Fire (8 page)

‘You’re a gorgeous woman, Irene,’ he murmured huskily. ‘You remind me so much of Veronica Lake with that long sweep of hair falling across your face. Except that you’re a brunette, of course.’

‘Ted thinks I look like Hedy Lamarr,’ Irene said. ‘He calls me that every morning when I come in.’

‘Ted Horrocks? What would he know?’

‘Is that a note of jealousy I hear in your voice, Vince?’ Irene asked playfully.

‘Hardly. Ted’s seventy if he’s a day, silly old bugger.’

‘He’s sixty-four and I like him.’

Vince said, ‘Well, I like
you
and we’re wasting time, so bugger Ted.’

He leaned in again for another kiss, and this time his
free hand settled on Irene’s waist. A few moments later it had crept up to her left breast and lingered there, lightly rubbing over the rayon of her summer blouse. Irene felt her nipples rise, and arched her back slightly to push her breast into Vince’s cupped hand. He groaned and moved his mouth from her lips to her neck, nuzzling the white skin beneath her ear.

And then he bit.

Irene jumped, the sensation sending shockwaves of lust through her body, and terror into her heart. ‘For God’s sake, Vince, don’t make a mark!’

‘I won’t,’ he mumbled, his mouth still pressed against her skin. ‘I’ll be gentle.’

Irene didn’t actually want him to be gentle, but she did want him to be discreet: explaining to Martin how she’d managed to get a love bite on her neck would be very tricky.

‘I’ll do it to you,’ she threatened.

‘God, would you?’ Vince said, raising his head and exposing his own throat. The skin there was pale, and Irene could see the blue of that night’s stubble already beginning to show through.

She bent her head and bit, tasting the tang of light sweat and cologne. Vince groaned and grasped her hand, pushing it into his lap where she could feel his straining erection.

‘Irene,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘let me make love to you. Please!’

Thrilled though she was, she still had the presence of mind to remove her hand. ‘No, not here. I don’t want to do it here.’

Vince groaned again, this time in obvious frustration.

Worried that she might have overdone it—or rather,
underdone it—Irene said, ‘But we can still have fun, can’t we?’ and began to slowly unbutton her blouse.

Vince sat mesmerized as the fabric fell open to reveal the twin cones of her satin bra, pointing directly at him. He reached out with both hands, like a child about to receive an eagerly anticipated treat. But then he detoured and his fingers eased her blouse off her pale shoulders and let it slide down her arms, where it rested at her elbows like a shawl.

She trembled as he began to kiss her shoulders and then her décolletage, his tongue travelling ever closer to her cleavage. When his thumbs hooked under the straps of her bra and slid them off her shoulders, releasing her heavy white breasts with their erect, dusky pink nipples, she gasped.

‘Oh my God, Irene, they’re magnificent!’ Vince marvelled, running his fingertips over the firm flesh. He cupped his hands under her breasts and lifted them slightly. ‘You’re an absolute cracker of a girl, you really are.’

Irene closed her eyes, bathing in the warmth of his adoration. When he began to lick her nipples she slid her hands through his hair and dug her fingers into his skull, her sense of satisfaction turning to excitement. She squirmed, and felt heat coursing through her body and her face and neck reddening.

Vince tugged her blouse out of her waistband and slid it off completely, then reached behind her to unhook her bra. When she was naked from the waist up, he grasped both of her wrists in one hand and held them up, pinning them against the boxes stacked behind them.

‘God give me strength,’ he said, gazing lasciviously at her.

He slid his free hand up her thigh until his fingers met flesh above stocking. Then, letting her wrists go, he pushed up her skirt until the white triangle of her pants was visible.

As he lifted the lacy edge of the flimsy fabric, Irene stopped his hand, even though she was very much ready for him to do anything he liked. ‘No, Vince, I’d love to, I really would, but it’s the wrong time and place. Couldn’t we find somewhere, well, nicer?’

Extracting his hand from beneath her skirt and sighing heavily, Vince sat back. His was sweating freely now, the bulge in his trousers still very evident.

‘Where do you live?’ he asked.

‘Eden Terrace.’

‘Does your husband ever go out by himself? At night, I mean?’

‘Hardly ever. He doesn’t even go out with me, let alone without me. And, well, I don’t think I’d want to do it in my house, Vince.’

‘Christ, I’d do it in mine, but my wife sticks to me like shit to a blanket. We only go out when we’re both invited, and even then Cynthia watches me like a bloody hawk.’

‘Why? Have you done this sort of thing before?’

‘No,’ he said, rather too quickly. ‘She’s just a very possessive sort of woman.’

‘So we can’t go to your house?’

‘No.’

‘Not even at lunchtime?’ Irene suggested.

Vince shook his head. ‘Cynthia doesn’t go out to work.’

Irene felt her heart sink. Was it possible that they actually couldn’t find an opportunity to be together? Was it going to be that difficult? And would he lose interest if it was?

Vince leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.

When he didn’t say anything for over a minute, Irene asked, ‘Vince? Are you all right?’

He looked up, his face a picture of disappointment. ‘I don’t know what to suggest, Irene, I really don’t. And I want to be with you so much, you have to understand that. You mean…’ He trailed off, staring at the floor again.

Irene hung on for as long as she could, but finally had to ask, ‘I mean what, Vince? What were you going to say?’

Vince swept his hand back through his hair, took a deep breath and turned to face her. ‘I wasn’t going to say this in case it frightened you off, but bugger it. Irene, you mean the absolute world to me. I think about you night and day, and every time I see you I go weak at the knees and I want to take you in my arms and make love to you. I can’t help it, darling, you’re just so beautiful and so bloody sexy.’ He thumped his thigh angrily with a closed fist. ‘God,
why
couldn’t I have met you earlier! But I didn’t and I’m married to someone else and…and wanting you is driving me insane and we can’t bloody well do anything
about
it!’

Shocked at his passionate declaration, and reeling from the sense of power it gave her, Irene felt both elated and panicked. This was it, this was what she had wanted all along, and now she was going to lose it, all because they couldn’t find a bloody bed!

‘What if we got a hotel room?’ she suggested desperately.

‘No, Irene, those rent-by-the-hour places are flea-pits and you’re worth more than that,’ he said, echoing her earlier words. He shook his head in anguished resignation. ‘No, it’s no good, I’m going to have to get a job somewhere
else. I can’t go on like this, seeing you every day and not being able to have you.’

Irene made a decision. She picked up his hands and settled them around her waist. ‘Well, we’ll do it here then.’

Vince’s face lit up. ‘Are you sure?’

Irene nodded.

Vince kissed the tip of her nose. ‘God, girl, you have no idea what this means to me.’

He pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her passionately, this time on her mouth, and running his hands across her naked back and over her buttocks. After a minute he eased her skirt up to her hips and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her pants, then slid them down her legs. They dropped to the floor and Irene stepped neatly out of them. Vince pushed her gently backwards and she sat down on the edge of the carton, shivering as he parted her legs so that the tangle of her black pubic hair was exposed between white skin and the pale beige gleam of her silk stockings.

Vince gave a low whistle of appreciation, then, standing before her, shrugged out of his suit jacket and loosened his tie. Shaking visibly, he placed Irene’s hand on his belt buckle, groaning slightly as she undid it, then with more fervour as she opened the buttons of his fly. His erection popped up, straining at the fabric of his underpants. Shoving both his pants and his trousers down to his knees, he knelt on the floor and positioned himself. Irene guided him into her, gasping as his length filled her with one deep, slippery stroke. She lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist.

Panting already, Vince murmured in her ear, ‘Jesus Christ, I’m not going to last long. Hold on, babe.’

Irene did, and moments later Vince gave three or four almighty thrusts, then shuddered and gradually subsided onto her. She stroked his hair and waited. When his breathing had slowed somewhat, he withdrew and pushed himself back onto his naked haunches.

‘I’ve been waiting for that for a long time,’ he declared, still breathless. ‘And, my God, it was worth it. Irene Baxter, I think I love you.’

Irene laughed, delighted. He’d said it! And as she gazed into his dark, slightly glazed eyes, she began to believe that what she felt for him could quite easily be love, too, or something very close to it; she was sure nothing else could make her feel like this.

Vince got to his feet. ‘Christ, my legs feel like jelly,’ he said, staggering slightly as he yanked up his trousers. He reached for his jacket, took the handkerchief neatly folded into the breast pocket and handed it to her. ‘Here, use this to clean yourself up.’

Irene mopped at the wetness between her legs, then handed back the handkerchief, which had Vince’s initials embroidered in one corner. Vince looked at it, then stuffed it behind the cartons.

‘Well, I can hardly take that home for Cynthia to wash, can I?’

Irene retrieved her underwear from the floor and put on her bra and blouse. Then, while Vince was tucking in his shirt and putting on his jacket, she fished a mirror out of her bag, combed her hair and put on fresh lipstick.

‘We’d better go upstairs separately,’ Vince said as he smoothed his hair into place. ‘That was fantastic, darling. When can we do it again?’

Irene giggled. ‘As soon as possible, I hope.’

‘Me, too. Tomorrow?’

‘I can’t, I’ve got something on.’

‘What about Sunday. Are you going to the staff picnic?’

‘Yes, but Martin’s coming as well. Well, he said he would, unless he has to go into the office. Are you?’

‘Yes, but with Cynthia, of course. Still, you never know, we might be able to sneak away for a few minutes.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Bugger. Speaking of minutes, I have to get back to work.’ He pecked Irene on the cheek. ‘See you at afternoon tea?’

Five minutes after Vince ducked out into the hallway, Irene left herself, feeling as though her feet had wings.

Keith Beaumont stood in his office on the first floor and stared out of the window at the opposite side of Wyndham Street. The shop he was looking at was a draper’s, selling blue jeans at a much lower price than Dunbar & Jones. Still, they were probably badly made from inferior fabric, so he wasn’t worried. He opened the top drawer of his desk, eyeing the hip flask of scotch longingly, but reached for his cigarettes instead. He slid one out of the packet and lit it, watching the pale smoke swirl up into the air and luxuriating, if only fleetingly, in the sense of calmness it gave him.

He sat down and smoked the cigarette to the butt, then ground it out in his ashtray. After remaining still for a long moment, he rubbed his face vigorously with his hands as though he could scrub away what he was terrified was written all over it.

He was fifty-five years old and had been manager of Dunbar & Jones for eight years now. He was doing well
—he had his eye on everything that went on in the store, he met his targets every quarter and he was respected by his boss Maxwell Jones if not by the rest of his staff, many of whom, he knew, were frightened of him. He was also an inveterate gambler and had been skimming between two and three hundred pounds off the store’s takings every fortnight for the past eighteen months. It had been surprisingly easy, though he’d worried himself sick when he’d started.

The first thing he had done was tell the woman who supervised the accounts office that he was about to instigate a regular programme of spot audits of the books, carried out by himself, of course. From then on, every fortnight after the staff had gone home at the end of the day, he simply went into the accounts office upstairs and altered the figures for the previous two weeks’ takings. He did it in increments—thirty pounds from one day, thirteen from another and forty-five from another—and he did it so that the shortfall looked like customer returns, then he took the money out of the safe before it could be banked the following day. He also constantly practised different handwriting styles so he could manufacture bogus returns dockets, which ensured that everything balanced. He couldn’t do it with the credit accounts, of course, because the money for those sales was paid once a month and often by cheque, so he confined himself to cash sales. But that still gave him plenty of scope because, though most of Dunbar & Jones’s biggest-spending customers had credit accounts, the majority of purchases were still made by people who paid cash.

It had worried him for a long time that one day someone in accounts would question a returns docket and actually talk to the sales assistant who had purportedly filled it out.
So, to circumvent that, he had told Max Jones that he was becoming concerned about the number of returns the store was experiencing—though everyone knew that returns were common and unavoidable—and that he was going to keep an eye on them. He then told the cash office supervisor that any discrepancies in returns dockets must go to him first, and that he would deal with them personally. He would be questioning the sales assistant concerned very closely about why the customer had felt compelled to return their purchase and establishing whether there had been a failure of duty to deliver the highest possible quality of customer service. The accounts office supervisor was a decent, kind-hearted woman: rather than get someone into trouble over what was probably fickle or difficult customer behaviour, he knew she would probably keep the returns dockets to herself. So far this assessment had been spot on—none of the returns dockets had ever been questioned and Keith had actually received a small bonus from Max Jones for being so vigilant and innovative.