Fast And Loose

‘I don’t think so, missy,’ he said. ‘Spill, or there’ll be trouble.’

Trouble, eh? Despite my nerves, a spark ignited between my tired legs.

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘You don’t want to know,’ he said. ‘You’re not too grown-up to go across my knee, young lady.’

Oh, my God! Did he actually just say that?

All I could do was stare foolishly at him, my jaw apparently frozen.

‘You think I’m joking?’ he said, his voice now low and seductive. ‘Come on, Foxy. Out with it.’

He was joking. He must have been.

I held my breath for the time it took to log on, a torrent of possible things to say rushing through my mind, all of them inappropriate and embarrassing.

‘So there was this blogger,’ I said, much too fast, my words pouring out with the long-held breath. ‘She seemed to be getting into some kind of weird stuff. And she was about to go on this maybe quite risky, uh, journey, and then she never updated and her blog has been taken down.’

‘And you think something’s happened to her?’

I nodded.

He put a hand on mine.

‘Hey, sweetheart,’ he said, so gently I wanted to cry. ‘You’re shaking. You’re really that worried about her?’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ I said, running a fishnetted forearm across my eyes. ‘Dunno. It’s probably nothing. Anyway.’ I made a dive for the off switch, but Tom was having none of it.

‘You’re worried,’ he said firmly. ‘So it isn’t nothing. And you can’t leave it there. You haven’t told me anything yet.’

‘I…it’s difficult,’ I muttered.

‘Why is it difficult? What’s the weird, risky stuff you were talking about? Is she an undercover journalist or something? Getting in deep with criminals? Terrorists? The government? MI5? Old TV personalities of the 1970s?’

I snorted despite my anxieties.

‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re miles off track. It’s nothing like that.’

My ears burned. They must have been bright red. I could always put it down to the vigorous activities we’d recently engaged in, but somehow I didn’t think he’d fall for it.

‘Oh!’ He clapped his hands. ‘Online dating. Meeting strange men off the internet? I’m right, aren’t I?’

I stared at my Ripper Street wallpaper. The lawmen of Whitechapel stared accusingly back out at me. They would have guessed it by now, I bet.

‘I’m right,’ said Tom, sitting back with a self-congratulatory grin. ‘Oh, Foxy. You haven’t resorted to Plenty of Fish, have you? You only had to call me.’

‘No,’ I said crossly. ‘Wrong again. It’s not online dating…not exactly, anyway.’

‘Wife swapping? Sex dungeons? A cam girl! Is it a cam girl?’

‘No, but you weren’t far off with one of those.’

‘Ooh. Come on. You might as well tell me or I’ll carry on making wilder and wilder guesses. You won’t shock me, I promise. You probably won’t even surprise me.’

He winked and I squirmed in my seat.

‘You think?’ I said.

He took hold of my hands and held them tight, looking seriously into my eyes.

‘I think,’ he said quietly. ‘So, here’s my theory. Would you say that you might perhaps be a little bit…kinky?’

I held myself still, not daring to breathe. The only things that might have moved were my pupils, which, I’m pretty sure, were dilated as fuck. If they were, they’d have matched his. He looked positively brimful of lascivious curiosity.

‘What makes you say that?’ I whispered.

‘I’m a journalist. I pick up on clues,’ he said. ‘The corset, the Victoriana, the subtle hints in the way you kiss…’

‘Really? It’s that obvious? It can’t be!’ I was horrified. I might just as well have been walking around town with a billboard marked SUBMISSIVE, if he was right.

His grave expression dissolved into something more puckish.

‘Nah, I’m kidding you. There’s, uh, a book in your bedside drawer, underneath the thesaurus. I spotted it when I was getting the painkillers.’

‘Oh.’ I smote my brow, cringing. How could I have forgotten? ‘Right.’

‘Right.’ His eyes danced with amusement. ‘And don’t tell me it was a present, or came free with a magazine, because you’ve admitted it now. Just tell me one thing. Are you top or bottom? Or do you switch?’

Interesting that he was so free with the terminology, but perhaps he’d just read one too many Fifty Shades articles.

‘I’m not a Miss Whiplash type,’ I said, unable to say the words ‘I’m a bottom’ to the most attractive man I’d ever got near.

‘No? You prefer a Mr Whiplash then? Sorry. I don’t mean to be flippant. Honestly, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Like I said, it hardly comes as a shock. More a…pleasant surprise.’

Pleasant? Was I dreaming? And he had said that thing about putting me over his knee. It had been bait! He’d been fishing for a confession, not just larking about.

‘Really? Why’s that?’

He cupped my cheek with one hand, stroking it, lowering his face to mine.

‘Why do you think?’

‘You…?’ The sentence remained unfinished. I could only ask the question with my eyes.

‘Let’s just say I enjoyed binding your ankle a little bit too much,’ he said. ‘I found myself looking for a bedpost to tie it to.’

I laughed nervously. ‘Perhaps I should invest in a four-poster then.’