‘Oh, yes, my darling, you are delightful, the way your lovely pussy muscles tighten and convulse when you come. How wonderful it will be to have a body with such libido, such hunger. Oh, how Finn will ride you. I think that –’
The woman was interrupted by the call of a man. ‘Eleanor? Eleanor, are you there?’
She put a finger to her lips. ‘He’ll find out eventually, dear Jill, but when he does it’ll no longer matter.’ She brushed a kiss across Jill’s lips, and for the first time Jill got a clear view of the woman’s face. She recognised it well because it was her face. Before she could dwell on the strangeness of such a revelation, the woman lay down in her arms, nuzzled in tight against Jill’s breasts and pulled the duvet up over both of them. From a distance Jill could still hear the man calling for Eleanor, but that was the last thing she remembered until morning.
* * *
Finn scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling poorly slept with. He hadn’t been slept with at all, actually. He gulped back the bitter taste of coffee, which was about the only thing keeping him awake at the moment. In truth, it was the woman he’d been with last night who was keeping him awake, and not in a good way. She was nowhere to be found, and she could very well be in a great deal of danger. ‘I’ve never seen her before,’ Finn said. ‘She stumbled into the shop, bought a pair of boots and left.’
‘Did you fuck her?’ Meinrad asked.
Finn tried to work up the energy to be offended by Meinrad’s bluntness, but he knew better. Meinrad was right to want to know. ‘If I had fucked her then I’d be certain, wouldn’t I? We’d know, wouldn’t we?’
Meinrad’s pale-blue gaze was a study in Teutonic seriousness. ‘You must have done something or you wouldn’t suspect that Eleanor’s with her.’
Meinrad was so damn smug at times, and Finn really didn’t need smug right now. ‘I … we had a good grope.’
‘How much of a grope?’ Meinrad asked. ‘Did she come? Did you come?’
‘Yes, she came, and so did I, all right? And I shouldn’t have. I mean I knew what day it was, but I thought you and Chelsea had Eleanor under control. How was I supposed to know she was out and about?’
Meinrad stopped sipping his coffee and blinked. ‘She wasn’t exactly out and about, mate. Besides, it was you who had the desire to grope a total stranger enough to jizz your jeans. That wasn’t a clue?’
Finn stood and paced, then poured them both another cup of corrosive coffee. ‘I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that the woman was really hot and that she might actually fancy me?’ He dropped back into the chair slopping coffee, remembering the woman whose glorious dark hair looked like she’d just gotten out of bed after a sexy romp, and wouldn’t he love to be on the receiving end of that romp? Then he added, ‘Honestly, I wanted her from the moment she walked through the door, all barefoot with that pouty-lipped smile I could have eaten off her face.’
Meinrad gave him an unimpressed look. ‘Sometimes it’s best to keep your cock in your pants, Finn. If Eleanor’s with this woman and her pouty lips, then you know the kind of trouble she can cause. The woman could be in real danger.’
‘I know this, Meinrad. Don’t you think I know this?’ The thought had knotted his stomach since the moment the phone rang last night, and she sauntered out the door, disappearing into a birthday party stumbling drunkenly down the street from Juno. By the time he’d managed to push his way into the party, she was nowhere to be found. ‘I’ve been using every means I can think of to find her.’
‘If you haven’t found her by now then it’s already too late.’
‘We don’t know that, do we? It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet.’
Just then Meinrad’s iPhone rang. He answered it with a grunt, then a nod, as though whoever was on the other end should be able to see. ‘Right. Well, that’s a start, isn’t it?’
He hung up and offered Finn what could have been a smile or could just as easily have been a grimace. With Meinrad, it was difficult to tell. ‘Chelsea found out who this Vivie is that your girl was talking about last night. You know, the one who lent her the killer shoes? Seems she was frantically looking for her friend Jill about the same time you were giving her the full frontal rub-up. Some bloke Chelsea knows, a banker she’s fuck buddies with, was apparently doing the nasty with this Vivie in Hoxton Square and, after they’d done the deed, Jill was nowhere to be found. He happened to let it slip.’
Jill. Nice name, Finn thought. But what he felt was a sense of relief. If they had even a little bit of information about Jill, even her first name, if there were ways of finding her, then they could call in the rest of the Sole Alliance. If anybody could find Eleanor, they could. Of course once Eleanor had what she wanted, she wouldn’t be hard to find. He shivered at the thought. He wished desperately he’d been more careful, that he’d just asked the woman out for coffee like a normal bloke would have. But then she did practically attack him, didn’t she? Not that he wasn’t willing. God, he had been willing.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Call everyone together. Let’s find Jill, and hopefully Eleanor.’ He left Meinrad sitting at the table calling in the members of Sole Alliance. He shoved open the door that separated his flat from Kinky Boots, made his way around the counter and through the racks of shoes and boots to the front of the store. For a second he stood looking out onto Shoreditch High Street. It was already heaving with traffic, but it was still too early for many shoppers to be out and about. With a sigh, he pulled down the steel shutters over the storefront that he’d only opened a few minutes ago. Eleanor always was the queen of poor timing. Missing Saturday market business wasn’t great, but there wasn’t much choice under the circumstances. Jill had to be found for her own protection.
Chapter 3
Jill woke up before the alarm went off. Thoughts of her encounter at Kinky Boots set off an eruption of butterflies in her stomach, and she couldn’t keep from smiling as she saw the lovely pair of mauve boots sat neatly at the foot of her bed. Still unpaid for too.
The steamy shower felt like a million tiny massages all over her body and the loofah stimulated every pore of her pinkened skin to tingle with delight. It didn’t even matter that, if it weren’t for her boss, she’d still be enjoying a lie-in all snuggled under the crisp, clean duvet. In fact the morning seemed entirely too amazing to waste sleeping. Though the sleep last night had been particularly satisfying, and she seemed to recall very arousing dreams. Not too surprising under the circumstances, she thought. And as soon as she could placate her boss and get free, she hoped for a helluva lot more than just dreams.
Breakfast never tasted so good, even if it was only toast with marmalade. She made the coffee stronger than usual and delighted in the bite of it against the back of her tongue, balanced by the velvet smoothness of the cream. In spite of her lack of interest in fashion, today it seemed a delicious chore to pick out just the perfect clothing. She chose a black pencil skirt, a soft silk blouse that was a riot of rich summer hues, and her lovely new boots. There was a bit more cleavage showing than usual, a bit more colour in the make-up. And the skirt, well, the skirt fitted like a glove. Though it came several inches below her knees, there was a long slit high up the right thigh. Under normal circumstances she would never have worn it to work, but she planned to pop