A Dangerous Affair Chapter 68

A Chapter by Repgreece

The party is getting started!

Tom and Stephanie re-entered the pub and headed to the bar to order more drinks. Phillipa spotted Stephanie and mouthed,

“You okay?”

Stephanie nodded and smiled.

Tom was a little disappointed to see that Stephanie’s friends were still there but he made a conscious decision not to dwell on the fact. After passing Stephanie another glass of wine he sat on a bar stool with his back to the bar, picked up his bottle of beer, swept an arm around Stephanie’s waist and pulled her back into the circle of his arms. He linked his hands possessively in front of her and waited to see if she would protest. To his surprise she didn’t protest at all but placed her free hand over his and sipped her wine.

Stephanie could sense Brick just a few stools away from them but she daren’t risk a look in his direction. Instead she focused her attention on Bob’s crowd but was a little disconcerted to see that many of the officers were watching Tom and her with great interest.

Tom’s attention was only on one person however, Dan. He was standing a little way from them, leaning against a pillar, with Phillipa and Simon chatting to his left. Dan was not listening to the conversation around him though, he too was only focused on one person, Tom. His eyes moved from Tom’s hands around Stephanie’s middle to Tom’s face. Tom’s eyes were slightly narrowed, a cold, emotionless look about them as he stared steadily back at Dan. Dan was by no means put off by Tom’s glare and he continued to hold eye contact with him. With his eyes still on Dan, Tom moved his lips to Stephanie’s ear and whispered something. She smiled and he nuzzled her neck a little before taking another swig of his beer and moving his eyes back to Dan. Dan’s expression hardened and, although he still refused to break eye contact with Tom, he lifted his glass of whiskey to his mouth, drained the contents, handed it to Simon and disappeared into the crowds. Tom watched him go and strained to see in-between the people, keen to know where Dan was moving to. It wasn’t long before Tom spotted him by the exit. Dan opened the door, hesitated and turned to take one more look in Stephanie’s direction before turning again and leaving the pub.

Unbeknownst to Stephanie or Tom a broad grin spread across Brick’s face behind them.

Stephanie turned around to look at Tom. “He’s gone now, hasn’t he?”

Tom nodded but looked slightly unsure of how this would make her feel.

“So are you happier now?” she asked.

Tom wasn’t sure if she was angry with him all of a sudden and he was finding it difficult to know how to reply.

She smiled at him. “Well if even if you’re not, I am!”

He laughed. “Yeah well I’m not exactly going to miss him!”

She smiled again and reached forward to kiss him on the cheek. “I’m going to go and have a quick chat with Pippa now.”

“Sure,” he smiled.

Stephanie was surprised to see that Pippa had apparently vanished, leaving Simon standing on his own.

“She hasn’t deserted you has she?” Stephanie said to Simon.

“Not exactly, she’s gone to powder her nose,” he replied.

“Ah. Think I’ll join her,” Stephanie said, pushing her way through the crowds to the ladies rooms at the back of the pub.

******************************

Tom joined Brick and observed the glass of whiskey in his hand. From further down the bar Barker noticed that Tom had moved and he headed in their direction.

“You got the right whiskey now then boss?” Tom asked.

Brick looked at his glass and frowned. “It’s not the best in here but it’s either stay and drink this or go home to the wife and she’s having a meeting tonight with a coven of old crones from the WI. The whiskey seems like an entirely more satisfactory proposition at the moment.”

Tom smiled but then looked a little confused. “Haven’t you seen Barker yet then?”

Barker just about reached Tom in time and jostled him sharply as he walked past, giving him a purposeful glare when Tom turned around.

“I see you’re getting used to the house whiskey now Sir,” Barker said to Brick.

Brick looked from Barker to Tom with suspicion but then he reminded himself that he was not at work now and so he was better off not knowing what they were rattling on about.

********************

Stephanie found Phillipa in the ladies room reapplying her lipstick.

“Stephie,” Phillipa began when she saw her, replacing her lipstick in her handbag and turning away from the mirror to speak. “I was worried about you when you ran out of the bar earlier. Is everything okay now?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I just wanted to apologise for leaving so abruptly.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Phillipa sighed and looked at Stephanie guiltily. “I suppose that it was a mistake me bringing Dan tonight. I’m sorry darling, I didn’t realise. Why didn’t you tell me that you and Tom are an item now?”

Stephanie looked a bit uncomfortable. “Well I’m not entirely sure what we are at the moment, if we are an item or not.”

Phillipa grinned. “Come on Steph, you only had to talk to Dan and you should have seen Tom’s face, he was positively green with envy and livid with Dan. And I’ve known you long enough now to know when you really like someone a lot. Sitting in the middle of a pub with his arms wrapped around you tells me that you like him a lot.”

Stephanie blushed slightly and looked to the floor. “I can’t pull the wool over your eyes can I?”

“No you can’t and to be honest I don’t know why you would want to. Don’t make the same mistakes you made with Dan. Okay, I know that he didn’t treat you right but I have the feeling that he never really knew just how much you felt for him. If you like this Tom guy as much as you say then let him know it.”

“It’s not that easy with him Pippa. Mostly because I work with him and... well I know that there’s something between us but if I tell him exactly how I feel and he doesn’t feel the same, I don’t know how I could carry on working with him.”

“What makes you think that he doesn’t feel the same?”

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “He’s not that kind of guy Pippa. Everything is so casual with him and he's flirted with every woman in the office before now.”

"Well now he's met his match, and it seemes to me as if it's more than just flirting going on between you two," Pippa stressed.

“Maybe, but I'm not so sure," Stephanie replied.

“Hmm,” Phillipa folded her arms and looked at Stephanie with despair. “I think that you and I need to discuss this further. Come on, let’s go and get another drink.”

**************************************

Tom pulled Barker to one side and spoke to him in a hushed voice. “What was that all about? You haven’t given the boss his whiskey yet?”

Barker seemed quite flustered. “Err, well it seems as if I’ve come across a small hitch. Damn, I only wanted to keep him here for a bit longer as them lot kept saying that he never joins in with work social gatherings. He was complaining about the whiskey so I thought that fetching his own whiskey from his office would placate him for a while. Turns out it was a bad idea to get involved.”

“Yeah, why? What’s the hitch?” Tom asked.

“Well luckily Brick knows nothing about me going to collect his whiskey but if he finds out,” Barker made a hand gesture across his throat to indicate what would happen.

“Barker, stay cool. Just hand over the whiskey. I’m sure he’ll appreciate what you did.”

Barker shook his head furiously. “No, you don’t understand. I’ve lost it! One of those drunken morons over there has bloody well taken it!”

Tom couldn’t help but chuckle. “Good luck with that one!”

Barker went to move away then but Tom took hold of his arm before he left. “Barker, about earlier in the office.”

Barker grinned.

“Stephanie’s a bit worked up about what you thought and everything but I told her that you’d keep quiet, right?”

Just then a huge outburst of laughter came from Bob’s crowd and Barker looked over at them anxiously.

“Yeah, look I’ve got to go and find that whiskey bottle because the way they are carrying on someone is going to let something slip!” And with that he rushed off.

Tom chuckled to himself again and leant on the bar, finishing his beer. He scanned the room and his eyes settled on Stephanie who was standing chatting to Phillipa. Up until then he’d been so concerned about getting Dan out of the way and making sure that nobody else found out about what happened in the office that he hadn’t had time to think about how unbelievably incredible the whole things was. Now, watching Stephanie from afar, looking as sexy as ever, he could hardly believe how far things had gone between them. That was until he had a sudden vivid recollection of her lips on his chest, the soft sound of her moans in his ears, the feel of her silky skin under his hands - he was slowly heating up �" her legs wrapped around him, her body pressed so intimately against his.

“Bloody hell, I need another drink!” he mumbled to himself, dragging his eyes away from Stephanie and catching the attention of the barman. This night was going to be one hell of a challenging one!