Kinky Boots (Mischief Books) Page 5

  She lifted her bottom and allowed Finn to slide off her knickers. And, as he pushed her legs open, everyone got a glimpse of her down there where she was hot and needy. Why wasn’t she embarrassed? She opened her blouse and worried her bra cups down so her nipples peeked over the top like two hard little marbles. All the while she watched, anticipated, as Finn unzipped and untucked and shoved his trousers down until she could grab his bare bum as he positioned himself. And they were watching – Meinrad with his monster cock and Chelsea with her tight little breasts. Jill wondered if they could hold off and continue to chant all official-like while Finn took her. She bet they couldn’t.

  For a second she thought it was Chelsea making the little gruntings, the little girl-like whimperings and whinings, but it was her. It was her lifting her bottom, holding herself open with two fingers, raking at herself like there was no tomorrow. It was her, certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that if Finn didn’t fuck her soon, she’d die, sacrificial lamb or not.

  And when he wriggled into position and pushed up tight against her begging pout, she quivered all over in anticipation. She knew what he felt like. Dear heaven, she knew what he felt like, had known what he felt like for a very long time. He was the reason she stayed, the reason she agreed to their silly little pact, the reason she wanted flesh and blood and breath to channel her lust.

  With a harsh grunt he pushed in, and Jill surfaced from a pool of thoughts that weren’t hers, from feelings that were in themselves almost enough to make her come. And Finn began to thrust.

  He was saying something. It wasn’t a chant. It was something she should probably listen to, would probably have been able to if his pubic bone hadn’t raked her clit so deliciously every time he thrust.

  ‘Eleanor, please,’ he was saying. ‘You have to come out of Jill. She didn’t ask for you. I promise, if you do, you can be in me as much as you want.’

  Jill wrapped her legs around his hips, grabbed his hair and pulled his mouth down to hers. ‘I don’t want to be inside you, Finn Masters. I want you to be inside me. Don’t you understand?’ Had she said that? It certainly was true, wasn’t it? She wanted the man to shag her brains out. She reached to grab his butt and pull him closer, deeper into her, and he groaned.

  ‘Eleanor, please,’ he whispered breathlessly between ravishing kisses. ‘Jill didn’t invite you. You’re going where you weren’t invited. Please don’t do this.’

  In peripheral vision that was somehow clearer and brighter than she ever remembered, Jill could see that Meinrad did indeed have equipment proportionate to his body and it was now jutting from his open fly, shoving, bloated and stiff, in and out of the man’s fisted hand, and he was still chanting.

  On the other side of the table, Chelsea had a hand under her T-shirt pinching and tugging a nipple while she rode the other hand like she was a cowgirl on a bucking bronco. But she was still chanting in unison with Meinrad.

  ‘Eleanor, please, please don’t do this, not if Jill doesn’t want it,’ Finn said, nuzzling against her throat, speaking in harsh, breathy rasps. ‘Please set her free.’

  Jill could no longer distinguish where she left off and Eleanor began. The lust she felt was white-hot, but there was more, there was so much more. She could feel the demon down under her breastbone, up along her spine, underneath her skin and coursing through her veins. Eleanor was everywhere, Eleanor was everything. Eleanor was raw, aching power wrapped in a need that was unlike any need Jill had ever experienced. She stood only on the edge of the ocean of Eleanor, the ocean that was somehow, incredibly, impossibly, contained by her.

  Orgasm came from a long way off, like a wave growing on itself. Jill wasn’t sure where she was in that ocean of lust, but on it was a life raft, and that life raft was Finn. And if it were possible, he was filling her even fuller than Eleanor was. She held on tight, thrusting hard. Meinrad grunted his orgasm onto the floor next to the altar. Chelsea keened out her release against the press of her palm.

  And then the world exploded outwards. Finn came. Jill came, and Eleanor curled around her in an embrace that was ecstatic and primordial and completely and totally new. And just at the instant before it all slipped away, Jill held on tight.

  Chapter 7

  When Jill came to, she was lying on Finn’s sofa. He sat on the coffee table next to her, bathing her forehead with a cool cloth. The relief on his face expanded to a cautious smile. ‘Welcome back. You all right?’

  Was she? She wasn’t sure. Nothing seemed broken or damaged. Her head didn’t hurt, and it was still on the right way. There was no urge to vomit pea soup. Her stomach felt just fine, though she realised she was ravenous. And damned if she still didn’t feel like she could open her legs and pull Finn right down on top of her. He was certainly well equipped for it, with a hefty hard-on snugged up tight against the front of his jeans.

  It was when she rested her hand upon it, when he moaned and bit his lip, that she noticed Meinrad glaring at her from across the room, arms folded over his deep chest as though he were standing guard. Chelsea sat on the arm of the sofa at her feet, leaning anxiously forward. Then it all came rushing back to her, the altar table, the bad-arse dagger, the chanting, the sex. Eleanor.

  She felt warm breath against the fine hair at the base of her neck, then it moved over the tips of her nipples and, like the brush of a feather, it flicked down her sternum and ended with a tiny puff against the node of her clit. As the pleasure of it rushed up her spine and straight to her brain, she knew.

  ‘It didn’t work,’ she said.

  Meinrad growled. ‘You fucking have to want it to work first. She can tell that, you know?’

  ‘Don’t tell me what I want.’ She forced herself into a sitting position, thought better of it as the world spun around her, and Finn eased her back down. ‘You don’t know what the hell I want. And don’t go acting like it’s all my fault you screwed up.’

  ‘Ease off, Meinrad. Now.’ Finn came to his feet so quickly that Jill had to do a double take. Almost before she could blink he stood nose to nose with the big man. ‘Eleanor was in your care. You were her host.’ He shot Chelsea a sharp look. ‘Both of you.’ The room practically vibrated with Finn’s anger, and Jill felt something as visceral as it was sexual, laced with fear and the effervescent tingle of magic she’d felt on the altar.

  ‘The two of you knew I was working in Kinky Boots, and you knew what night it was. What the fuck happened?’

  It was almost as though Meinrad visibly deflated. ‘I have no idea.’ He plopped down in a partner to the Queen Anne chair that was in Kinky Boots, dwarfing it beneath his heavy haunches. ‘Chelsea and I were shagging. We thought Eleanor was fully engaged. She was in me at the time. You know how she likes my cock.’

  Jesus, too much information, Jill thought, but she was the only one who seemed to notice.

  Chelsea nodded sagely. ‘Usually Meinrad’s size can keep her occupied for hours.’

  Even Finn nodded his agreement.

  ‘Like I said, Chel and I were shagging. She had just had a nice big come, and I was getting close.’ The big man ran a hand through his wild hair. ‘Well, you know, at that point a person’s a bit distracted, a bit vulnerable. Anyway, I came, and before we caught our breath, we realised Eleanor was gone.’

  Jill eased herself into a sitting position, and just when Finn was sure she was comfortable, the pizza arrived. ‘Pizza after a botched exorcism?’ She said. ‘Who knew?’

  ‘Food after magic,’ Finn corrected, offering her a hefty piece of quattro stagioni on a plate Chelsea had scrounged from the kitchen.

  ‘It wasn’t a botched exorcism,’ Meinrad said. ‘It was a shot in the dark to begin with.’ He seemed a lot less belligerent, almost apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, Jill, but we all knew that going in.’

  ‘So now what?’ Jill spoke with her mouth full, wondering how she could be wolfing down pizza at a time like this, but God, it was delicious!

  ‘She may come out on her own eventually,’ Chelsea s
aid, forcing a cheerful smile.

  ‘Eventually?’

  ‘If she gets bored or finds someone else more interesting,’ Meinrad said.

  ‘Lovely. So all I have to do is bore her.’

  ‘I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one,’ Finn said, looking like he’d much rather eat her than the pizza. He moved to the couch, sat next to her and held her gaze. ‘Jill, Eleanor was drawn to you because of your powerful libido. She was able to possess you because we were … intimate. The full moon made it easier for her.’ The muscles along his strong jaw tensed, and he looked away. ‘I’m sorry, I should have known not to …’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Jill said. ‘I practically attacked you.’ She shot the other two a quick glance, daring them to comment. They didn’t.

  ‘She sensed you when you entered the shop, maybe even before, and she was already in the boots waiting,’ Finn said. ‘She’s a lust demon. She’s drawn to sexual chemistry, and ours had to have been off the scale. Plus the act of lacing, tying, binding, making knots is in itself powerful magic. Once I finished lacing both boots, she was right there and ready.’

  ‘But why?’ Jill said, already grabbing for her second slice of pizza. ‘If she was in Meinrad at the time, and if he and Chelsea were shagging –’ she couldn’t hold back a blush ‘– then why wasn’t that enough?’

  ‘Sole Alliance is temporary housing,’ Finn said. ‘That was the agreement. She was to use our bodies when she needed them, and we were to make ourselves available. That was how we convinced Eleanor to … behave herself.’

  Jill felt a chill. ‘Behave herself?’ As much as she hated to ask, she needed to know. ‘Just what happens when Eleanor doesn’t behave herself?’

  The overburdened chintz chair creaked as Meinrad shifted uncomfortably. ‘She possesses people, has lots of sex and, though she doesn’t really make them do anything they don’t want to, she strongly encourages them to do things that they might think twice about if she wasn’t in residence.’

  ‘It’s all about physical experience for Eleanor,’ Chelsea said. ‘Being a demon and all, she has no body, so she misses out on the pleasures that come with it, like sex and hot baths and eating.’ She nodded at the pizza. ‘That means a body she can hang out in twenty-four-seven allows her the full experience, something Sole Alliance doesn’t offer.’

  ‘Eleanor wants the body she’s in to feel really good,’ Finn said. ‘That means her host will be anxious to keep her in residence. The problem is the host doesn’t always know what’s really good, and the other side of Eleanor is all about finding those dark desires in the psyche that the host might not act upon without a little push.’

  Jill shivered. ‘Like attacking the shoe-store clerk.’

  ‘Thing is,’ Finn said, moving a little closer to her, almost as though he were afraid she might bolt, ‘Eleanor, because she resides in you now, will know your darkest sexual fantasies better than you do, and she’ll find a way to offer them to you, to make them real. Sometimes that’s not a bad thing. Sometimes it can be very good.’ He held her gaze. ‘But it can also be dangerous.’

  Jill’s stomach knotted hard. ‘I’ve already quit my job. I’ve bought boots I can’t afford. I’ve had unprotected sex twice. I’m still horny as hell and it’s been less than twenty-four hours. How am I going to survive living with Eleanor until she gets bored and decides to come out?’

  ‘Sex is never unprotected when you’re possessed by a demon,’ Meinrad said. ‘Eleanor wants your body safe and healthy so she can enjoy it.’

  ‘Well, that’s something, at least,’ Jill said.

  Finn took her hand in his. ‘I won’t leave you alone with her. I can sleep on your sofa or your floor if that makes you feel more comfortable.’

  A stupid thing to say, she thought, since she’d already fucked his brains out twice. ‘The rent’s paid till the end of the month. After that you may have to share my park bench.’

  ‘You won’t need to sleep on a park bench, Jill. We’ll see to that,’ Finn said.

  ‘Yes, we’ll see to that.’ A voice spoke inside her head. It was the first time she’d been fully aware of Eleanor since the failed exorcism.

  Then she remembered the run-in with her boss, and a chill ran down her spine. ‘My BlackBerry. The recording. Where’s my BlackBerry?’

  Jill pushed herself off the sofa and fled to the kitchen, where someone had hung her jacket neatly over the back of a chair.

  Sure enough, she found her BlackBerry in the pocket. There was a text from Vivie asking what her plans were for the night. She ignored it.

  ‘What’s going on? What are you doing?’ Finn called from the doorway, where he’d followed. Meinrad and Chelsea crowded in next to him as Jill hit playback and her voice filled the room.

  What do you want me to do, Mr Devlin? Jill heard. She fast-forwarded until she heard her boss say:

  Unbutton that lovely silk top of yours and give me a good look at those tits you’re always pointing at me. And when I’ve had enough time to –

  She stopped the recording, relieved that it was still there, that she hadn’t imagined it, and embarrassed that all of Sole Alliance had heard her humiliation.

  Finn moved to her side. ‘That son of a bitch!’ He slid a protective arm around her shoulder. ‘Good thing you had the presence of mind to record him. You’ll have Human Resources eating out of your hand and that fucker will be lucky to work at McDonald’s’

  Jill shivered. ‘I didn’t have the presence of mind to record him.’

  She’d barely got the words out of her mouth before Eleanor spoke. ‘Oh, but you did. Trust me, darling, you didn’t do anything you didn’t have a deep-seated urge to do already. I just cheered you on a bit.’

  Jill was suddenly trembling again. ‘And the things I said? What I did?’

  ‘You were totally in the driver’s seat, Jill,’ the voice in her head said. ‘I wouldn’t deprive you of that pleasure.’ There was a soft laugh. ‘If I had been in the driver’s seat, we would have kneed the bastard nice and hard in the balls, and with strong, well-muscled legs like yours I reckon he wouldn’t have forgotten us for a very long time. Goodness! For a second there I sounded almost like a vengeance demon, didn’t I?’

  Jill became aware of Meinrad and Chelsea staring at her as though she had two heads. Not that far from the truth, she thought.

  ‘What, Jill? What’s going on?’ Finn asked.

  ‘We’re discussing who’s in the driver’s seat,’ Jill said.

  A look of disbelief passed between Meinrad and Chelsea. ‘She’s talking to you? Eleanor’s talking to you?’ Meinrad said, as though the whole idea were shocking.

  Jill nodded. ‘Why?’

  Chelsea stepped forward into the room. ‘Because the only one she ever talks to is Finn.’ She looked up at Meinrad. ‘The two of us, we know she’s there, and it’s always obvious what she wants, but she never actually talks to us.’

  Jill suddenly felt weak-kneed. Finn pulled out a chair and guided her into it. Inside her, it felt as though Eleanor was settled in comfortable silence, the kind of silence shared between two really good friends. That in itself was disconcerting, especially as the last memories of the failed exorcism came back to her strong and clear. Now that it was over, now that it was all safely behind her, she vividly recalled hanging on for dear life just before she lost consciousness, hanging on as though what was about to happen was something she couldn’t let slip away. She was possessed by a demon, for God’s sake! How could it be that she wanted to hang on? And yet there was no denying that she had. In her head Eleanor placed a finger on her nose like they’d been playing charades, like Jill had just won the game. There was a smile and a laugh that no one heard but her, and, though Jill figured it should be otherwise, Eleanor’s presence felt completely comfortable.

  Chapter 8

  With his rucksack slung over his shoulder, Finn followed Jill up to her flat on the seventh floor. The tour took thirty seconds. The flat was only sligh
tly more than a studio, with a small bedroom and a bathroom off from the open living area. Jill had stretched herself to be able to afford it, and had lived very frugally in order to have her privacy. The possibility of losing her little island of solitude was one terrifying thought among many in the madness that stretched endlessly before her. She forced a smile as the two stood facing each other in the centre of the makeshift lounge. ‘Home sweet home.’

  ‘It’s nice,’ he said. ‘It suits you.’

  ‘Drink?’ she asked. ‘Wine, beer, coffee, tea?’

  Finn shook his head. ‘Nothing for me. It’s late.’ He put his rucksack down at the end of the sofa. ‘Do you have a blanket or something? I’ll sleep on the couch.’

  The words felt like a slap in the face. Sleep wasn’t really what Jill had in mind.

  It was as though he’d read her thoughts. ‘You’ve had a rough day, Jill, and you’re exhausted. You don’t realise it at the moment. That’s what having Eleanor in residence does to you. But even she understands that in order to keep her host healthy, rest has to happen.’ He tilted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. ‘I’ve had her in me, Jill. I know what I’m talking about. I know how she is, what she can do to you.’

  Jill’s tummy gave a tight little quiver at the thought of the very feminine Eleanor, nestled in some inexplicable part of her, residing in that same inexplicable part of the very masculine Finn. But before she could follow that intriguing train of thought, Finn brushed a kiss across her lips and nodded to her room. ‘Now go to bed. The next few days will be very demanding.’

  Sullenly she brushed her teeth and took off the make-up she’d put on hours ago before she’d quit her job, back when the only thing she had to worry about was impressing a shoe-shop clerk enough to get him to shag her. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she noticed another text from Vivie, but she just couldn’t face that now. She was about to slip into her nightshirt when she thought better of it and crawled in between the sheets naked. It felt lovely. It would have felt even lovelier if Finn had slid into bed next to her all hard and ready to play.