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.
There was a rattling sound from somewhere close by.
‘Fuck!’ Tom looked over his shoulder. The rattling was a door being unbolted – the back-yard door of the pub. Whoever came out wouldn’t necessarily see us from the yard, but if they came out with an empty keg to store…
‘C’mon,’ he said, pulling my skirt down and my shirt shut.
He took my hand and hurried with me, not back to the street as I had anticipated, but further along the alley. I didn’t look back at the pub back yard. I could hear a keg being rolled across the ground.
I tried fastening my shirt with my trembling free hand, but I’d only managed a button and a half before we were out in some godforsaken back street. A couple of abandoned light industrial units stood by a railway bridge, underneath which a car was parked. A high fence separated the newspaper office from the street, which might have been visible from the very top floor, but was otherwise quite private, except from the trains that passed overhead.
Tom steered me smartly to the car, pointing his key at it to unlock the doors.
‘Get in,’ he said, after reclining the driving seat.
I was bundled in ahead of him and within minutes found myself crouching on my knees with my head down and Tom behind me, rucking up my skirt again and reversing my recent work on my shirt buttons.
‘You looked when I told you not to,’ he said, the moment my bottom was bare, rubbing his palm over its upturned cheeks. ‘You get one minute for that.’
‘One minute? What do you mean?’ I panted, though I had an inkling, and I was even more turned on than ever.
‘I mean this,’ he said, and a loud, solid smack descended on my bum.
I squealed and my head shot upwards, but he pushed it back down so my mouth was firmly against the head rest.
‘You need to learn,’ he said. ‘Don’t you?’
He took his hand away from my head so I could answer.
‘Do I?’ I said, but meekly.
‘Yes, you do. Stick your bum up. Show me you know what you deserve.’
I almost moaned with arousal and pushed out my cheeks, feeling the slight heat from his opening statement of intent throb then recede. I needed another. I needed to know if it really was as good as it felt.
I heard a beep – he must have been setting his watch – then he began to rain sharp, stinging smacks on both cheeks. He kept one hand heavily between my shoulder blades as he spanked me, making sure I held my position. When I wriggled my hips or tried to elude his hand, he spanked harder, ordering me to keep my bottom high or he’d make it two minutes. I couldn’t believe how strict he was – louche, laid-back, unreliable Tom Crowley possessed a core of steel. Who knew?
I did. I really knew. And my bottom knew better than anyone.
Never had a minute lasted longer. It took no more than sixty seconds to transform my bum from chilled to scorched, and my pussy wasn’t a lot cooler either.
‘Drama queen,’ he said, gloatingly, once his watch had pipped again. ‘It didn’t hurt that much.’
He was right – it hadn’t hurt that much, but I’d seemed to need to make loud, indignant noises every time his hand landed. It was a question of pride. I didn’t want him to know how much I was enjoying it; part of the satisfaction of the game was the pretence of outrage.
‘It hurt enough!’ I said, and he laughed.
‘That’s exactly what you needed then,’ he said, running his hands slowly and sensuously over my warmed rear. ‘Well, part of it,’ he amended, and I heard the ritual unfastening of the jeans.
I gripped the headrest of the lowered leather seat while he prepared to satisfy a need so ramped-up that I was practically whimpering with it. When he filled me, I let out a long ‘ahh’ of pleasure, urging him deeper.
‘Is that stretching you?’ he asked softly, his lips on my neck.
I thought my sigh would be answer enough, but apparently it wasn’t, because he gave my bottom another smack, as if it needed one, and said, ‘Well?’
‘Yes,’ I answered hastily, keen for him to get on with the in-and-out instead of resting where he was, with his cock fully sheathed.
‘Good. Keep that bum up now.’ He ground his pelvis against my glowing cheeks. ‘Mm, it’s lovely and hot,’ he said approvingly.
He clamped his hands on my shoulders and set to work.
I lay there, my hot face sticking to the leather, my spine low and bottom raised, just taking it, taking it, taking it. If anybody was passing by, I wouldn’t know – the windows were opaque with steam within half a minute. His pace wasn’t as breakneck as it had been last night; he took time to twist and grind and make sure he was as deep as deep could be before pulling back. Every now and then he dropped his pace to take time for a leisurely suck and bite of my neck and lower ear.
‘Touch yourself,’ he breathed, getting ready for the full body slam again. ‘Go on.’
When I hesitated, he grabbed my hand impatiently and placed it between my legs.
‘Tell me when you’re coming,’ he instructed, jerking his hips back and forth at a quicker rate.
I pressed my fingertips to my clit. It felt strange to do it in this position. It felt strange to do it at all – I was so used to using my vibrator. This was dirtier, somehow, and more visceral. I had to feel how plump and wet it was. I had to accept that I was aroused by the way Tom treated me. I had to cover my fingers in my own juices; the juices that had started flowing when I was exposed in a grimy alleyway, and flooded out all the more when I was being spanked hard in a parked car.
I was that girl. Tom knew it, and he forced me to know it.
My muscles began to flutter way back inside me, and I jiggled myself around Tom’s cock, silently begging him not to stop.
‘It’s…I’m…uh…’
‘Say it,’ he hissed. His gritted teeth were right by my ear.
‘Going to…God…c…uhhhhm.’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he whispered, pounding into m
e so hard that it was like being spanked all over again.
I lay, spent and stuck and shivering, while he rocked the car with the force of his orgasm. Seriously, I thought he’d done something to the handbrake. But it was just the tearing strength of his climax, turning his body for that moment into something superhuman.
I loved his weight, crushing my limp form, almost as much as I’d loved what led to it. I felt covered and possessed and so close to him.
‘Bloody hell,’ he slurred, just as my lungs began to protest. He raised himself on his forearms for a moment, then knelt up and peeled me off the seat. We lay in a trembling jumble for a while longer, then he kissed my damp forehead and offered me a tissue from the glovebox.
‘That was intense,’ I said, with a nervous laugh.
‘Yeah,’ he said, mopping himself up. ‘I’m scared to wind down the window in case there’s a crowd of voyeurs outside.’
‘Very quiet voyeurs, if they are,’ I said, rubbing a small clear patch to make sure. No. We were still alone beneath the railway bridge.
‘So,’ he said, buttoning up and unsticking his shirt from his abdomen. ‘Was that anything like you thought it’d be?’
‘What? The…?’ For some reason, I couldn’t say the word ‘spanking’ out loud.
‘The…?’ he teased, then he frowned. ‘I didn’t say you could pull your skirt back down, did I?’
I gave him a look of mixed pleading and adoration, and slid my bare bottom on to the passenger seat.
‘It was better,’ I said. ‘It kind of…it hurt, but…in a good way.’
‘Well, I’m happy to hear it,’ he said. ‘I aim to please.’
‘Did it please you?’ I asked hesitantly. ‘I mean, was it good? For you?’
He looked at me as if I’d said something sweetly naïve.
‘You have to ask?’ He reached over and twanged the top of my tights, now rumpled somewhere below my knees. ‘But I missed a trick. Next time I’ll have these off and use them to tie your wrists.’
Next time, I thought with an internal sigh of delight.
‘It was all a bit sudden,’ I said, my stomach flipping at the memory of what had happened in the alley.
Fast and Loose Page 6
