"We'll see about that, won't we, pet?" The chauffeur opened the rear
door for them, and Jack helped
her out.
To her astonishment, a liveried doorman appeared from behind Harrods'
glass door and after a surreptitious look to see if anyone on the
street was watching, unlocked the door and held it open for them.
"Welcome to Harrods, Mr. Day."
She looked at the open door in astonishment. Surely even Black Jack Day
couldn't simply walk into the most famous department store in the world
long after closing hours with no salespeople present. When she didn't
move, Jack urged her forward with a firm pressure on the small of her
back. As soon as they were inside the department store, the doorman did
the most astonishing thing—he tipped his hat, walked out onto the
street, and locked the door behind him. She couldn't believe what she'd
seen, and she looked toward Jack for some explanation.
"The roulette wheel has been especially kind to me since I met you,
pet. I thought you might enjoy a private shopping spree."
"But the store is closed. I don't see any clerks."
"All the better."
She pressed him for an explanation, but he would say little beyond the
fact that he'd made a private—and she was certain quite
illegal—arrangement with several of Harrods' newer and less scrupulous
employees.
"But aren't there people who work here at night? Cleaning staff? Night
security?"
"You ask too many questions, pet. What good is money if it can't buy
pleasure? Let's see what catches your fancy this evening." He picked
out a silver and gold scarf from a display and draped it over the
velvet collar of her jacket.
"Jack, I can't just take this!"
"Relax, pet. The store will be well compensated. Now, are you going to
bore me with your worries or can we enjoy ourselves?"
Chloe could barely believe what was happening. There were no
salespeople in sight, no custodians or guards. Was this great
department store really hers? She glanced down at the scarf draping her
neck and uttered a breathless exclamation. He gestured toward the
cornucopia of elegant merchandise. "Go ahead. Pick something."
With a reckless giggle, she reached out and pulled a sequined handbag
from a display, then looped the braided cord over her shoulder. "Very
nice," he said.
She threw her arms around his neck. "You are absolutely the most
exciting man in the world, Jack Day! How I adore you!"
His palms crept down from her waist to curve around her buttocks and
pull her hips tight against his own. "And you're the most exciting
woman. I couldn't allow our love affair to be consummated in any place
ordinary, could I?"
Noir
to
rouge . . . rouge
to
noir
. . . The hardness pressed
against her belly kept her from mistaking his meaning, and she felt
herself growing hot and cold at the same time. The game would end here
... in Harrods. Only Jack Day could carry off something so outrageous.
The thought of it made her head spin like a red and black wheel.
He pulled the purse from her shoulder, removed her velvet jacket, and
draped them both over a display
of silk umbrellas with rosewood handles. Then he took off his tuxedo
coat and placed it with hers so
that he stood before her in a white shirt with black jet studs securing
the pleated front, his narrow waist wrapped with a dark cummerbund.
"We'll get these later," he announced, resettling the scarf over her
shoulders. "Let's explore."
He took her to Harrods' famous food hall with its great marble counters
and frescoed ceiling. "Are you hungry?" he inquired, lifting a silver
box of chocolates from a display.
"For you," she replied.
His mouth curved beneath his mustache. Removing the lid from the box,
he pulled out a dark chocolate confection and bit into one side,
opening the shell so that the center oozed a drizzle of creamy cherry
liqueur. He quickly pressed it to her lips, sliding the candy back and
forth so that some of the rich filling was transferred to her. Then he
put the chocolate back into his own mouth and lowered his head to kiss
her. As her lips opened, sweet and sticky with cherry liqueur, he
pushed the chocolate shell forward with his tongue. Chloe received the
candy with a moan, and her body became as liquid and formless as the
fluid center.
When he finally drew away, he selected a bottle of champagne, uncorked
it, and tilted it first to her lips and then to his own. "To the most
outrageous woman in London," he said, leaning forward and licking
off a last speck of chocolate that clung to the corner of her mouth.
They wandered through the first floor, picking up a pair of gloves, a
nosegay of silk violets, a hand-painted jewelry box, and placing them
in a pile to be reclaimed later. Finally, they arrived at the perfume
hall, and the heady mixture of the finest scents in the world washed
over her, their fragrances undisturbed by the herds of people who
thronged along the carpeted aisles during the day.
When they reached the center, he dropped her arm and turned her to face
him. He began unbuttoning her blouse, and she felt a strange mixture of
excitement and embarrassment. Regardless of the fact that the store was
deserted, they were standing in the center of Harrods. "Jack, I—"
"Don't be a child, Chloe," he said. "Follow my lead."
A thrill shot through her as he pushed aside the satin material of her
blouse to reveal the eggshell lacework on her bra. He pulled a
cellophane-covered box of Joy from an open glass case and unwrapped it.
"Lean against the counter," he said, his voice as silky as the crepe de
chine of her blouse. "Lay your arms along the edge."
She did as he asked, weak from the intensity in his silver eyes.
Extracting the glass stopper from the neck of the bottle, he slipped it
inside the lace edge of her bra. She drew in her breath as he rubbed
its cold tip against her nipple.
"That feels good, doesn't it?" he murmured, his voice low and husky.
She nodded her head, incapable of speech. He inserted the stopper back
inside the bottle, picked up another drop of Joy, and slid it beneath
the other side of her bra to touch the opposite nipple. She could feel
her flesh puckering beneath the slow, circling movement of the glass,
and as the heat welled up inside her, Jack's handsome, reckless
features seemed to swim before her.
He lowered the stopper and she felt his hand reach beneath the hem of
her skirt and slowly move upward along her stocking. "Open your legs,"
he whispered. Clasping the edge of the counter beneath her hands, she
did as he asked. He trailed the stopper up along the inside of one
thigh, over the top of her stocking and onto the bare skin, moving it
in slow circles to the very edge of her panties. She moaned and eased
her legs open wider.
He laughed wickedly and withdrew his hand from beneath her skirt. "Not
yet, pet. Not quite yet."
They moved through the silent store, going from one department to
another, talking very little. He caressed her breasts as he fastened an
antique Georgian pin to the collar of her blouse, rubbed her buttocks
through her skirt while he slid a brush with a filigreed sterling
handle down the back of her hair. She tried on a crocodile belt and a
pair of kid shoes with needle-pointed toes. In the jewelry department,
he removed her pearl earrings and replaced them with gold clips
encircled with dozens of tiny diamonds. When she protested the expense,
he laughed at her. "One spin of the roulette wheel, pet. Just one spin."
He found a white maribou boa and, pushing her against a marble column,
slid the blouse from her shoulders. "You look too much like a
schoolgirl," he declared, reaching behind her to remove her bra.
The silky fabric slipped from his fingers to the carpeted floor, and
she stood before him naked from the waist up.
She had large, full breasts capped by flat nipples the size of
half-dollars, now hard and puckered from her excitement. He lifted each
breast in his hand. She delighted in showing herself to him and stood
perfectly still, the chill of the column decidedly welcome against the
heat of her back. He tweaked her nipples, and she gasped. With a laugh,
he picked up the soft white boa and draped it over her bare shoulders
so that it covered her. Then he slowly moved the feathered ends back
and forth.
"Jack—" She wanted him to take her there. She wanted to slide down the
length of the column, open her legs, and take him inside her.
"I've developed a sudden craving for the taste of Joy," he whispered.
Pushing the boa away on one side, he covered her large nipple with his
mouth and began an insistent sucking.
She shivered as heat filled every part of her, burning her internal
organs, searing her skin. "Please . . ." she murmured. "Oh, please . .
. don't torture me any longer."
He pulled away from her, his restless eyes teasing. "A little longer,
pet. I haven't finished playing yet. I think we should look at furs."
And then, with a half-smile that told her he knew exactly how far he
had pushed her, he rearranged the boa over her breasts, lightly
scraping one nipple with his fingernail as he settled the ends in place.
"I don't want to look at furs," she said. "I want. . ."
But he led her to the elevator where he operated the levers as if he
did it every day. As she rode upward with him, only the white feather
boa covered her naked breasts.
When they reached the fur salon, Jack seemed to forget her. He moved
along the racks, inspecting all the coats and stoles on display before
selecting a full-length Russian lynx. The pelts were long and thick,
the color silvery white. He studied the coat for a moment and then
turned to her.
"Slip off your skirt."
Her fingers fumbled with the side zipper and for a moment she thought
she would have to ask for help. But then the catch gave and she slid
the skirt, along with the half-slip beneath, down over her hips and
stepped out of them both. The ends of the boa brushed against the very
top of her lacy white garter belt.
"The panties. Take the panties off for me."
Her breath was coming in short, soft gasps as she did as he asked,
leaving only her garter belt and stockings in place. Without waiting to
be told, she pulled the boa away from her breasts and dropped it
to the floor, pushing her shoulders slightly back so he could feast on
the sight of her breasts, ripe and outthrust, and her mons with its
silky covering of dark hair framed by the lacy white straps of her
garter belt.
He walked toward her, the magnificent coat outstretched in his hands,
his eyes glittering like the jet studs in his snowy shirtfront. "To
choose the right fur, you have to feel the pelts against your skin . .
. against your breasts. . . ." His voice was as soft as the lynx pelts
as he slid the fur along her body, using its texture to excite her.
"Your breasts . . . your stomach and buttocks . . . the insides of your
thighs. . . ."
She reached for the coat and clasped its fur to her skin. "Please. .. .
You're torturing me. Please
stop. . . ."
Once again he drew away, but this time only to slip the jet studs from
the front of his shirt. Chloe watched him undress, her heart pounding
and her throat tight with desire. When he stood naked before her, he
took the coat from her arms and laid it with the pelts turned upward on
a low display platform in the center of the room. Then he stepped up
and drew her along to stand next to him.
The touch of his naked flesh against hers fired her excitement until
she could barely remember to breathe. He ran his hands down along her
sides, then turned her so that she faced out toward the display floor.
Moving slightly behind her, he began stroking her breasts as if he were
arousing her for an invisible audience watching silently in the dark
salon. His hand trailed down over her stomach, along her thighs. She
felt his penis jutting hard into the side of her hip. His hand moved
between her legs, and the heat welled up from his touch, a yearning for
release from a myriad of pounding pulses inside her.
He pushed her down into the soft, thick fur. It brushed the backs of
her thighs as he opened them and positioned himself between her
outspread knees. Turning her cheek into the soft pelts, she tilted up
her hips, giving herself to him in the center of the fur salon, on a
platform designed to display the very best that Harrods had to offer.
He glanced at his watch. "The guards should be coming back on duty
right now. I wonder how long it
will take them to follow our trail here." Then he thrust himself inside
her.
It took a moment for his words to sink in. She let out a hoarse
exclamation as she realized what he had done. "My God! You planned it
like this, didn't you?"
He crushed her breasts in his hands and drove himself hard. "Of course."
The fire in her body and the terror of discovery joined together in a
shattering explosion of feeling. As
her orgasm crashed over her, she bit into the flesh of his shoulder.
"Bastard . . ."
He laughed and then found his own release with a great, noisy groan.
They barely escaped the guards. Drawing on a minimum of his own
clothing, Jack threw the lynx coat over Chloe's nakedness and dragged
her to the stairway. As her bare feet flew down the steps, his reckless
laughter rang in her ears. Before he left the store, he tossed her
panties on top of a glass display case along with his engraved calling
card.
The next day she received a note saying that his mother had been taken
ill and he needed to return temporarily to Chicago. While she waited
for him, Chloe lived in an agony of jumbled emotions—anger at the risk
to which he had exposed her, excitement at the thrill he had given her,
and a wrenching fear that he wouldn't come back. Four weeks passed, and
then five. She tried to call him, but the connection was so bad she
couldn't make herself understood. Two months slipped by. She was
convinced he didn't love her. He was an adventurer, a thrill seeker. He
had seen the fat girl inside and wanted nothing more to do with her.
Ten weeks after the night at Harrods, he reappeared as abruptly as he'd
left. "Hello, pet," he said, standing in the doorway of her house with
his cashmere suit coat carelessly hooked over his shoulder. "I've
missed you."