Alicia received the text at the worst possible moment.
She was standing in front of the bedroom mirror, jostling her boobs into prime position within the confines of her mini-dress, when the phone blipped from its resting-place on her bed. Her heart lurched at the sound. God, please no. It could have come any time that week, surely not tonight ... Not when Matt was treating her for her birthday, for God's sake. Taking her to The Biarritz―so she had wheedled out of him―a restaurant so exclusive he had booked a month in advance.
The hour since arrival home from work had been spent in a flurry of preparation. Stripped of her office clothes she showered thoroughly, using probing, soapy fingers to wash out her pussy and the tight knot of her anus in preparation for her boyfriend's attentions later on. She talced and perfumed the robust curves of her body, before squeezing her ass into a tiny pair of lace panties and suspending her imposingly orbed tits in the matching brassiere. An exotic wriggling manoeuvre got her into the patterned yellow dress―the one that held so tightly to the slalom course of her body―and the effect was enhanced with application of mascara and a whorishly red lipstick that promised serious cock-sucking before the evening was out.
The necklace, her Christmas present from Matt, was hooked in place so that its silver heart nestled attractively in her cleavage. She brushed back the ringlets of her auburn hair and was joggling her breasts higher to maximize their visibility when the text message arrived and fucked up everything.
The tightening in Alicia's stomach as she clicked on her mobile phone proved justified. Matt had not sent the message. It was another communication, the one she had been anticipating with a mixture of dread and hope for five whole days.
RE MONDAY'S CONVERSATION - WAITING IN MY OFFICE. GET HERE SOON, GAVIN.
She stared at the screen of her phone in an advanced state of consternation. Bastard! Why Friday frigging night? Okay, okay, phone him―try and get him to rearrange. There's the whole weekend. We can sort out another time. She jabbed the recall button and realised as the ring sounded in her ear, how rapidly her heart was beating.
Click. "You've reached Gavin McClain. Please speak after the tone." His voice, cold and peremptory, made her cut the call dead in surprise. Why couldn't he bloody answer? Immediately she keyed in the number for the office, adding the code to Gavin's extension; she had put enough people through over the past months to remember it easily.
"Hello, this is Gavin McClain. I'm out of the office or on another call ..."
Fuck. What was he playing at, texting her and then suddenly inaccessible? This time she left a voicemail. "Gavin―Hi, Alicia here. Could you call me when you get this? Okay, bye."
Five minutes passed, five long minutes of pacing the bedroom and fretting over the phone lying silent in the palm of her hand. This was bloody ridiculous. He obviously knew she was trying to get in touch with him. What was this, his way of reeling her in? Well, the arrangement was off. If he was going to play power games with her, he could go fuck himself. She flung the device down on the bed and turned heel to leave the room.
Even before reaching the door, she stopped to review her decision. If she refused to play along with his game and he called the whole arrangement off, she'd have precisely what to show for it? Her pride―that and fuck all else. No―she could go to his office, explain the situation to him, urge him to reschedule. The fact that she had made the trip should flatter his ego sufficiently for now.
But had she time? Seven o'clock by her watch. Matt was due to call for her at seven thirty. Shit, it would take fifteen minutes to drive to the company building, even now the traffic had slackened. She stood in the middle of the room for a moment, fists clenched against her bosom in indecision. Wait, it was okay. They were going to a bar prior to the restaurant. Once she'd arrived at the office and spoken to Gavin, she would phone Matt and cry off the drink―she could think of some excuse in the car―and she'd be back home in time to go straight to the restaurant with him. Yes. Simple.
She grabbed her phone from the bed and put it in her purse. Okay, what if the errand took longer than half an hour? She'd simply have to arrange to meet Matt at the restaurant. Make-up bag ... Make-up bag ... She raced to the bathroom and grabbed it from the sink. Shoes ...She slipped into a flat pair for driving and picked up her sexy heels in case she needed to go directly to The Biarritz. Then she ran out to the car.
Her ten-year-old bone-shaker of a Ford Fiesta threatened not to start up. "Useless piece of shit," she muttered, before it coughed its way into action and allowed her to steer it out of the parking space. Now here was a reminder, if one were needed, of why she had agreed to a dangerous liaison with Gavin in the first place. An extra seven grand a year, resulting in a vehicle upgrade, a winter holiday and some serious shopping. That was a proposition a girl didn't simply brush off, not this girl at any rate.
Although one week ago, she had attempted to do precisely that.
Gavin seldom put in an appearance at the company's end-of-week drinks outing. As the demanding boss of Rainbow Software, he was doubtless too committed to the cut and thrust of business to indulge in such Friday evening steam-venting; either that or he carried out his recreational pursuits elsewhere. Predictably his presence in the Cock and Bull that night caused a frisson of gossipy interest among Alicia's fellow receptionists. Through all of her six months' work at Rainbow, Gavin and the mystery of his private existence had provided conversational fodder around the water cooler. What did anyone really know about their taciturn boss, who only occasionally departed from his work script to throw some ambiguous piece of flirtation the way of one of the female staff, no doubt causing her to cream her knickers on the spot?
He had been engaged once, it was rumoured, but in his late-thirties there was no hint of any significant person in his life. As a businessman he was single-minded―the scourge of anyone who tried beating him to a lucrative contract. His physique suggested the same single-mindedness in his physical training. Julia, whose desk was next to Alicia's, had met him in the sauna at a gym nearby the office one evening and was able to report that stripped to his shorts he demonstrated the physical attributes they had all hoped lay beneath his Armani: a body's worth of hard muscle, with no hint of middle-aged flab. What lay beneath the shorts she still had partially to surmise, but a glance at his pelvic region had given her high hopes. She adjusted herself in her seat and positively salivated as she discussed the matter.
There were, Alicia had observed, women who fell markedly silent when Gavin was discussed. Gina, the pretty blond temp, for example, became very tight-lipped when his name cropped up in conversation. And Jacinda, the bookish girl from accounts who hid her attractiveness with the traditional tied-up hair and glasses look, took on an air of grim knowingness on such occasions and cast her eyes down to her coffee. Were both disappointed perhaps, having nursed some romantic or sexual longing for the company boss? Or did they have inside knowledge of what it meant to get involved with him outside their fantasies? Alicia could only imagine ... and her imagination ran riot.
She received more than a few jealous glances when Gavin engaged her in conversation that Friday evening. There was no mistaking his power of attraction as he turned to her at the bar. A Mr Rochester for modern times. Alicia did not recall a great deal from English GCSE, but the enigmatic hero of Jane Eyre had seized her imagination―a great brooding tower of masculinity, simmering with unspoken passion. Gavin was from the same mould, she reckoned. Rugged creases in his face and flecks of grey in his dark hair betrayed his maturity, but everything else about him--the alertness of his gaze and the athleticism of that massive frame--suggested the vitality, the virility of a younger man. His proximity caused her to spill some of her vodka and Coke.
