That was a ridiculous thought! She wasn’t in any sort of competition, especially not with a girl who couldn’t be a day over 25, if that.
Amanda followed Nola into an office that had a plate-glass wall that looked out into the reception area. Thank goodness, the wall had vertical blinds. Amanda certainly didn’t want to be on display as she worked, doing … Well, she’d find out what she’d be doing, in due course. Her dead husband’s office held a black leather couch, a credenza that ran the length of one wall and that was inlaid with black leather, and three matching chairs. All three were large but the one behind his desk was by far the biggest.
Roger’s desk was long and wide and also inlaid with black leather. It was equipped with a phone, a pen-holder and the sleek screen, mouse and keyboard of a computer, and three silver framed photographs. When Nola left her alone, Amanda hung up her jacket and turned on the computer. The screen asked for a password. She tried her own name. It was accepted. This was no time to wonder for the thousandth time how a man who used his wife’s name as a password and kept not one or two but three framed photos of her on his desk ended up dead in a sleazy motel, but she did anyway. Who had he been with when he died?
It took her about an hour to find her way around the various programmes. Most of what she discovered were reports and summaries. It seemed that all of the shops were overstocked despite steadily falling sales. Most of them were spending far too much on their payrolls, according to the targets someone, likely Eggerdon, had set.
The company’s problems were obvious – low sales, high inventory, high payrolls. The solutions?
Amanda sat back and tapped her new pen on her teeth. Roger had likely been looking for answers for months, or years. What were the chances she’d find one instantly? Perhaps Roger had left notes? She tugged open the narrow middle drawer of the desk and found some small change, a clear plastic ruler and a couple of twisted paperclips. The big bottom right drawer had alphabetised hanging files, which she flipped through fairly quickly. As far as she could tell, there was nothing of particular interest to be found there. Top right? It was locked. Amanda fished Roger’s keys from her briefcase and found one that worked.
The first thing that caught her eye was a little bulging velvet bag. When she pulled the drawstring loose and dumped the contents on to the desk, a dozen gold charms, many with precious stones set in them, gleamed up at her. She poked them with her fingertip. There was a little Christmas tree and – her eyes welled at the sight of it – the number 25, with what had to be a diamond flashing above it. A couple of tears trickled down her cheeks as she scooped up the rest of the charms and dumped them back into the bag. He might have been cheating on her but he’d obviously had no intention of ever leaving her. That had to mean something! She held the anniversary charm up to her bracelet; she’d been wearing it for so long it had become a part of her and she’d practically ceased to notice it years ago. Roger. Maybe she should just forgive his indiscretions and focus on the love they’d shared as husband and wife.
Amanda added the anniversary charm to the bag and placed it back into the drawer, back on top of some glossy pages that looked as if they’d been torn from magazines. Curious, fully expecting to find illustrations of footwear, Amanda scooped them up and put them on the desk.
Oh! Oh no! Oh, Roger!
The girl in the first picture that Amanda saw was certainly wearing shoes – shoes with heels that had to be five or maybe six inches high – but those, and hose, were all she was wearing. She was posed bent over the padded arm of a sofa, with her bare bottom high, and blotched crimson.
Damn him! Not only had Roger cheated on her, but he’d also been reading kinky magazines. Amanda wouldn’t have minded if he’d brought them home and been honest about his predilection – perhaps shared it with her – but to hide it, to keep it in a locked drawer, that was too much! She’d never suspected he had a taste for spanking. If he’d asked her, she’d have let him. He should have known that. She’d never refused him any submissive act or sexual pleasure; in fact, she’d given him the clear green light to bugger her bottom and he’d been the one to balk.
The next picture was a cartoon of a girl dressed as a secretary, over the knee of a man in a three-piece suit. Amanda guessed he was supposed to be her boss. Her skirt was up around her waist; her panties dangled from one ankle. The man was spanking her.
Amanda looked closer. There was a caption that looked as if it was handwritten. It was handwritten. ‘Us, later?’
Trembling with fury, Amanda leafed through the rest of the pile. The pictures seemed evenly divided between spanking fetish and bondage, with titles like Februs, Fessee and Hogtied. There was a picture of a woman wearing nothing but an incredibly tight corset. She was hanging by ropes that were tied around her ankles and wrists. Someone had scribbled under it, ‘The suspense is killing her.’ Most of the notes were in the form of suggestions rather than poor jokes. ‘I’d like to try this’ appeared frequently, as did ‘Fancy me this way?’ and the like.
‘Damn it, Roger!’ she barked at the photo of the two of them he kept on his desk – this one taken on a friend’s yacht. ‘If you weren’t already dead I’d kill you myself.’
She was so angry her outburst failed to make her laugh. Roger had been one kinky son-of-a-bitch and, worse, he hadn’t shared his fetishes with her. It’s bad enough a man cheats, but, when he does things with another woman, or other women that he didn’t do with his wife, even though she’d have willingly tried them, that’s total betrayal.
Boiling mad, Amanda ripped the pages in half, then in half again, but tearing through them another time was beyond her fingers’ strength so she dropped them in a waste basket.
Oops! They’d be found there. She retrieved them and put them in her briefcase to get rid of later. But she had to do something to make Roger pay. She fumbled at the jewellery that jangled at her wrist, releasing the lobster claw catch and letting the gold bracelet fall on top of the torn pages. Damn Roger! Amanda scooped up the bracelet and dropped it into the velvet bag with the other charms. Let it never see light again! She’d replace it with a Cartier watch and not notice its absence a bit.
Somewhat mollified, Amanda got up and opened her office’s blinds. That girl, Nola, was talking on the phone. Nola had a desk, with drawers, even if not as big as Roger’s. Eggerdon had to have a desk with drawers. Come to that, so did everyone here. What if they all held secrets? Perhaps the answer to Forsythe Footwear’s problems was hidden in someone else’s desk drawer. Amanda decided to find out.
4
AT FIVE AFTER five, Nola poked her fluffy pink head into Amanda’s office. ‘Anything I can get for you, Ms Garland? We’re closing up now?’
‘No thanks. I’m fine.’ Amanda turned back to the computer screen she was pretending to be working at, having finished a thorough investigation of Roger’s paper files ages ago. She watched Nola leave. That big window on to the reception area was useful. By peering between the slats of the blinds, she was able to watch everyone leave, even if she didn’t know their names or what most of them did, and not be seen herself. Eventually, Eggerdon switched the lights off and locked the door behind him, leaving Amanda alone. She gave him twenty minutes to come back for something he might have forgotten and then turned the lights back on.
Her first bit of spying was in Nola’s desk. The girl was the only good-looking female Amanda had seen there so far, so, if Roger had been screwing an employee, she was the most likely candidate.
Yes! Bingo! In the little bitch’s bottom drawer, under the innocent copies of Vogue and Bazaar were issues of Janus, Hogtied and Fetishette, some of which had pages missing – pages that had obviously been annotated with obscene invitations and slipped to Nola’s lover, Amanda’s husband! The little whore liked to be tied up and spanked, did she! Amanda would like to tie her up and spank her, all right, but she’d guarantee the slut certainly wouldn’t enjoy it, not the way Amanda would lay on the beating!
Amanda sat in t
he trollop’s chair for a few minutes to cool off before she checked the other desks. When her breathing was steady and her pulse had stopped racing, she went to Eggerdon’s office. His desk was big and ornate, not old enough to be an antique, but getting there. His shelves were crammed with binders and accounting manuals. Amanda opened a few but found nothing of interest. Like Roger’s files, it would take some time to go through Eggerdon’s paperwork. She decided to move on.
The next office door had a brass plate: ‘Sophie Sharpe, VP Purchasing’. Inside, it looked almost unoccupied, with nothing personal anywhere and nothing on or in the desk but a pristine blotter.
Two hours later, the only dark secrets she’d discovered were a yellow rubber duck with a moustache drawn on its bill, a packet of Peek Freans Shortcake and half a box of Quality Street.
Amanda decided to take a break so she returned to Nola’s bottom drawer in the hope of learning she-didn’t-know-what from those kinky magazines.
No sooner had her fingers closed on the glossy pile than a pleasant but stern baritone asked, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Amanda let the magazines drop back into the drawer and turned, managing to nudge the drawer closed with her knee as she did so. The voice belonged to a very large man in a dark-blue uniform that had ‘security’ emblazoned on its jacket’s breast pocket. He had to be well over six foot, with a neck that was wider than his head and sloping shoulders that were twice as wide as his waist. His face was kind of craggy but it was softened by the almost contained amusement that danced in his hazel eyes.
‘I asked you what you were doing,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me that’s your desk because I happen to know that it isn’t.’
‘I-I …’ She couldn’t very well explain that she was searching her own employees’ desks, could she? Amanda tried, ‘I haven’t stolen anything, honest.’ She felt herself blush at the lie. She’d never been able to resist the brazil-nut-shaped Quality Street chocolates that came wrapped in shiny purple paper and she still had one in her mouth.
The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll have to verify that.’
‘Verify?’ Amanda chewed and swallowed the candy.
‘That you haven’t stolen anything. I’ll have to search you – unless you’d rather I called the police?’
Amanda swallowed again. Playing dumb, she asked, ‘Search me?’
‘Assume the position.’
She gave him another blank look while she considered how she felt about having her body searched by this large powerful man. On the whole, she decided, she fancied the prospect.
‘Hands on the desk, feet back and spread wide,’ he ordered.
‘Oh.’ Amanda tried to spread her feet but her narrow skirt kept her knees pretty well clamped together. She reached down, found the tab of the invisible zipper and tugged upwards. When she reached the top of her thigh she paused, thought for a second, then continued all the way up to her waist. The look on the man’s face told her that he understood why she’d exposed so much more of herself than obeying his order demanded. Amanda glanced back and down at his crotch but there was no visible reaction there – yet.
That amounted to a challenge!
She turned to face the desk, flattened her palms on it and shuffled back, feet far apart, to make a bridge of her body. Her skirt fell open along the slit, baring her left leg from her high-heeled pump to the rounded softness of her hip. Amanda silently thanked the impulse that had moved her to pull on a minute thong that morning.
The security man squatted behind her and put his big hands on her ankles. It was the first time any man other than Roger had touched her in an intimate way for over eight years. Not knowing his name made the contact more thrilling, more in keeping with her darker fantasies. His palms slid up her legs – over the fabric of her skirt on the right, rasping over the sheer nylon of her stocking on her left.
Then over the naked skin of her left thigh.
Amanda shivered. She sucked her tummy in. The intrusive, violating hands continued higher, over her hips and waist, upper body, shoulders and arms. She held her breath. Muscular arms wrapped around her. Those searching hands cupped her breasts through the linen of her blouse and compressed them.
His voice, breathy and in her ear, said, ‘You could be an industrial spy. You might have a tiny camera concealed somewhere about your person. I’m going to have to search your body cavities.’
Amanda bit her lip. She could bring an instant end to this humiliation with a few words and the production of her ID. Perversely, she didn’t want to. The irony was she was taking advantage of this man by letting him believe that he was taking advantage of her. That made it fair, didn’t it? Or, at least, it made it fun.
His fingers fumbled with the button at her waist. Her skirt was whipped aside, leaving her sex to the dubious protection of a minuscule thong.
‘Maintain the position,’ he growled. His broad hand half-turned her face. ‘Open wide.’
Two thick fingers slid between her parted lips. They pressed down on her tongue, then moved it from side to side as he probed into the pouches of her cheeks. Her tongue was lifted so that he could explore beneath it. Amanda felt like an animal that was being inspected by a potential purchaser. His touch was so impersonal she felt sullied – and that was deliciously thrilling.
His fingers left her mouth. Amanda braced herself. He eased the damp crotch of her thong aside. Those invasive fingers parted the lips of her pussy. She held her breath. Her thighs tensed. The tips of two of his fingers were just inside her, then they eased deeper. She felt his knuckles pressing her lips, spreading them wider. He pushed up, to both sides, then down. His fingers curled up behind her pubic bone and palpitated her G-spot.
‘You’re very wet,’ he commented.
Amanda swallowed hard and said nothing.
He explored, not roughly but very firmly, as if he was determined to memorise every sensitive crevice and fold of her. ‘There’s just one last place you might be hiding something,’ he crooned into her ear.
Amanda froze. She hadn’t thought of that. Roger had never shown any interest in her there. In that one respect, she was still a virgin.
Her sphincter knotted at his touch.
‘It’ll be easier on you if you relax.’
She tried, but it was hard. The pad of his thumb rimmed her delicately. It was slick with her own juices. It pressed. Somehow, she forced herself to loosen. The thumb probed. The odd sensation made her groan.
‘That didn’t hurt,’ he told her.
He was right. It didn’t hurt exactly. Her discomfort was more emotional than physical. It was so intrusive.
He pushed, opening her, forcing that thick strong thumb up inside her, into the tight hot forbidden passage. Surrendering to some depraved impulse, Amanda pushed back at it, impaling herself deeper.
There was admiration in his voice when he said, ‘You randy little slut!’
Meekly, she replied, ‘I have no choice. I have to do anything you tell me to. I have to submit to anything you want to do to me. Absolutely anything.’
He chuckled. ‘That’s right, you do.’ His left hand flattened on Amanda’s tummy, holding her steady. His right spread, his thumb pushing deeper into her bum, two fingers penetrating her pussy. No longer pretending to search her, he pumped into her rhythmically, stretching her, forcing two and then three fingers deeper and deeper, filling her.
Amanda squirmed back at him, meeting thrust with push, riding the degradation as much as she rode the hardness and strength. His fingers and thumb closed, clamping on the thin membrane that divided her rectum from her vagina. Now each push seemed to move her insides. Amanda had never felt so helpless, so vulnerable. A finger of the hand on her tummy found her thickened clit and punished it.
Through gritted teeth, he told her, ‘Come for me, bitch! Cover my fingers with your hot cream. Let me feel your insides shudder.’
The lewd words triggered her. Amanda’s shuddering climax seemed to start somewhere behind he
r navel and radiate outwards until she felt it tingle in her toes, her fingertips, even her forehead. With each convulsion it gathered force, until it seemed the orgasm might actually rip her apart. Guttural sounds spilt from her lips. She knocked her head back against his chest. Christ, it was a climax that had been a long time coming and, now that it was here, seemed to go on and on until she half-feared it might never stop. Finally the furious tide began to ebb and, as it did, her strength drained away. If he hadn’t held her and lowered her to her knees, she would have collapsed.
When her vision cleared, he was perched on the very edge of Nola’s desk, legs spread, stiff and extended.
‘Somebody hasn’t been properly taken care of in a while,’ he commented.
Amanda was too grateful to bother denying it. She grinned foolishly.
‘I’m not done with you,’ he told her, and pulled the zipper of his fly down.
‘I understand.’ The words came out in a meek whisper.
He freed his manhood from his fly. It jutted above her face, thick and throbbing, its head already wet. Amanda sat up, inhaled the sweet muskiness and parted her lips. A broad hand covered the back of her head. Resistance, had she wanted to resist, would have been pointless. He was big all over, a hundred times stronger than she, a great alpha male in contrast to her trembling puny female self. It was utterly thrilling. He drew her forwards. His glistening knob pushed her lips apart. Amanda sucked a deep breath, readying herself. His hand compelled her to take the head, then the shaft, pressing her tongue down and burrowing into her mouth until he butted against the back of her throat. Amanda relaxed her gag reflex, something she was happily very good at. He was so big, so smooth, so hard … So overwhelming!
Amanda's Young Men Page 3
