Red-Handed - Part 1 free porn video

(Welcome to Red-Handed - a filthy opus in five twisted installments. For those of you who enjoyed 'Little Black Dress', a familiar face is about to appear...)

Mackenzie Lewis brought his BMW to a crunching halt in the Horseshoe and Castle’s gravel carpark and sat for a moment with the engine running. He glanced in the rear-view mirror and his steel-blue eyes looked back, weariness outlined in half-circles beneath them. What a difference six months could make. How they could drain a man.

“Sometimes it’s best to cut your losses,” Alan Sinclair had said on their most recent meeting. “You’re not a vindictive person, Mac. I know you feel stitched up here, but realistically you’re not going to win this. You could lose more, potentially. Make the offer – I’ll draw up the papers here today – and if she accepts it, put the whole business down to experience. Move on with your life, my friend.”

When a lawyer as astute as Sinclair provided advice of that kind, you knew it was time to settle. The competitor in Mac hated to let Miranda win, but she’d played him supremely well. Had she not burned him so badly for so long, he might have found himself admiring her style.

He switched off the ignition and listened one more time to her phone message, the voice less clipped and more warm than it had sounded in over a year. “I’ve been considering your offer, Mac, and I think maybe we can both live with it. Perhaps we could leave out the lawyers for once and meet you-know-where? Our one-time favourite place. Call me sentimental. Why don’t we put it to bed, darling? Hey, maybe we can do that in bed. Or is that just my wishful thinking? Let me know...”

Mac’s cock stiffened and stretched against his boxer-briefs. He wouldn’t have felt the anger so keenly if that voice didn’t still turn him on. There was no denying it – the thought of a full-on grudge fuck appealed to him. She’d always enjoyed his tying her up, whipping her ass and taking her hard. Hell, she’d goaded him into doing it, burrowing deep beneath his calm exterior with precision-tooled taunts to access the volcanic stuff lurking beneath. Maybe she’d be up for that again if she got her way financially. And maybe it’d be adequate consolation for him. It had been a while, after all, since he’d had any kind of action – by necessity. Except for that one sneaky occasion with his temp…

“Keep it in your trousers,” Alan had insisted. “You can’t afford to hand her any more ammunition.”

Mac paused, his fingers on the door-release. When had a man’s failure ever served as aphrodisiac to Miranda? She was playing him again, surely, the one woman in the world who could truly fuck with his head. Had he imagined the sincerity in her phone-voice? Dammit, he could sit in the car all night trying to second-guess her, to no avail. And what would be the point in that?

Okay, let’s do this. Departing his vehicle, one of the items she was apparently willing to leave him, he made his guarded way into the pub-restaurant they had once enjoyed together. Or maybe the enjoyment had only been his. Its antique brass trappings and the array of rustic implements dangling from its rafters failed to charm anymore. Dread was burning like acid in the pit of his stomach.

He glanced around and spotted her, seated serenely in what had been their ‘usual corner’. The sight made him shudder like he was revisiting the ghost of his past. This was the first time he had seen her since the legalities had kicked in properly – a full ten months of blood-sports-by-proxy, with Mac doing most of the bleeding.

She looked as striking as on the evening he’d first met her, and lust was the first emotion that surged through his body, resentment hard on its heels. Her thick crimson locks had been wrangled into a ponytail and her silk blouse only suggested the cleavage of her formidably gorgeous breasts. He knew what was packaged away beneath her casual-formal attire, and the degree to which he still desired her provoked his irritation further. She appeared unaware of his presence as he approached the table, her gaze fixed on the screen of her mobile phone and her finger tapping its surface. He had to cough to gain her attention.

Miranda paused her texting, and there was a flicker of emotion in her expression. Not guilt, exactly – Miranda had probably never been troubled by that emotion in all her life – more like that of a woman alarmed at having being caught. The expression transformed immediately, however, replaced by a warmer smile than he remembered since the early months of their marriage. “Mac,” she said, beckoning him to the table with red-lacquered talons. “Please, join me.”

He drew out the chair opposite her and sat down like he was about to dine with the Devil. She put their greeting on pause to complete her text message and then set the phone into her handbag. It was a cheap device, he noticed briefly, and he was sure he could see her regular cell, the dusted-silver iPhone, lurking elsewhere in the bag. Were there signed divorce papers in there as well? She hijacked his attention again, before he could think on any of it further. “It’s good to see you, truly,” she said. “Thanks for agreeing to this. I wasn’t sure that you’d show up.”

“I wasn’t sure myself,” he admitted, “right up to the moment I set foot in here.”

“Well I’m glad you did. You’re looking well.”

Liar. He had no doubt how easily she could read the stress that the past months had written into his face. But there was an unfamiliar kindness in her eyes and he went with the moment, holding to his lawyer’s advice. “Thank you. So are you. Seems like you’re thriving.”

“If you mean on what’s been going on between us, you’re wrong,” she said. “It doesn’t give me the pleasure you probably think it does. But, I’m a woman who believes in getting her due. Put it down to a deprived childhood.”

Getting your due indeed… and deprived childhood my arse. Was this going to be an evening of quiet goading? It took all of Mac’s self-control to let the remarks roll over him without rising to their bait. “And do you feel you’ve got your due?” he asked with consummate calm.

“I invited you out to dinner,” she replied simply. “I’m trying, here. You know, making an effort.” There was a buzz from her phone – the second, cheaper device – and she lifted it, irritation creasing her smooth brow as she looked at the message. “My minions,” she said by way of explanation. “Sometimes I wonder if they have anything in the way of initiative.”

“Maybe if you hired them on the basis of their ability rather than how they look…” Mac remarked, as lightly as he could manage. Miranda did like to be surrounded by a coterie of pretty young things, most of them female, and now that she ran the entire Vanguard clothing company, she made sure all branches were run by such types.

“Now Mackenzie,” she said, her smile an arch one, “I do try to strike a balance between professional acumen and aesthetic appeal. For the most part. Okay,” she admitted, “I can think of one or two who are substantially more pretty than they are smart, but even those girls have their uses… as I’m sure you appreciate.”

“I certainly do.” Mac well knew the kinds of games Miranda liked to play with her sexy employees of an evening. He was privy to so many of this woman’s secrets, but there had been no proving the truth behind the darkest ones, as Alan Sinclair had all too painfully pointed out. All it had taken was for him to slip up once, however, to become this woman’s punch-bag.

Miranda completed her text while she chatted, flinging the phone casually this time back into its resting place. “Now – enough business during leisure time. What do you say we order?”

“I think that would be a good idea.” Anything to distract from the evening’s fundamental awkwardness. Not that Miranda gave the appearance of feeling awkward in the least…

They ordered a bottle of Chablis, and Mac sipped from his glass with caution, while she drank freely, saying blithely that she’d take a taxi home. He wanted to take the edge off his nerves and at least fake relaxation, but it never paid to lose one’s focus when dealing with Miranda French. His appetite was shot, and excellent as they were, he had to force his way through the Horseshoe and Castle’s lamb-kebab starter and poached salmon main. His wife – how bizarre did that word seem now? – was the warm, inviting, animated version of herself, the one that he had briefly thought he loved. All chilly professionalism was gone, as she recounted moments from the early days of their time together, like no hostilities had occurred in the intervening time.

“The Paris weekend was glorious,” she said, and he knew she was alluding to the first one, a mere couple of weeks into their scorching sexual union. “Everything so alive and intense. You were so passionate about everything, I remember – the art, the architecture, the wine – and you took me so hard every night.” There was a warm tremor in her voice that ran to the core of him and set his cock alive, despite every reservation he still had about this meeting.

“I figured you didn’t think about those times anymore,” he said, eyeing her as coolly as he could manage over his wine glass. “Or think of me remotely that way.”

She looked something verging on penitent. “I said some… unkind things to you, Mac. Things I regret.”

Things like ‘Maybe you’re not the man I thought you were’, he recalled, the disappointment and near-contempt more memorable to him than the words. Disappointment because he’d struggled to keep the staff employed in one subsidiary business rather than cut them loose when the recession hit, at considerable cost. Contempt because he’d not been quite cut-throat enough to secure the Glendale contract, losing out to bloody Rainbow Software. How swiftly had her feelings cooled towards him after that conversation. There was no sweeping it away with a few words, not after everything that had followed. Miranda, nonetheless, was intent on trying.

“Honestly,” she said, responding to the doubtfulness in his expression, “I didn’t acknowledge that we were simply different kinds of people. That just because you’re a… a good man, it doesn’t make you any less of one.” God, it sounded like she was wrestling with concepts utterly foreign to her. But she did remember the fatal conversation. That at least meant something. It mattered to him that she was trying to act like a human, however taxing the performance.

“That hasn’t stopped you trying to take me for everything you could,” he observed, sipping again at his wine.

“True.” She had the decency to look slightly abashed. “But then that’s my nature. A woman has to be true to that.” She reached out and stroked the back of his hand. The hairs on it prickled. “You know, whatever happened between us,” she said, her pupils of her dark eyes dilating, “however… incompatible we turned out to be, you’re still one of the most physically impressive men I’ve ever met.”

“Stop that, Miranda.” Even the use of her name had his erection inflating against the inside leg of his trousers. This was beyond unwise. He needed to see the signed papers before he could even contemplate such a development.

“Stop what? I can still say I find you attractive, can’t I?” Her fingertips lingered. “So broad, so tall, it’s not many men who tower over me physically. Not many men with the capacity to take control of me the way you did – when you wanted to. When your confounded niceness didn’t get in the way.”

“You make ‘niceness’ sound like a regrettable quality.”

“It wouldn’t be for some women, I know,” she said with a hint of sadness. “There are a lot who would find your… your sweeter aspects, along with that spectacular cock of yours, an irresistible combination. So tell me – has your gorgeous length been getting any satisfaction recently? Has it been delving into any interesting places? I know, I know… you can’t tell me.”

“Hardly,” he said, blood pumping the cock in question harder even as alarms sounded in his head. “I slipped up once and it was my undoing.”

“With your comely secretary.”

“We both know that whole sorry tale and so do our lawyers.”

“Indeed.”

There she was, goading again. It had been comfort sex, in the full knowledge that Miranda was out on her own, partying with God knew who. And she’d put a private detective on his tail. Christ, he had been made to pay for one indiscretion – just like his darling wife had planned. He wondered whether his wife knew that the curvy temp had sneaked to his new apartment for that follow-up night of passion. Hell, the conniving cow probably did. Anger reasserted itself within him, but his lust made no concession. Hardly likely, with Miranda’s perfumed breath flooding his face.

“Look at you,” she said, staring deep into his eyes. “Anger burning away inside you. You know something, Mac?”

“What?”

“The only times you ever fucked me like I knew you could, were the ones when I’d pissed you off. I mean really pissed you off.” She was leaning across the table, red hair trailing in that loose ponytail over her shoulder, the fissure between those wonderful tits on fuller display. “So tell me. How angry are you with me right now?”

He could hear his own breath. That and the sound of Miranda’s voice were the only two sounds in the universe right then. “Try ‘very’.”

“‘Very’?”

“You know how angry I am and you know why.”

“I suppose I do. Well what if you could do something about it?”

“I…”

“What if after a delicious dessert we were to go back to my place and sort this business out once and for all?”

“You mean…”

“I mean what if the papers are signed and waiting back there to be handed over? What if once you’d driven me there and had them in your possession, Mac, you were to get some fucking payback? You know, do what it takes for us to part on good terms. How do you like the sound of that?”

“I…” He liked it a lot and he knew that she could see it, but he eased back nonetheless. “I think we should have that dessert first, while I consider it.”

She took his hand and pressed her full, exquisite lips to his fingers. “That reserve ever in place,” she said. “You need to lose it. You need to act more on what we both know is underneath.”

“Dessert,” he insisted, however rock-solid and straining his cock.

The moment lengthened, but was finally interrupted by a buzz from that confounded phone. “How the minions irritate,” she said, her tongue wetting her lip, before she went to check the text.

Mac observed her closely, a vague suspicion from earlier resurfacing from his mind’s depths. Is she up to something here? Please no… Her face remained impassive as she responded to the communication and casually tossed her phone into her bag. The device lay balanced on the zipper and he felt an uncanny urge to check who she’d been texting. Miranda smiled again, her expression and her entire bearing one sly sexual taunt. “Now – dessert,” she said. Mac’s erection reasserted itself against the tight fabric of his boxers.

They selected the dessert platter and shared it – the profiteroles, the tiramisu and the sweet pastries – like a symbol of their united intent. Mac’s appetite for food had returned so fiercely it surprised him, and with it grew that other carnal appetite. God, I want to have you like I’ve never had you before. Once those signed documents are in my hands… He ate slowly, sublimating all signs of his mounting passion, or attempting to. Then he savoured the coffee and sucked slowly, deliciously, on the provided breath-mints. Not a word needed to pass between them; the occasional loaded glance sufficed.

“I think it’s time,” he said when they both were utterly finished, adopting the kind of tone he might have used at the end of a meal on their Parisian honeymoon.

“Indeed it is,” she said, and in that instant her smile transformed from lascivious warmth to icy calculation – the look he had come to associate so closely with her. His animated vital signs iced up in reaction. “Time for me, my dear, to send you off into the night with your big throbbing hard-on and nowhere to put it. It’s okay – I suggested the evening, so I’ll pick up the bill. You can go.”

“I… Sorry? I can go?” Mac stared into her calmly mocking face, mind racing to process the development. She was dismissing him? What the fuck… “Exactly why did we come here?” he inquired, enforcing a state of calm on himself. “What’s the point of all this?”

“Oh darling,” she said, “simply so I could remind myself of how easy you are to play. You didn’t really think I was going to leave it where it was, did you?”

“You’ve got…” Mac’s mind spun and eddied as he groped for words. “How can you possibly expect to get a better deal than the one I offered you? It’s more than generous. You fucking know it is.” The last part came out as a gravelly hiss. “Besides,” he added, “you’ve no cards left to play.”

“You’d think not, wouldn’t you?” She looked like the ace was tucked inside her sleeve, ready to play. “Look, Mac, this has been a very pleasant interlude, but quite frankly I’ve got business to attend to. The meal’s already covered, so if you were to make yourself scarce by the time I’ve come back from the ladies’ room, that’d probably be best for both of us.” She lifted up her bag as she said it, and then shot him a final smile before departing. Mac stared after her, his addled mind still churning, and then he saw it. The mobile phone had slid from her bag as she took hold of it, the device on which she’d been so busily at work landing on the table unnoticed.

Who the fuck was she talking to?

Mac picked up the phone, checking to see whether she was already coming back for it. She had vanished, however, and he seized the opportunity; when someone as thorough as Miranda made a slip-up, you had to claim that moment. The device had not even been locked – now there was a result – all its communications begging to be revealed. Not waiting for his estranged wife to realise her faux pas, he left table and restaurant, planning on delving into the phone’s secrets once he had driven out of the pub’s carpark.

In the rear-view mirror he could see her walking briskly from the venue’s main door, looking around for him with a frantic air. Got you! Damn, you think you’re clever. Well not this time. Jaw set in determination, he spun the BMW’s wheel in the gravel and roared away from the venue.

He pulled over into a layby a mile down the road and began to search the phone’s contents. It had clearly been purchased for tonight’s devious purpose, for there was only one conversation thread to be found, with someone monikered ‘Black-Ops 1’. Clearly Miranda’s little joke, this name boded nothing good. He scrolled back the beginning of the exchange and read through it, incredulity building within him.

IN POSITION?

YES. WAITING FOR UR INSTRUCTION

TARGET ARRIVED. I’LL KEEP HIM OCCUPIED AS LONG AS YOU NEED.

OK

LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU’RE INSIDE.

INSIDE NOW. OPERATION UNDERWAY

TEXT ME WHEN YOU’VE COVERED THE STUDY. USE THE CODE WORD.

DONE.

GOOD. AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. HE WON’T CATCH YOU, MUCH AS HE’D ENJOY THAT.

Mac set the phone on the dash and took a moment to force his breathing under control. ‘Study’ – his study? Was this what he thought it was? “Christ – she’s having my place burgled.” He sat in wonder for a moment at his own voiced realisation and then repeated the phrase, bitter, astonished laughter erupting from his mouth. “Unbelievable. You think you’re a fucking criminal mastermind now, along with everything else.” Distracting the target, while someone else did her dirty work for her… even by Miranda’s standards this was low.

Her minions. They all ‘have their uses’, she’d told him. She was paying one of her hangers-on to break into his apartment! Maybe that smirking pretty-boy she had managing Vanguard’s Piccadilly outlet, the one she’d more or less let him know she was fucking. The wretched woman had possessed enough gall to allude to her own plot during their conversation. God, the bitch must have been enjoying herself. “Well your enjoyment ends here, my dear.”

The thought of calling the police flashed momentarily through his mind, but then a better idea occurred. I can deal with this myself. I won’t hurt him, but I’ll scare the fuck out of the smug little shit. How much better to interrupt Miranda’s plans and then hold them over her? It might even act as a secret bargaining chip, one to help him renegotiate the whole divorce settlement. But he had to act on this quickly. Grabbing the phone, he sent the intruder a message of his own.

SEARCH THE OTHER ROOMS TOO – LIVING-ROOM AND BEDROOM. BE THOROUGH.

He gunned the ignition and set off towards his apartment to catch the bastard in the act. This time of night the journey should take no more than half an hour. Within seconds he received a reply to his text, and broke his usual rule, by reading and responding while in motion at the wheel.

REALLY? IS HE STILL THERE? WHAT AM I LOOKING FOR?

OF COURSE REALLY. TARGET WILL BE WITH ME ALL NIGHT. ANYTHING OF INTEREST – USE YOUR INTELLIGENCE FOR GOD’S SAKE. TEXT WHEN YOU’RE DONE. DON’T LEAVE TILL I SAY, UNDERSTOOD?

YES, UNDERSTOOD.

Mac sped through darkness, wiper blades cutting through the rain that had begun to drive, like good sense cutting through his anger. Keep a clear head. Deal with this situation. If you don’t get her now, you never will.

Anger kept rolling over him, however, threatening to preclude all rational thought. I knew she was like this, I knew she was a game-playing bitch. Why the hell am I surprised?

“She found out one of her employees was thieving,” he’d told Alan Sinclair in one of their divorce strategy meetings. “Know what she did? She blackmailed the girl, and her boyfriend into sex. Can you believe that? And then she told me over dinner one night like it was foreplay. Like she thought I’d commend her for it. That I’d be as turned on by the story as she clearly was remembering it. That’s the kind of woman we’re dealing with here and I can never afford to forget it.”

Incensed, he thumped the steering-wheel with both hands. “Christ, how stupid are you, Lewis? How much were you ready to put up with from that… that fucking harpy?” Well no more. One stupid mistake on her part, and Miranda French’s best-laid plans were about to come crashing down. And whoever was fool enough to partner with her? They’d get caught in the crash as well. Payback was due.

Swallowing his rage, Mackenzie Lewis drove through the filthy night to the place of reckoning.

*

“It’s all okay. She’ll keep him otherwise engaged for the rest of the night. We’ve got the run of this place.” The voice behind the stocking-mask was young and female, polite but with a Kentish twang. The girl slid the mobile phone into her mini-backpack and motioned to her companion.

“Are you sure? I’d have thought we’d be out of here by now,” her similarly masked comrade said, huddling close. “I can’t imagine what it’d be like if he caught us.” There was a thrill of excited fear in her voice. Her accent suggested a woman likewise in her twenties, but from some upmarket part of London like Chelsea or Teddington.

“Didn’t you hear what I said? No one’s showing up. We can take our time and do this properly.” There was a hint of irritation in the phone-girl’s voice. Of the two she had the more classic cat-burglar’s build, sinuous and elegant in her clinging black tights and sleeved black top. Her partner-in-crime, identically attired, was more curvaceous than slinky and seemed less attuned to the task in hand. She followed her take-charge friend into the apartment’s living room, both of them scanning around with their pocket flashlights.

“What exactly are we looking for?” the curvier girl inquired. “I thought once we’d searched through his study and left the envelope…”

“Yes, well you thought wrong. If Miranda wants us to be thorough, that’s up to her.”

“But Lysette…”

“We’re being paid enough,” the slinkier girl said, “but only if her plan works out.”

“I know. It’s just… I thought this would take ten minutes, and…”

“Look, Imogen…” The more proactive of the two grasped her fellow-burglar by both arms and stared into the eyes that blinked wide from the slit cut into the mask. “The code worked. If the alarm hadn’t been switched off, we’d know about it by now. Miranda’s going to occupy him for as long as it takes and notify us in plenty of time if he heads this way. We’ve got all the time we need. I’ll search and you photograph anything that looks of interest. That’s all you have to do here – that and not knock anything over. Like that bloody vase in the hallway.”

“Oops…” the one called Imogen said with a nervous giggle.

“‘Oops’ my arse,” Lysette snapped. “We don’t leave the faintest sign anyone’s been here – that’s essential, remember? So no fuck-ups.”

“Yes – I know. I’ve got it.”

“Good. Now let’s get on with this and no more idle chatter.”

The living room was minimally furnished and promised little in the way of search results. Lysette flipped through the magazines on the coffee table – Imogen snapped one or two photos of the contents.

“So how exactly is photographing covers of GQ going to help us here?” Lysette demanded.

“I don’t know. I… I was trying to be thorough, that’s all.”

“I’ll tell you what to photograph.”

“Okay, yes, got it.”

They searched through bookshelves and on every other surface, discovering nothing that warranted much interest, their torches glancing around in the darkness and their breath the only noise, aside from Imogen’s occasional prattle.

“God, this is like Mission: Impossible, isn’t it? Only we didn’t drop in on one of those wire thingies. And that with us it’s a bit, kind of – you know, criminal.”

“It is criminal. So shush.”

“Yes, but… if he’s been so nasty in the divorce, then I suppose he’s got it coming, so we’re helping out, right? It’s a good thing we’re doing, isn’t it?”

“Sure, we’re bloody Girl Scouts. Shush!”

“Only… well he seemed so nice when we met him at that party when the Piccadilly branch opened. So gentlemanly. They were such a beautiful couple. He was so tall and dark, so strong. Italian… that’s how he looked. Is he Italian? He sounded a bit Scottish. I’d hate it if he found us here. God, I mean doubly hate it. I liked him. Such a shame it went wrong between them. Do you know why they…”

“Jesus, Imogen, would you just shut up?”

There was an embarrassed pause. “Sorry, sorry. I’m nervous, that’s all. If Spencer even knew I was doing this…”

“Look,” Lysette said, tempering her tone, “your precious boyfriend isn’t going to find out. No one is going to find out. We’re done in this room – so we simply search the bedroom, wait for Miranda’s text and then get the hell out of here. Then you can forget the whole thing ever happened, okay?”

“Okay, okay. I know. God, Lysette…”

“What?”

“This is the most exciting thing I’ve done in my life! I don’t think I’m ever going to forget tonight.”

*

Mac made the drive in a shorter time even than he’d expected. By the time he’d parked his car outside the apartment block, his anger had simmered into firm intent. Find the intruder, make sure the bastard’s face was caught squarely on camera and then discover what Miranda had expected him to do. Make the guy squirm till he crapped himself and then maybe finish off by calling the police. Which to do – hold the knowledge of what she had done over Miranda, or have her arrested straight away along with her accomplice? He wasn’t sure yet. He hoped to hell that Miranda hadn’t been able to contact her hired thief any other way – but then the whole point of the disposable phone was anonymity, right? She wasn’t going to incriminate herself further by calling on her own phone… The thought that the burglar might have cut and run made his stomach tighten.

His heart starting to pound once again, he sent another text to the intruder.

PROGRESS?

ROOMS ALL SEARCHED. EVERYTHING OF INTEREST PHOTOGRAPHED.

Still there – yes! For once in that God-awful year of his life, Mac’s luck was holding. Now to capitalise…

He texted again.

GO OVER THE BEDROOM ONE MORE TIME. MAKE SURE YOU MISS NOTHING.

UNDERSTOOD.

That’s right, you vacuous male-model bastard, go through all my stuff one more time. Anything for your beloved fucking Cruella. You’ll be right where I want you. Grabbing a heavy torch from the trunk to use as a weapon, Mac locked his car and paced towards the apartment building. His breathing was ragged, his senses charged with energy as he prepared to face the intruder. What Miranda must be thinking now… She was staying well away from the mess she’d created, desperately trying to work out how she’d wriggle free of her own screwed plan. Well no dice, you vicious bitch, tonight I’m in the driver’s seat.

He tapped in the entrance code to the complex, wondering how the hell that information had been gained. Maybe the thief had simply waited until someone else was going through the gate, but knowledge of the password to his own place – that had been in his possession alone. Never mind – he could worry about those details later. All that mattered now was the furtive individual who’d currently be skulking around his bedroom, collecting all the information they could later spill.

Mastering his breathing once more, he unlocked the downstairs entrance to his section of the complex and made his way up the hallway stairs to apartment nine, the meagre space he’d been renting since the divorce debacle had begun. His fingers hovered at the key panel for a moment. He could make a quick entrance and rush the intruder, or else use stealth. The latter option appealed to his mood, so he tapped in the digits, easing the door open with supreme care.

The apartment was dark, aside from a blinking security light. Whoever had gained access before him that night was privy to the alarm code too. His mind darted about for solutions to the mystery, but once again he brushed those considerations aside, attending to the situation at hand. He ventured into his own living space, eyes adjusting to the darkness, ears alert for the slightest sound. He heard the latter soon enough – voices drifted from his bedroom. A pair of thieves. Shit, I should have known. But as possessed as he was by his need to control the situation, he knew he’d have taken them on regardless. These weren’t professionals, they were Miranda’s recruits, selected from her own merry band of sycophants. Besides, from the sound of the whispered conversation, at least one of them was… maybe both were… female?

Slipping off his shoes, Mac progressed quietly down the carpeted corridor towards the intruders. The unlit torch was heavy in his hand – a last resort in the unlikely circumstances that his uninvited guests were armed in any way. Beams of light were flickering about the bedroom, as the thieves exchanged breathy conversation. The door was open enough for him to see one dark shape hovering not far inside the room, a good half foot shorter than him, with their back turned to the entrance. Whatever the identity of these thieves, they were both his. Blood drummed in his ear, drowning out the thread of his breath. One moment’s nerve was required, and then adrenalin would do the rest.

Mac laid a palm flat on the door’s surface, pushed and leapt.

His apprehension of the first criminal was swift and clean. He had the figure in his grasp and his broad palm clamped around their mouth before they had a chance to react, other than to let their torch tumble to the carpet. In more or less the same instant he flipped the knob on the lighting panel beside the door with that same hand that grasped the torch, and the room swam with light. Criminal two had turned in alarm at the disturbance and now she – yes, she – screamed in panic and stumbled in reverse against his closet, to see her accomplice grappled into submission.

The intruder within his grasp was clearly also a young woman, albeit masked like her partner. She was soft and svelte within his grip as she struggled for freedom – not as dramatically curved as the other one, but equally feminine. Awkwardly pocketing his torch he gripped the stocking mask around her neck and ripped it upwards and off. A shock of wave-permed russet locks tumbled free, their fragrance wafting up to envelop his face. His captive ceased to wriggle, as she succumbed to the truth that she was caught.

The other one was frozen in terror against the hard oak veneer of the closet; her huge blue eyes, primped with mascara, stared back at him through the gap in her improvised stocking-disguise. “You,” he said, his voice a terse bark, “take off the mask.” She hesitated, curiously meek for a girl with such a well-stacked frame. Mac grabbed the captured Scarlet’s wrist and pushed it up the girl’s back, till she cried out from the force. “Take off the fucking mask,” he reiterated, “and let me see you.”

Without further delay the second girl grabbed at the hem of the mask, peeling it free of her head in a single panicked motion. A great sheet of corn-blonde hair fell dramatically free, so that it scattered about her shoulders. She stood, gasping and staring at him, her exquisitely pretty features made up with lipstick, foundation and blush, for all that she was house-breaking. Here was a Hollywood kind of burglar, in appearance at least. Mac judged from the girl’s rather vacuous stare that the looks were not matched by a master-thief’s intelligence.

“Now you,” Mac hissed into the ear of the red-haired companion, “go over and stand beside your friend. And don’t think of trying anything – this place has cameras everywhere. Although I think you probably already knew that, right?” He pushed the girl and she obliged by rushing over to the blonde, turning around to face the man who had captured her. She was breathing furiously like her companion, equalling the girl in shock, but exhibiting more natural defiance. “Smile, girls,” he said, some part of him shocked at the degree of his own viciousness. “You’re on Candid-fucking-Camera. Surprised to see me?”

The scarlet girl fixed her green-eyed gaze on him, like she was scanning through her options, while her golden-haired partner whimpered, her mouth hanging open. “Oh God, oh God…”

“Wait a second,” Mac said, realisation dawning as he stared at the pretty two-girl tableau. “We’ve all met before, haven’t we?” There was silence from the two of them. “Haven’t we… Blondie?”

The marginally taller of the two girls worked her jaw, but no sound came out. She looked to her associate for guidance and the scarlet gave the sigh of a girl furious at having been caught so easily. “Yes,” the more slender girl replied, clearly aware that silence on the subject no longer mattered. She’d known about the webcams he’d installed around the place on a paranoid whim – they both had. Someone with inside information had prepped them.

“The Vanguard party, the one at Chinawhite,” he went on, the whole occasion coming back to him. He’d still believed himself and Miranda happily married at the time, but these two had still presented a picture no red-blooded male was likely to forget – the marmalade-girl’s willowy figure set off in a dress as red as her hair and the blonde a tits-and-ass bombshell in a figure-squeezing white mini-dress, all cleavage and smile. He’d seen them in photos from the evening on Miranda’s Facebook, should the memory ever have threatened to fade.

“Lynette?” he ventured, eyeing the scarlet.

“Lysette.” She looked guarded and sulky in equal measures.

“Lysette. And you’re…”

“Im – Im – Imogen,” the blonde managed in a teary squeak.

“Imogen. Yes, I remember.” His gaze flicked back and forth between them – one still poised as though searching for some course of action, the other cowering in her guilt. “Miranda’s shop girls. And now her partners-in-crime. Her little puppets, right? Dancing to her tune. Breaking into my fucking house, while you think she’s got me distracted. Well sorry to disappoint you both.”

“The texts…” the one called Lysette breathed.

“Yes, they were from me. Feeling all secure, were you? Well that’s changed.” He plucked Miranda’s phone from his pocket and waved it before them like a winning card. “This fell into my hand, almost literally, and it seems your boss has abandoned you now that her cunning plan has been rumbled.”

“We were… I can…”

“No. No, don’t even fucking try to finish any of those sentences.” Mac’s surprise at the criminal girl duo had momentarily displaced his anger, but now the latter emotion was flooding back, purer than before. It was developing into a seething fury at his having been played for a fool that evening, fuelled by all the tortured months that had preceded it. This was where playing nice landed a guy – having the few sparsely-furnished rooms he could call home rummaged through by his bitch-wife’s fawning little fangirls. Well now they could help him turn things around, one way or another. “Not a word from either of you,” he instructed, his level voice belying the force of emotion that boiled inside, “unless it’s in response to something I ask. Now sit on the bed, both of you.”

“Look, I know…” the scarlet began.

“Sit down on the bed and shut the fuck up!” He roared the words – a volley of sheer molten rage. “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with you bitches yet, so the best thing you can do is sit and keep fucking quiet.” They scurried, even the fiery-looking one, and sat huddling on the edge of his bed in their black tops and leggings, faces burning and gazes downcast. “That’s better. Now everything you’ve done tonight, along with your pretty faces, is captured on my CCTV and the footage relayed where my lawyer friend can access it, so don’t get any ideas. I mean you could whack me over the head with this torch and run for it, but I seriously wouldn’t advise it.” He tossed the torch in question onto the bed between them, marvelling at his previously undiscovered capacity for bullshit. “So what I need instead are the answers to a few questions.”

They eyed him as he spoke, the scarlet cowed and the blonde utterly crestfallen.

“What exactly was the purpose of your coming here? I mean what in particular were you looking for?” They glanced at each other, the Goldilocks looking for succour from her friend. “Miranda’s not here now,” he reminded them, “and if you think she’s going to show up to help, then you don’t know her at all. So the best thing you can do is talk – whether to me or to the police.” Scarlet caught her breath and Blondie gulped down a sob. “Well?”

 Finally the Lysette-girl spoke. “She didn’t tell us. Not specifically. She was looking for something – anything that might – you know, give her an edge in what’s… what’s going on between you. She wanted us to go through everything. Photograph everything.”

“Photograph…” Mac noticed the pocket camera in Imogen’s hand. He grabbed it from her while she squeaked, and flicked through the images – a jumble of business letters and legal correspondence along with random shots of magazine covers. The sense of his violated privacy intensified, along with one of the situation’s sheer absurdity. “This is shit,” he said, holding up the camera. “It’s a joke.” He’d have thrown it back in derision, but decided to pocket the device instead, the better to alarm them. “You didn’t even know why you were here – and yet you were fucking stupid enough to go along with it. What did she offer you – money, a promotion?” They stared at him miserably. “It’s not rhetorical. Fucking answer me.”

“Money,” the scarlet one mumbled.

“How much?”

“She didn’t say exactly… just that the bigger the settlement, the more we’d benefit.”

“Really? Well say goodbye to that. Her little plan has backfired big time. She’s going to suffer from it and so are you.” The blonde girl was snivelling by now, glancing back and forth between Mac and her friend like she was lost in a nightmare. “Feeling sorry for yourself, Blondie?” Snarling fury, the like of which he had never known, fuelled his words and dampened all compassion. “Well maybe you should have thought of that before you broke into someone else’s house. Do the words ‘prisonable offence’ mean anything to you?” They both stared up at him, the bombshell piteous and her slinky friend now exhibiting true desperation. “Fuck it,” he said, “I’ve had it with you two idiots. I’m calling the police.”

They cried out together as he rummaged in his phone pocket, a cacophony of spluttering panic accompanied by beseeching hands. Then Scarlet managed to articulate her thoughts. “Please no, not the police. We’ve made a mistake.” She flinched at the response on his face to the final word. “More than a mistake. We’ve… We’ve been stupid – really, really unforgivably stupid… We’re sorry, right, Imogen?”

“Yes, we’re sorry. We’re so, so sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” His fury turned incandescent. “You’re fucking sorry? You haven’t started to be sorry. Your little mistake is going to have some serious fucking consequences. I’m going to school you both in the meaning of sorry.” Scarlet went to stand, her palm outstretched in appeasement. “Sit there!” he raged, and she folded back into her position on the bed, looking crushed and miserable.

The blonde was blubbering now, mascara starting to trickle. “Oh God,” she was mumbling to herself, “my parents will never speak to me again. What’ll my boyfriend say? This can’t be happening…”

“Imogen, shut up,” her friend spat. “Look, please,” she appealed to him again, hands gripping the duvet. “We’re begging you, you don’t have to do this. We’re pleading with you here.” Beside her Imogen nodded vigorously, murky tear-trails all down her cheeks.

“Pleading are you?” They nodded in agreement. Mac felt grim amusement, despite his anger, at the thieves’ frantic efforts; their squirming attempts to disentangle their pretty selves from the net in which they had become trapped were undeniably entertaining. Calling the police somehow seemed too easy. Kind of a wasted opportunity. “You ferret about in my property,” he persisted, milking the moment, “go through all my private belongings and then think you can plead your way out of it? Give me a reason.” They stared at him, the scarlet’s look rather more alert than her friend’s. Surprisingly it was the blonde who attempted something.

“Because you’re nice,” she said simply.

“I’m sorry?”

“When we met you at that party – you seemed nice. I think you are, really…”

Her words faltered. If the words were meant to disarm him, they had failed. The girl’s assessment chimed with the one Miranda had made over dinner, shortly before she fucked him over. Quietly he let the words feed his wrath. “Imogen, right?” She nodded glumly. “No, Imogen. You’ve got that all wrong. I’m not nice. I’m not nice at all, and you’ll soon know the truth of that. So go on, try again. Tell me why I shouldn’t make that call.” He looked back and forth at them both. “You’re going to pay your way out of it? I’m guessing not, if you’re both trying to grub money from Miranda this way. So tell me, you little house-breaking bitches, what exactly do you have to bargain with?”

It was as if Mac was grasping his own meaning even as he spoke. His body already knew it. His cock, which had deflated when he realised Miranda’s deception, was rock hard once more. It had been engorging for some time, fuelled by his fury, without his even realising it. At any other moment in his life his conscience would have clamped down on the instinct, but tonight in the face of these two hot, panting thieves, his better angels didn’t have a prayer. ‘Good-guy Mac’ had been banished from the occasion.

“Well?” he demanded, his erection swelling to full size as his mind embraced his body’s demands. All his anger had concentrated into one huge, demanding hard-on and as the blood pumped through his veins, he knew his course. “Tell me.”

Scarlet saw his intention first, and her face blushed a complimentary crimson. “We… We can make this right, can’t we, Imogen?” she said, her stare not parting from Mac’s.

Her partner’s look faltered briefly, before the blonde girl nodded frantically once more, grasping at this single straw of hope, whatever form it was likely to take. “Uh-huh. Yes, we can.”

A smile crept onto Mac’s lips and for the first time he acknowledged his enjoyment in the unfolding situation. His heart was beating fast and a sense of his own emerging power was enveloping him. “Make it right how, exactly? Come on, girls, I’m not going to make this easy for you. Say exactly how you’re going to make it right.”

“God…” There was frustration in Scarlet’s voice now; it clearly irked her to be played this way. “We’ll do anything if you forget all this, right, Im?”

“Yes, anything, please!” Blondie’s concerns over parents and boyfriend were clearly trouncing all other considerations in that moment. Her secret must be kept at all costs.

“There it is,” Mac said, marvelling secretly at the words coming out of his mouth. “The magic word – anything. Care to add some specifics?”

Scarlet looked at him with pure malice now, while Blondie awaited the next development,  eyes teary and mouth wide open.

“I’ll… We’ll…” Scarlet attempted.

Mac’s patience ran out. It was time to get things moving. “Fuck this,” he said, delving into a pocket and plucking out his phone.

“No!” the team leader cried out, her tear-streaked associate screaming in unison with her. “Don’t call the police! Please!”

“I’m not calling the police,” he said, through gritted teeth, “I’m cancelling a morning engagement. One way or another, this is going to be a long night. But I swear to Christ,” he added with a malevolent stare, “if one of you bitches isn’t naked and sucking my cock by the time I’ve finished this call, the police are next.” He hit a number on his speed dial and stared at both their stunned faces. “You think I’m fucking joking? Well, who’s it going to be? You girls are flat out of time.”

TO BE CONTINUED