Sticky Fingers, page 2
Suddenly, he had an idea. The first one to give him a true feeling of peace in the eight days since he’d discovered his girlfriend’s actual desire. He knew just what he’d do with the rest of his evening. He stumbled back down the hall, then slid in the DVD for The Maltese Falcon. After pouring another drink, he parked himself in front of his high-tech media centre.
As the opening of his all-time favourite movie started to play, he reached down and replaced the phone receiver. He did it almost casually, as if he were simply fixing a piece of prop scenery on the stage of his life. Still, he shook his head at the pull of optimism that charged this small action.
What if she called? That’s why he did it. What if?
He’d have gone up the river for Bailey. That wasn’t a lie. But she hadn’t wanted him to paddle along at her side.
Chapter Three
The black velvet string of silver bells tied to the front door of Belle’s Beauty Box tinkled musically. The sound alerted the shopkeeper to an entering customer and brought an end to Isabelle’s work-hour tryst with Cameron Sweeney in the back room.
‘I thought you put the closed sign out,’ she sighed unhappily.
‘My mistake,’ he said. ‘I was too busy peeling that naughty skirt off you. When you dress like that, you make me forget things. And that skirt just had to come down.’ He groaned, watching as she lifted the item in question off the floor. ‘I needed to see that beautiful ass of yours underneath.’
‘This ass?’ Isabelle teased, ‘and this skirt?’ she continued. She pulled the zipper back up the side, then cocked a hip in Cameron’s direction. Isabelle didn’t have to glance in a mirror to know how good she looked in the zebra-print leather, but she loved seeing the expression of sadness on Cameron’s face as her momentarily-naked body disappeared beneath the fine fabric.
‘That sweet, sweet skirt. Take it off again. Don’t leave me like this.’ He gestured with one hand to his hard-on, exposed in the opening of his black gabardine slacks. ‘Come on, Izzy. Baby. I need you. This needs you. You’re not being fair.’
He was so pitiful in his begging that Isabelle gave in to him for a moment, bending to suck just the head of his penis in a little goodbye kiss. Her mouth closed around it and she swallowed hard, hearing him sigh at how good that felt.
‘That’s right,’ he said softly. ‘That’s my baby.’
She swirled her tongue in a tickling massage, then dragged the point of her tongue up and down the length. Really, how could she resist something that so obviously craved the mystical ministrations of her mouth? But after a quick bob, she backed away from her man.
‘Don’t do it,’ Cameron begged. ‘Just say no –’
‘That’s about drugs, not sex. Or customers.’ Now, she darted her tongue along her top lip, savouring the taste of him. ‘Besides, what we just did was only a warmup,’ she said. ‘A little glimmer of what you’ll get when I finish my business. Right now, you’ll have to wait. Exercise a little self-control.’
‘I’m not a patient man. You know that.’
Isabelle grinned. Yes, she did. She knew all about Cameron’s amazing sexual appetite. He was ready all the time, and he didn’t like to postpone pleasure for even a moment. Cameron couldn’t understand the concept of hunger as an aphrodisiac. ‘Why don’t you meet me around the corner at Sammy’s? After I help whoever’s out there.’ She turned to point to the monitor on her desk that was focused on the front room of her lingerie store. ‘I’ll close up for the day and we can have a drink.’
‘What I want you to drink, they don’t serve at Sammy’s.’
‘Patience,’ she repeated. ‘It’s a virtue.’
‘Not one that I possess,’ he sighed. ‘Never have. Never saw the point in it.’ Spoken, Isabelle thought, like someone who had everything. In general, Cameron did have everything he could ever want, but maybe not right this moment.
‘Be a good boy,’ she said.
Pouting, Cameron stared at the monitor, too, and then he turned to look at Isabelle. Exhilaration from a new idea shone in his green eyes. ‘Why don’t I wait?’
‘You can’t watch ladies change. That’s illegal.’
‘And immoral,’ he said, nodding energetically, dark eyebrows raised. ‘And nobody will ever know.’
‘I’ll know.’
‘But that’s what makes it so much fun, right, sweetheart?’ He tucked himself back into his expensive black slacks, then walked towards Isabelle. Wrapping one strong arm around her shoulders, he continued his seductive sales pitch, which was something Cameron was very good at. His charm was a great part of why he was a multi-millionaire, rich even by Silicon Valley’s extreme standards of wealth. He had an innate ability to get people to do what he wanted. ‘You’ll know that I’m back here doing what I do best, while you’re up there, helping to slip some pretty little lady into a pair of tight-fitting silver tap panties with black-lace trim.’
‘You like those panties?’
He nodded. It was clear from the look on his face that he knew he’d won the battle before they’d even started. He knew because Isabelle had a customer waiting. Ever the professional, she couldn’t hang back here and engage in an erotic dispute. Isabelle understood that even though this sole sale might not make her day, good customer service always accounted for repeat clients. And when it came right down to it, she didn’t mind Cameron getting his kinky turn-ons from his voyeuristic fetish. Cheap thrills for the man with the big bank account. Of course, she understood just how much he liked to watch. That was how they’d met, Cameron watching her model a new designer’s lingerie at a trunk show. Afterwards, he had come back behind the changing curtain and offered her ten thousand dollars for a private showing. She’d taken him up on the offer of a show for his eyes only, but she’d refused the money because she wasn’t on the game.
No time for tantalising trips down memory lane now. She pointed to the white-washed wooden stool where he could gaze at the trio of monitors, and then she put her finger to her shiny cherry-hued lips. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Just this once. Wait for me here, and be a good boy.’
‘Aren’t I always?’
She refused to answer the loaded question because she knew it would lead to a series of others, which would probably lead to her mouth opening again and sucking him down. Instead, she brushed her hands down her smooth black-and-white skirt, shook out her long blonde hair, and put on her best professional expression. No time to think about it right now. It was time to work.
With her blue eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, Isabelle watched the dark-haired beauty rifle through the racks of new arrivals. The girl discarded each one with a half-sneer, then pushed on to the next with a combined look of little interest and obvious disdain. She’d left a fun frisky scene with Cameron for this caustic customer? What was the point? The woman clearly was not interested in anything she had on display. Isabelle stared at her for a moment, recognising the shopper from the neighbourhood. She’d seen her around, but had never spoken to her before.
‘Are you sure that I can’t help you?’ Isabelle said, putting as much good cheer as she could into her voice.
The girl just shook her head. ‘Browsing,’ she said tersely.
Picky patrons like this one stepped all over Isabelle’s nerves. She knew that her lingerie was by far the best locally. In fact, for three years running, Belle’s Beauty Box had been voted the number one lingerie store in the region in the Wicked Weekly’s Conscientious Consumer Report. There was no way to find anything more exquisite in the department stores downtown. You had to go to Europe and look through the manufacturers’ supplies, search out the very best creations, and train your eye to spot the dreamiest silks, soft est satins, delicate and fragile hand-woven, hand-stitched designs. The unusual is what she sold: the intricate and elegant. This was why Isabelle ventured to Europe twice a year on her foreign buying binges. Nothing compared to the items she found in France and Italy.
So exactly what did this ritzy-looking bitch want?
Nothing. Wrinkling her brow, the girl tipped several transparent bras off a tiny silver display, and Isabelle hurried to catch the rack before the rest tumbled and created chaos. While she was leaning down to pick up the crushed items, she saw the girl steal a thong. No way! Isabelle thought. All that for nothing. She’d done her best to help, offered her capable assistance, oohed and ahhed at every item handled, and it turned out the customer wasn’t a customer at all. She was a common thief. Or maybe not so common. The girl looked well-heeled, plenty refined. Someone she’d seen often enough strolling through this high-end district, down at the bar around the corner, and occasionally in her store, as well. So not common, perhaps, but a thief nonetheless.
Without considering the consequences, Isabelle allowed her hand to dive forcefully into the woman’s pocket after the stolen thong. There, she reached around, and came up … empty-handed. Confusion rather than anger now marred the shopkeeper’s pretty features.
‘You’re looking for what precisely?’ the customer said indignantly. ‘My thigh?’
‘I saw you –’
‘Saw me what?’ the woman asked, testing Isabelle with her icy gaze.
The struggle played out in Isabelle’s eyes: confront the girl and demand she hand over the purloined panties immediately before the police were involved? Or err on the side of caution? As a shop owner, Isabelle knew that old clichéd saying well enough: the customer was always right on some level. But this afternoon Isabelle was too upset to be rational.
‘I saw you,’ Isabelle said again, through clenched teeth. Anger had fuelled the intensity of the connection, but although her hand was still deep in the customer’s pocket, suddenly a different set of emotions ran through her.
‘You saw me what?’ the dark-haired beauty repeated, her dusky tone of voice altered slightly. She wasn’t asking the same question at all, this time, was she? Isabelle squinted her light blue eyes and tried her best to read the thief’s face. Exactly what was going on here? This was her store, her territory, yet she felt completely lost and out of place, as if she’d entered the translucent world of a wet dream.
The two women were standing next to each other. So close. Finally, Isabelle started to withdraw her hand, admitting failure with her actions. Now, the customer grabbed on to her wrist firmly and slid it back into the pocket, where Isabelle could feel the tiny opening cut through the bottom, and could also feel the customer’s smooth naked thigh.
‘Secret pocket,’ the woman said, ‘high up on the inside.’
Isabelle’s fingers probed further, finding the lacy red ribbon of thong tucked in there like some sort of prop in a magic trick and finding something else, as well. Something that both surprised and excited her. She hadn’t fully recovered from her carnal connection with Cameron in the back room. Sex was in the air, all around her, and she felt herself moving with the palpably sensual force of the situation.
‘What’s going on?’ Isabelle asked, her voice low. ‘What are you doing?’
‘You’re the owner, right?’
Isabelle nodded. She could feel a heat in her cheeks as she continued to trace her fingers up and down the lace-edged panties of this most curious customer she’d ever had.
‘I’m Jodie Silver,’ the girl said. ‘I work around the corner, at 770 Chestnut.’ She indicated with a nod of her head towards a building somewhere down the street. ‘The truth is that I’ve been watching you.’ Her voice remained calm and even. There was nothing from her expression to give away any sort of emotion. Was she scared? Pleased? Excited? The only evidence Isabelle had for any of these possibilities was the slick wetness on her own fingertips.
‘Watching?’ Isabelle murmured, and as she spoke the words, she drove her fingers further inside, probing beneath the satiny panties and into Jodie’s ready sex. Still, the girl didn’t flinch. Didn’t give up anything.
‘Every day, walking by on my way to work, I see you. See you watching me back. Staring through the windows. Or into the mirror to see my reflection as I pass by. I know all about you.’
‘What do you know?’
‘I know that you try on the clothes at night. Without the special liners the customers are required by law to use. I know that this thong, this exact scarlet thong, has caressed your own beautiful naked body.’ There was a pause then, and Isabelle felt her cheeks heat up further, but she didn’t say a word. ‘And I know you want me to do that for you,’ Jodie finally continued.
‘Do what?’
‘Caress the very same spot –’
Isabelle, her fingers slippery now, pulled her hand from Jodie’s slit pocket. While Jodie watched, she slowly licked her fingertips clean. Then she turned and walked to the front door of the store and flipped the lock, put the closed sign out, which Cameron had failed to do a half hour earlier, and leaned back against the cool glass plate. There was a moment when she worked out in her mind what she was going to do next. She saw the scene unfold as if it were a movie and she owned the master reel. As she approached Jodie, she pointed to a metal-framed sign hanging on the back wall.
‘You can read, right?’
Jodie nodded, but a smile changed her stone-like features. It was clear from her expression that she knew where Isabelle was heading with this question, yet she didn’t say a word to stop the inevitable.
‘So read it to me.’
‘Shoplifters will be prosecuted –’
‘Keep reading,’ Isabelle demanded, and now she stepped even closer to Jodie, waiting to hear each word. ‘Prosecuted to the full extent –’ As Jodie said the words, Isabelle pushed her forcefully towards the dressing room at the rear of the store. Jodie’s high-heeled spectators made a click-clack on the polished floor as she worked to match Isabelle’s long stride. The blonde store owner thrust aside the creamy velvet curtain, then dragged Jodie in after her.
Inside the dressing room, Isabelle pressed Jodie against the rose-printed wall, knowing that they were now out of sight from any passers-by on the street. But Jodie could still see the sign from where she stood, and Isabelle said, ‘Keep reading,’ before she dropped on to her knees in front of her and undid the zippered fly of Jodie’s pin-striped slacks. This was one of her all-time favourite positions. In front of a lover for the very first time, about to learn the most intimate secrets a new partner had to offer. Would Jodie be shaved bare? Would there be a drag-strip of dark curly fur waiting or was she the type to go in for one of those wild wax jobs, where colour was applied and shapes were etched in?
‘Prosecuted to the full extent of the law.’
‘You know what that means?’ Isabelle murmured, slipping Jodie’s slacks down her lean thighs to the rounded curves of her calves. Oh, the girl was shaved. Isabelle loved the feel of purely bare skin against her lips. When Jodie didn’t answer, Isabelle kept talking. ‘You look educated enough. You do know what the word “prosecuted” means, don’t you?’
‘We don’t need the law here, do we?’ Jodie asked, now digging her fingers through Isabelle’s silky gold-streaked mane.
‘No,’ Isabelle agreed, shaking her head back and forth, revelling in the feeling of being caressed like that. ‘I can always mete out the punishment myself.’
‘But not yet,’ Jodie sighed, arching her back and pressing herself hard against Isabelle’s ready, willing mouth. Finally, she seemed to be melting into the situation. ‘Please, not yet –’
The camera poised innocently above the women caught everything that happened between them, although this wasn’t the video’s official purpose. Cameron knew that the lens was highly focused with the intention of recording some naughty customer slipping Isabelle’s expensive merchandise into a purse or a pocket. Generally, the high-tech machine did the job commendably. More than once, Isabelle had told Cameron about the benefits of using the monitor system. She’d said that she probably didn’t even need to have film in the thing. She would simply point to the discreet video camera, and a guilty look would flash across some woman’s face. Then that woman would undoubtedly pull an incredibly confused act. ‘Oh, my gosh! How did this pair of panties wind up in my purse? I’ll pay for them immediately. Just to smooth things over. And, um, let me take a few extra bras, as well. Would that be okay, Miss?’
But this afternoon, the lens of the camera recorded two women making love for the first time, and Cameron Sweeney couldn’t believe his luck. There was nothing like the cheesiness of porn movies about the situation; yet here were two totally gorgeous girls getting to know each other in a very personal way only moments after having met. Perhaps that part was like an X-rated movie, he thought. The plot. Or what wasn’t actually a real plot, just a ‘cute meet’. You know, cut to the chase. Whatever you called it, the scene turned him on. He stared at the screen, hand wrapped tightly around himself, and he pulled hard as he watched his favourite girlfriend lick another woman’s pussy. How sweet that was, the way Isabelle’s hands caressed the girl’s thighs, then moved back, obviously cradling her ass.
From the women’s positioning, he couldn’t see Isabelle’s face clearly. That was because his blonde nymphet had pressed her mouth against the new girl’s sex. He thought about Isabelle’s knowledgeable tongue as he watched the brunette sigh in true pleasure. He had a wealth of personal experience with Izzy’s mouth, knew just how amazing it could feel when she decided to really treat a lover. She did things with her tongue that few girls had done to him before because of his size. It wasn’t only that she could truly suck him, but that she seemed to like the act. She got into the action forcefully, and every time he boned her after she’d gone down on him, she was really moist. To Cameron’s way of thinking, this was a real-life sign that she was as turned-on by treating him as he was at receiving the oral wonders of her amazing mouth.
