‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. ‘Are my boots equipped with a tracking device for customers who leave without paying?’
He offered her a smile that seemed to turn inwards, as though he knew a private joke. ‘Something like that.’ Then he added, ‘I figured you’d come back, and even if you didn’t, I can hardly begrudge you the boots after … well, after such a lovely down payment.’
She laughed softly at her own private joke, but then she decided not to keep it to herself. ‘Afraid a down payment may be all you’ll get. I just quit my job.’
‘Oh?’
‘My boss is an arsehole, OK, but that’s nothing new. Up until now I’ve managed to get by keeping a low profile. But today … don’t know what came over me. Guess he finally just pushed me too far.’
The man’s startling eyes darkened like a storm, and he leaned closer. ‘What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?’
She found that she didn’t, which was strange. There was a time, only yesterday in fact, when what her boss had done to her would have embarrassed her, would have made her doubt herself and wonder what she’d done to make him think of her that way.
When she’d finished her story, the clerk’s eyes had gone from stormy to a total cyclone of rage. The muscles along his jaws looked like he could chew bullets, and Jill noticed his fists clenching and unclenching at his side. ‘Sounds like the bastard deserved what he got and then some,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have had to deal with that.’
‘Well, I did. And now I’m unemployed.’ When she started to order another shot, he laid his hand on hers.
‘Don’t do that.’ He held her gaze, and the feeling wasn’t unlike looking over the cliffs into a raging sea. ‘Since you can’t afford to pay for the boots, I see no other option but to have you work off your debt, and you can’t work off your debt if you’re drunk.’
She blinked. ‘But I don’t know anything about selling shoes.’
Ignoring the fair-sized crowd of early lunchers and the press of loiterers at the bar, the clerk tilted her chin with the curve of a finger and brushed a tease of a kiss against her lips. Even though it was barely there, no part of her anatomy missed the flick of his tongue. When he pulled away, still holding her gaze, they were both breathing noticeably harder. She was suddenly aware of just how trimly the T-shirt with the electric-blue Kinky Boots logo fitted across his chest. ‘Though it wouldn’t be that hard to train you to work in the shop, what I had in mind is something that I hope you don’t need any training for.’
‘Oh. Oh!’ There was something delightful, refreshing, regenerating in the fact that he wanted her still, even in the naked light of day, even with her miserable confession of unemployment. She responded by kissing him back, by answering his tongue with a flick of her own, by brazenly resting a hand high on his thigh. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, I don’t get out much.’
‘I like women who don’t get out much. That means they’re focused on things that matter to them, and I like that a lot.’
‘Vivie calls that clueless,’ she said breathlessly.
‘I’m not Vivie, am I?’ This time the kiss included an embrace that jostled the drinkers at the bar next to them and nearly pulled her off her feet. He placed a warm hand against her bare skin, beneath the jacket and under the edge of her blouse. This time there was more than just a flick of the tongue, much more. And Jesus, did the man ever know what to do with his tongue!
Still ploughing her mouth like he expected to find hidden treasure, he fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a tenner and slapped it down on the bar. Then he pulled away for breath. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here.’
They were only a few blocks from Kinky Boots, but it seemed too far. He barely had her out of the door before he crushed her to his chest and ravaged her mouth again, this time running both hands up under the back of her blouse, then down to cup her bottom and haul her up onto her toes until she could feel the rake of his growing hard-on against her pubic bone. He pulled away gasping, grabbed her hand and dragged her at a breakneck pace down Shoreditch High Street toward Kinky Boots. ‘We’d better hurry,’ he said. ‘This time I don’t intend to come in my pants, and I certainly don’t intend for you to.’
Jesus, the man was talking dirty to her right out in the middle of the busy street. ‘You’re taking me back to the shop?’ She balked. ‘We’re going to do it in a shoe store? On Saturday afternoon?’