’ I said crossly. ‘Wrong again. It’s not online dating…not exactly, anyway.’

‘Wife swapping? Sex dungeons? A cam girl! Is it a cam girl?’

‘No, but you weren’t far off with one of those.’

‘Ooh. Come on. You might as well tell me or I’ll carry on making wilder and wilder guesses. You won’t shock me, I promise. You probably won’t even surprise me.’

He winked and I squirmed in my seat.

‘You think?’ I said.

He took hold of my hands and held them tight, looking seriously into my eyes.

‘I think,’ he said quietly. ‘So, here’s my theory. Would you say that you might perhaps be a little bit…kinky?’

I held myself still, not daring to breathe. The only things that might have moved were my pupils, which, I’m pretty sure, were dilated as fuck. If they were, they’d have matched his. He looked positively brimful of lascivious curiosity.

‘What makes you say that?’ I whispered.

‘I’m a journalist. I pick up on clues,’ he said. ‘The corset, the Victoriana, the subtle hints in the way you kiss…’

‘Really? It’s that obvious? It can’t be!’ I was horrified. I might just as well have been walking around town with a billboard marked SUBMISSIVE, if he was right.

His grave expression dissolved into something more puckish.

‘Nah, I’m kidding you. There’s, uh, a book in your bedside drawer, underneath the thesaurus. I spotted it when I was getting the painkillers.’

‘Oh.’ I smote my brow, cringing. How could I have forgotten? ‘Right.’

‘Right.’ His eyes danced with amusement. ‘And don’t tell me it was a present, or came free with a magazine, because you’ve admitted it now. Just tell me one thing. Are you top or bottom? Or do you switch?’

Interesting that he was so free with the terminology, but perhaps he’d just read one too many Fifty Shades articles.

‘I’m not a Miss Whiplash type,’ I said, unable to say the words ‘I’m a bottom’ to the most attractive man I’d ever got near.

‘No? You prefer a Mr Whiplash then? Sorry. I don’t mean to be flippant. Honestly, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Like I said, it hardly comes as a shock. More a…pleasant surprise.’

Pleasant? Was I dreaming? And he had said that thing about putting me over his knee. It had been bait! He’d been fishing for a confession, not just larking about.

‘Really? Why’s that?’

He cupped my cheek with one hand, stroking it, lowering his face to mine.

‘Why do you think?’

‘You…?’ The sentence remained unfinished. I could only ask the question with my eyes.

‘Let’s just say I enjoyed binding your ankle a little bit too much,’ he said. ‘I found myself looking for a bedpost to tie it to.’

I laughed nervously. ‘Perhaps I should invest in a four-poster then.’

‘Perhaps you should.’ He kissed me and the tearful feeling came back. Could this be real? I felt as if I were tottering on the brink of something potentially life-changing, for good or ill. There was danger inherent in letting him so far inside me, but also the potential for a new level of fulfilment.

He laughed, breaking the kiss and rumpling my already rumpled hair with two long fingers.

‘You should look at yourself,’ he said. ‘What a picture. Is my eyeliner as smudged as yours?’

I smiled. ‘Pretty much.’

A beat of silence followed, into which too many questions swarmed, each eager to get to the front of the queue. He got his in first.

‘So…have you done much of this kind of thing then?’

I shook my head.

‘No,’ I admitted, screwing up my face apologetically. Perhaps he was after an experienced player and this would be goodbye. ‘Just never seemed to…come up…You know?’

His eyes shone like blue crystals.

‘But you always wanted to?’ he said.

‘Yes. Always. What about you?’

‘I’ve smacked a few arses in my time,’ he said. ‘But it’s never been serious. Just part of the rough sex fun. I’ve always been interested in taking things further, but never wanted to freak anybody out by showing them the extent of my perversions.’

I blanched a little at that. ‘The extent of my perversions.’ It sounded a bit sinister.

‘So, uh, what is their extent?’ I asked, trying to sound casual while my brain begged him not to mention knives or suffocation.

‘You look scared,’ he noted with a self-conscious chuckle. ‘Don’t worry. Your book takes it a little further than I’d go. I’m pretty much a chapters-one-to-five kind of guy.’

I covered my sigh of relief with a laugh.

‘Right. Chapter six is where it starts getting into the piercing party scene. You wouldn’t go that far?’

‘Well, probably not. Though I never say never.’

‘Pony play? Adult baby?’

He was laughing now. ‘Enough, enough, now. I’ve told you. Chapters one to five. Read it again if you’ve forgotten what they cover.’

But I didn’t need to. I remembered well enough, and the memory made me glow.

‘So. This blog then.’

The change of tone and subject was so abrupt I had to force my mind back to Mia Culpa and her disappearance. She had been all but forgotten in the excitement of shared deviance and all the delightful implications.

‘Oh. Yeah. Well, it’s a BDSM blog. And, like I said, the blogger has disappeared and so has her blog.’

‘Show me.’

I typed in the URL and the mysterious ‘page not found’ message appeared on screen.

‘Not much to show,’ I said. ‘It was here, and then it wasn’t.’

Tom leant over me, peering at the screen as if he expected the generic deletion message to yield him some unique insight.

‘Not much to go on,’ he said.

‘No, but I saved all the posts,’ I told him.

‘Really? Well, come on, then. Let’s see them.’

I opened the folder and left it open without comment.

‘There’s a lot of them,’ he remarked. ‘What do you know about her? Off the top of your head.’

‘She is – or was – a student here. No idea which college or even if it is a college. Could have been the Open University for all I know.’

‘She lives here?’

‘Well, I think so. Some of the places she’s been to are highly recognisable from her descriptions. If you take a look, I think you’ll agree.’

‘What makes you think there’s something dodgy about it? Sex blogs get taken down all the time. People move on in their lives, or the web host deletes them because of complaints. All kinds of reasons.’

‘Her last post was about a trip she was making to some kind of training school for submissives. She was excited about it, and couldn’t wait to update us about what happened. Then she left and never came back. There’s just something…off about it. Why would she do that?’

‘You think something happened to her there?’

‘Perhaps. I don’t think Mia was the type who would just leave us hanging like that. She really enjoyed sharing all these new experiences with her readers. It was like…it was part of the thrill for her.’

‘A bit of an exhibitionist, maybe?’

‘Maybe. It was such a big part of her life. I can’t believe she’d willingly end it like this.’

‘And did she have a Dom?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do we know about him?’

‘Not much. Refers to him as “J” and says he works in some kind of respected profession.’

‘Not a journalist, then?’ said Tom, with a twinkle. ‘I guess…doctor, lawyer…oh! University lecturer?’

‘They hooked up through some kind of private chat group, I think.’

‘OK, well, that’s what we’ll try to do, then.’

‘What? You have a plan?’

‘Follow in their footsteps,’ he said briskly. ‘Get on to some of these sites and make profiles and meet some other local kinksters. What? Don’t you think so?’

I was staring at him, I realised. I blinked and looked back at the screen.

‘You want to do this?’ I said, referring both to the investigation of Mia’s disappearance and to the continuation of our mutual interest in her kink.

‘Why not? We’re ideally placed, aren’t we? If anyone can find her, it’s us.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m not a detective,’ I said.

‘No, but I think we’d make a good team,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the attention to detail and I’ve got the understanding of people. You’re good at research and I’m good at persuasion. Come on. This could work.’

‘I don’t have the understanding of people?’

He laughed.

‘No, Foxy, you don’t. You never picked up on Tilda and Miles? Seriously?’

I bit my lip. Perhaps he was right. I tended to take people at face value and found it difficult to see anything beyond that. If you gave me something written down, though, I could read it every which way there was.

‘But you think we could work as a detective duo?’

‘Sure, why not?’ he said. ‘Holmes and Watson. Jeeves and Wooster.’

‘Jeeves and Wooster aren’t detectives.’

He clapped his hands. ‘Like I said! Attention to detail. Flanagan and Allen. Porgy and Bess. The Master and Margarita.’

‘Fast and loose,’ I said. ‘A bit like you.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Perfect. Fast and Loose. We can have a little brass plaque on your bedroom door. OK, then. Email me over that document, will you? I’d better get going.’

My dismay must have been palpable. He was going? Now?

Apparently so, judging by the purposeful way he embarked on the search for all his discarded garments.

‘Sorry, kid,’ he said. ‘I want to stay. But I’ve got a breakfast meeting and I can’t turn up in a top hat and cravat.’

‘I could set the alarm for…’

He shook his head, buttoning his shirt with fingers that must have smelled of me.

‘I’ve got stuff I need to look at first,’ he said. ‘Bit of business after pleasure. I’ll call you tomorrow, OK? In the meantime, come up with a fake profile for some of the kinky social networks. See if you can hook any professional types with a J initial.’

‘All right,’ I said, still feeling somewhat bleak at his sudden withdrawal. ‘Tomorrow, then.’

‘Tomorrow.’ He shrugged on his coat and grabbed the top hat and cravat. His kiss goodbye was sweet but too fleeting. ‘I promise.’

And away he went.

Chapter Four

‘Christ, Ella, you look knackered.’

‘Thanks.’

I gave Tilda a sweet smile and a middle finger. But she was right.

I should’ve slept like the dead, given the thorough workout Tom had put me through, but instead I had lain awake fretting about his sudden departure.

Had it been something I’d said? I’d pulled together every scrap of our interactions from the recesses of my memory to analyse them for possible offence, but nothing seemed to make sense. Had he really only stayed for the Mia mystery? Had that been his whole plan in coming back with me? The sex was incidental. The discovery of our mutual kink was interesting to him, but only in terms of the investigation. He should have known I wouldn’t let him down.

I should have known he would.

‘What’s the limp about?’ Tilda brought over a coffee from the machine and plumped herself down beside me.

She was Tom’s ex. She’d never mentioned it.

I found myself looking at her in a different light, picturing her with Tom.

‘Wrenched my ankle tottering about on high heels last night,’ I said. ‘Thought I’d sprained it, but it seems better this morning. Just a bit of a twist, probably.’

‘Oh, you went out? You didn’t tell me. Where did you go?’

‘Oh, just a bar. With my flatmates,’ I said, feeling sure my evasion hadn’t got past Tilda. She’d notice the colour that was heating my cheeks, for one thing.

‘Just A Bar. Yeah, one of my favourites. Cheap Street, isn’t it?’ she teased.

‘You know. My local. It wasn’t a big night out or anything.’

Change the subject, for God’s sake.

‘If you say so. I’d have said it was an all-nighter, though, judging by those rings around your eyes.’

‘I need this coffee, that’s for sure.’ I lifted it to my lips and cast around the office, desperate for an alternative topic of conversation. ‘Is Miles in yet?’

Tilda wheeled back her chair a fraction, giving me an uncomfortably keen look.

‘You weren’t out with him last night, were you?’

‘Miles? God! No!’

The man in question appeared in the doorway, pulling his hood off his face, looking as unshaven and dishevelled as ever.

‘Ladies,’ he said, in his sullen Mancunian accent. ‘Did you get one in for me, Til?’

‘You can get your own. It’s Ella who looks like she really needs one.’

‘Yeah?’

He sat down, yawning, on my other side and dumped his backpack under the desk before swivelling to stare at me.

‘Why’s that then?’

‘Oh, just thought she looked a bit tired, that’s all,’ said Tilda archly. ‘Like she needs a bit more sleep.’

She gave Miles a meaningful look which was lost on him, but which I at last understood. Tilda had been making these weird oblique remarks to Miles about me for weeks. And now I understood why – everybody knew that he fancied me.

It was nice to be in on the secret, even if I was the last to know.

‘Oh,’ said Miles. ‘Why’s that, then? Late one, was it?’

This seemed to satisfy Tilda that we hadn’t been secretly at it all night long, and she turned to her desk to log in.

‘Just a few drinks with my flatmates,’ I mumbled, following suit.

Miles grunted and lumbered off to the coffee machine.

Not my type, I thought, following him with my eyes. Too simian, and that stoop – why didn’t he walk tall? Like Tom. Mmm. Tom. Bleurgh.

My phone rang twice. An external ring. Unusual, especially for this time in the morning. Mum or Dad?

I picked it up.

‘Morning, Foxy.’

I nearly dropped the receiver.

‘Oh’ was all I found to say.

‘You can walk, then?’

‘Just about.’

He chuckled. ‘I mean, your ankle.’

‘Yes,’ I said, bending low to the desk to avoid being overheard. ‘That’s what I meant.’

‘Just wanted to make sure I hadn’t…incapacitated you…in any way.’

‘I thought you had a breakfast meeting.’

‘Yeah, done that. Stale croissants, bloody cheek. Anyway, speaking of bloody cheek…’

‘Were we?’

‘Mm, I’m thinking about cheeks now. And I don’t mean the ones on your face.’

Tom! It was on the tip of my tongue, but a throat-clearing from Tilda brought me to my senses. I would have to keep my words neutral or risk the third degree.

‘Though I’m not into drawing blood,’ he continued thoughtfully. ‘So literal bloody cheek isn’t quite what I have in mind. A nice bit of red flush, though…mmm.’

‘Did you call me for a reason?’ I muttered, beyond flustered.

‘Yes, I did,’ he said. ‘Did you set up that account on Safeword.com?’

‘Oh…not yet. I’ll do it later.’

I’d made a start but my brain had failed to co-operate, too preoccupied with Tom and his wily ways. I was in no mood to be penning kinky come-hithers to strangers after all that.

‘You’d better,’ he said, his voice like raw-edged silk. ‘Or you’ll know about it when I see you.’

Now this sounded promising.

‘Oh, will I?’ I said, trying to keep my tone light enough to deflect any attention from my neighbouring desks.

‘Yes, you will,’ he said. ‘And I’m getting a sense that you’re testing me. Do I have to prove that I mean business?’

I gulped. ‘Yes’ or ‘No’? Which was the right answer?

I couldn’t resist it. Despite the danger that surrounded me, I put my lips close to the mouthpiece and said, ‘Maybe you do.’

I could almost hear his smile at the other end.

‘Oh, dear, Foxy, you do have a habit of letting yourself in for it. OK then. As soon as you put the phone down, you’re going to go to the Ladies’ and do two things for me. One, pull the cups of your bra down and keep them that way for the rest of the day…you are wearing a bra, I take it?’

I gave a little yelp of indignant laughter. Mistake. Tilda was on the case right away, her neck tilted in my direction.

‘Of course,’ I hissed.

‘Just checking. I know what you’re like, Ms Cox, you rampant little animal. So, yeah, the bra is number one. Two, take off your knickers and put them in your bag for the rest of the day. You are…?’

I tutted and huffed. ‘Yes, again.’ I paused. ‘Oh, God.’

‘What?’

‘Do I have to?’

‘Yes, you have to. I’ll be waiting for you in the lobby at six, to make sure.’

Now this was a thrilling thought, as if I wasn’t thrilled enough.

‘Will you?’

‘You bet. What are you wearing?’

I gave Tilda a swift side-eye. I wasn’t sure I could answer this without arousing suspicion.

‘What do you mean?’ I hedged.

‘Skirt? Trousers?’

‘The former.’

‘I was hoping you would be! Excellent. Go on, then. And don’t forget. Six o’clock in the lobby for your underwear check.’ He made a couple of smoochy noises and rang off.

Tilda was definitely about to ask me who was on the phone. I had to get out of here.

‘Just going to the powder room,’ I said casually, slinging my bag over my shoulder and hobbling off. The powder room was our private reference to the ladies’ toilets – we found it funny because they were so ungenteel and usually in a horrible state.

They weren’t too bad this morning – the earliness of the hour meant that they were still at least clean, though their dingy tiling and rotten old sinks didn’t exactly cheer the eye.

I wasn’t here to rate them for aesthetic appeal, though. I was here to obey Tom’s orders and show myself for the scarlet woman I was.

I locked myself into the furthest cubicle and ran my hands over my outfit. Officewear wasn’t my natural style, but when I dressed for work I used it as an opportunity to channel my inner Mad Men cast-member. I kept things classic and curve-enhancing. Thank God it was November and my white shirt was made of cotton heavy enough to keep any overtly erect nipples at least half-concealed. My little summer cap-sleeved blouses would have been a different proposition.

I unbuttoned quickly and pulled the lace elastane cups of my bra down over my breasts. My nipples, thanks to the phone call, were in a state of high excitement. I wondered if there was anything I could do to flatten them before going back into the office. The shirt might be heavy, but a couple of dimples were still a strong possibility. Then I remembered my emergency cardigan. Thank God! I could button it over my shirt to keep things a little more modest.

Thus reassured, I fastened my shirt. As it closed over my unfettered breasts, the thick cotton pressed against my nipples, teasing and chafing them. They felt stiff and a little sore, and their peaks were definitely visible. I’d be feeling them every time I moved my arms, every time I pushed back my shoulders or flexed my spine.

‘You bastard,’ I whispered, thinking of Tom and how he would examine me later for signs of my obedience.

The thought made me dizzy and I had to sink on to the toilet lid, trying to block out the images of the previous night that twined around me, laughing at me with his smile and his wicked blue eyes.

Now the knickers. This would be more difficult. My pencil skirt was form-fitting and I wore tights underneath it, since I hadn’t been expecting anything of a sexual nature to happen at work.

I stepped out of my shoes and rucked the skirt carefully up to my waist, making sure not to damage the silky lining. Then I removed my tights, even more carefully because they were a fine denier and given to snagging at the slightest provocation. I laid them in my shoes and sat back down to wiggle out of the knickers.

These ones weren’t ‘special’ but they were still nice enough – white stretch lace boyshorts, to match my bra. If Tom asked to see them, I had nothing to be ashamed of.

Wait – what was I thinking? I was taking off my knickers and bra at work for the purposes of sexual titillation. Wasn’t that something to be ashamed of?

Only in the most exciting way imaginable.

I smiled at myself, my heart skittering along, listening for any signs of creaking doors or footsteps in the corridor beyond. Once I had removed the knickers and stuffed them in my bag, I picked up my tights again.

It seemed weird and wrong to put them back on. Surely the idea of having no knickers on was the sense of being bare and uncovered at an inappropriate time, in an inappropriate place. The tights would be cheating. But I could hardly leave them off without drawing attention to myself.

I put my feet in and eased them up to my knees. I really didn’t want to pull them all the way up. For a start, the idea of the unbreathable nylon right up against my privates didn’t appeal. Could I get away with having them just at mid-thigh? Would it create an unsightly bunch under my tight skirt? And would I be able to walk properly?

I tested the proposition. I needed to spend some considerable time arranging things so that my silhouette remained smooth enough inside my pencil skirt to seem normal, but eventually I was able to come out of the cubicle and take a look in the bathroom mirrors to make sure I wasn’t deluding myself.

I wasn’t. It looked fine. But it felt very, very strange. My walk was constrained to a kind of Marilyn Monroe-esque wiggle. It was just as well my job didn’t require a lot of striding and leaping around.

I did a few catwalk turns, admiring my swaying hips and enjoying the illicit feel of my bare thighs brushing together. The silky lining of my skirt caressed my bottom as I walked. My nipples throbbed, teased by cotton. I had been aware all morning of a residual tingle down below from Tom’s treatment of me, but now it was rudely at the forefront of my consciousness.

He intended me to remember what had been done to me, and to think of what was still to come. He wanted it to be on my mind all day.

I half-shut my eyes and ground my hips at my reflection.

Could I get away with a quick and furtive orgasm in one of the cubicles? I was sorely tempted…

The door of the office creaked and I leapt guiltily towards the sinks and turned on the tap at full blast so it sprayed my shirt.

‘Damn!’ I shouted, as Tilda swung into the room.

‘El, are you OK?’ she asked.

‘I was, until this fucking tap decided I needed a shower,’ I moaned, flapping my hands.

‘Go and stand under the dryer,’ she suggested, laughing at my unwarranted wrath. ‘Are you sure you’re OK? You’re not feeling ill, are you?’

‘No, I’m fine. Had to change my tights, that’s all. Got a ladder.’

‘OK. That’s good. Miles was getting worried about you.’ I caught sight of her raised eyebrows in the mirror. How could I not have seen this? Now Tom had mentioned it, the clues were everywhere.

‘Well, he shouldn’t,’ I said gruffly. ‘I’m all right, Til. You can go. I’ll be out in a minute.’

She didn’t leave. She stood there, chewing her lip and playing with her bracelet.

‘Just, while we’re alone in here,’ she said, once the dryer had ceased its deafening roar. ‘I did wonder whether you and Miles…last night…?’

I turned around, doing my best to arrange my face into shocked surprise.

‘Me and Miles? Are you kidding? No. Not my type. At all.’

‘Really? He’s not bad-looking. And quite sweet, when he wants to be.’

‘Don’t match-make, Til. It’s not going to happen.’

‘Oh, come on, Ella. I’m not suggesting you order the wedding flowers. But you could do with a bit of fun. You’re not still pining after Crowley, are you?’

Oh, God. The Name had come up. I hadn’t been expecting it, and it was like a blow to the below-the-belt area.

‘Pining? I’ve never pined in my entire life,’ I said, a bit too hotly. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I just don’t need a friend with benefits, that’s all. I’m fine as I am.’

‘All right, no need to bite my head off, dear. It’s just that I’ve seen a lot of women waste a lot of emotional energy on Crowley, and I don’t want you to be one of them. He ain’t worth it.’

‘It was one night, six weeks ago, Til,’ I said, but inside I was quivering and my blood was rushing to my skin so fast I thought it might burst through my pores at any moment. ‘I think I’m over it now.’

‘Good,’ she said decisively. ‘So, are you coming back? Your email alert pinged eight times while you’ve been in here.’

‘Shit, really? Eight? What’s happening? Is there some kind of big news story going on?’

‘Nah, just traffic stuff, I think. Come on.’

Sitting back down at my desk, I almost moaned with arousal as my bare bottom slid against the cold, sleek lining of my skirt. My thighs were immediately damp. This was going to be a challenging day.

At lunchtime I took a corner table in our favourite coffee shop with Tilda and determined to tackle the subject of her relationship with Tom. It had been on my mind all morning, and I needed to know the worst.

The seats in the coffee shop were moulded plastic, and they made my knickerless state all the more unavoidable as I slid and slipped around on the shiny orange surface, scared to cross my legs.

‘So, you seem really down on Tom Crowley,’ I said, as casually as I could, tearing open my sandwich package. ‘Is it just from observation, or is it personal?’

Her eyes flashed up at me and she paused in the action of raising a cup of soup to her lips.

‘Who’ve you been talking to?’ she said.

‘Nobody. Just…from what you were saying in the loos earlier.’

‘Hm, well, I stand by that.’ She paused, taking a sip of tomato and basil. ‘He’s a menace to womankind.’

‘But was he a menace to you?’

She sighed, put down the mug, looked all around the café as if assessing the best escape route, then turned back to me.

‘I don’t like to talk about it,’ she said. ‘But yes. I’ve been there. And I wish I hadn’t. All right?’

It was unsettling to see Tilda like this. In the couple of months I’d known her, she’d always struck me as strong and feisty, nobody’s fool. But a haunted look had come into her dark eyes and she seemed to lose some of her twenty eight years years.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. He really hurt you?’

She looked down for a second, then back up again, full Tilda service resumed.

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘He was a dick, but I don’t let it get to me. It was three years ago, anyway.’

I bit into my sandwich. Ugh. Too much basil. Why did basil need to be in a sandwich at all?

‘I know he has a reputation,’ I said. ‘Did he cheat on you?’

‘I don’t even know,’ she said. ‘I just got tired of waiting for him. Sitting in bars on my own, texting him to ask where he was, getting nowhere. It happened once too often and that was that. I don’t sit around waiting for men. Not even that man. I’ve got my own life to lead, you know?’

‘So he’s unreliable, basically?’

‘Very.’ She laughed her warm, raucous laugh, but there was some pain in it. ‘The poster boy for unreliability and lack of commitment. That’s Tom Crowley.’

‘Maybe he was working? I mean, I guess chasing down stories can get in the way of your personal life.’

‘Why are you so keen to defend him?’ Her eyes narrowed.

‘I’m not. I’m just trying to make you feel better about it. Like, you know, it probably wasn’t personal. It probably wasn’t you.’

‘Yeah, that’s what he said. He really liked me, he wished things could be different, blah blah blah. But he was never going to change. And it was never going to work out. And I deserve better. So…’

I returned her smile, though mine was a bit twitchier.

I was sitting here with my bra tucked under my rack and my tights at half mast for a man who probably wasn’t worth it. Bleak visions passed behind my eyes of future hours spent waiting for calls that would never come.

‘So that was that, then,’ I said breezily, deciding in that instant that things between Tom and me would remain strictly sex only. No moping and mooning, no romantic expectations, just a bit of mutual exploration. I’d told Tilda earlier that I didn’t want a friend with benefits, but perhaps that was how I’d have to view Tom, if I intended to stay sane.

‘You’re up to date on the Tom story,’ said Tilda. ‘And ever since then, he’s been in skirt-chase overdrive. As you know.’

I looked down at my own skirt. Would he be chasing it later?

‘You aren’t still hung up on him, are you?’ she asked, leaning closer and speaking confidentially.

‘I told you. No. Do they have the carrot cake today?’

She fell for my diversionary tactic, and the rest of the lunch break passed without further reference to Mr Crowley.

I wasn’t usually a clock-watcher but all afternoon my eye slipped repeatedly to the lower righthand corner of my screen, watching the minutes mount slowly, oh, so slowly, towards the golden hour of six o’clock.

If he was going to be waiting for me in the lobby, how was I going to hide our liaison from Tilda? A guilty part of me thought that I should just be upfront with her about it, but I couldn’t be bothered with the inevitable eye-rolling disappointment, not to mention the lecture, my honesty would provoke.

In the event, it worked out quite well. Tilda was held up in conversation by the editor, on his way back into the office after some kind of big corporate sponsorship meeting in town, and slightly drunk, so I was able to sneak away on the dot of six.

In the lift, I fidgeted and jiggled around with my underwear, making sure it was exactly as prescribed. The flutter in my stomach competed against my better judgement, which was trying to tell me he wouldn’t be there. He was unreliable. Tilda had painted me the picture. I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

All the same, I fussed with my hair and makeup and rotated my ankle before leaving the lift. Happily, my limp was almost completely gone and I was able to walk out into the lobby with a confident stride.

Tom was leaning over the reception desk, chatting to the woman on duty, showing her something on his phone. The sight of him sent a plume of excitement up from the pit of my stomach, frothing out to every extremity.

He was here after all!

His eyes flicked away from the receptionist and towards me, setting off his irresistible smile.

‘On the dot, Miss Cox,’ he said. ‘Precise as always.’

‘I like to be punctual,’ I said, the words spilling from my mouth unfiltered. Could the receptionist see my nipples through my shirt? We had to get out of here.

He seemed to understand this, straightening up and bidding a polite goodbye to the receptionist.

I followed him to the doors.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked in a whisper.

‘Never mind,’ he murmured, taking my hand as we hurried down the steps to the street.

Rather than head left for the car park or right for the city centre, he pulled me into the narrow alleyway that stood between the newspaper offices and the conveniently situated pub next door. It was full of empty kegs and crates, and very little light squeezed into the space, which could just about fit Tom and me side by side.

‘Wha–?’ I started to say, but Tom already had me up against the wall with his hands on my shirt buttons, unfastening them with speedy determination.

‘I’ve been thinking about this all day,’ he said, sighing with pleasure as my uncupped breasts were revealed. ‘Oh, you did. Oh, you good girl. Bad girl. Whatever.’

He squeezed them in eager hands, then bent to nuzzle them, exhaling deeply into the space between the peaks.

I was too taken aback to register much beyond what was happening at first. He had a nipple in his mouth before it occurred to me that people were passing by, mere yards away in the open street, and any one of them might choose to peer into the alleyway at any moment.

‘Tom,’ I gasped. ‘What if we’re seen?’

‘We won’t be. Tell me you’ve been like this all day. You didn’t just pull it down five minutes ago, to meet me?’

‘I’ve been like it all day, I promise.’ I looked sideways, anxiously, but he took my face in his hand and wrenched it back to face him.

‘Don’t worry about them,’ he said, his voice suddenly so commanding – almost harshly so – that I was stunned into compliance. ‘I want your full attention, and I’m going to have it. I’ll take the rap if anyone challenges us. OK?’

‘OK,’ I whispered, rapt and captivated.

‘Good. Now raise your skirt. I want to see if you can do as you’re told.’

The temptation to peek sideways and make sure we were unobserved was almost overwhelming, but I managed to keep my eyes fixed on Tom’s while I raised the hem of my tight skirt slowly up my thighs.

When he saw my tights, pulled down to mid-thigh, he made a growly noise in the back of his throat.

‘Well, I was hoping for stockings, but that’ll do for now,’ he said hoarsely.

‘I don’t wear stockings to work,’ I apologised.

‘You didn’t,’ he corrected, and my fingers slipped on my skirt lining at the implication. ‘You’ve been walking around like that all day? Wasn’t it uncomfortable?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Higher, then. I’m waiting.’

I had to take care not to tear the silken underskirt, so it took me a little while to bare myself to his satisfaction. Just as my hem reached the very tops of my thighs, I couldn’t resist a swift glance to the alley opening. It was done before I even knew it, but Tom tut-tutted.

‘That’s one minute,’ he said obliquely.

‘One minute?’

‘You’ll see. Ah. Yes.’ My skirt was fully raised now and the concrete wall of the office chilled my bottom. ‘Bare-arsed in a public thoroughfare. You can’t help yourself, can you?’

He pressed himself hard against me, grinding his denim-clad crotch into my unclothed pussy. His mouth clamped on mine for a hot, tongue-thrusting kiss. His fingertips pushed into the soft roundness of my bum cheeks, squeezing and kneading.

I no longer cared about passers-by. I wanted him to rip off my tights and fuck me there and then. It wouldn’t matter if half the population of the city crowded in to watch us. They could take their fill. I needed my fill.

I reached blindly for Tom’s jeans button, but he pushed my hand away and held it fast around the wrist.

‘When I’m ready,’ he said warningly, letting my wrist drop and pushing his fingers between my legs. I clung to him, seeking his mouth again so my own breath could shudder into it while he fingered my swelling clit for all to see.

He cupped my mound, working his fingers into a rhythm, easing them back and forth and over my sensitive bud until my legs shook.

‘Mm,’ he crooned into my ear. ‘Been waiting for it, have you? All day long?’

I replied in a sequence of grunts and gasps.

‘I’m going to have you sucking my cock on your knees in this alley,’ he said. ‘You’re going to wear holes in those tights before I’m done with you.’

I wanted to kneel to him right now, to take what he had to give me, to worship his cock in front of everyone in town. I was shaking all over, my vision blurred, my orgasm on its way, sending sparks down the line in advance.

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