Chapter 3: The Red Dress and the Fish Fryer
The party was a dull roar in her ears, a blur of sticky floors and cheap beer breath. The red dress—Liam’s red dress—felt like a costume, tight across her chest, the hem riding up her thighs. She watched Liam across the room, his arm slung around a mate’s shoulder, laughing too loud. He hadn’t looked at her in an hour. He’d just pointed at her dress when she arrived and said, “Told you. Looks good.” As if she were a car he’d polished.
Her phone was a cool, heavy weight in her hand. She’d been holding it for twenty minutes, her thumb tracing the crack in the case. The noise of the party faded into a muffled din. All she could hear was the remembered gravel in Josh’s voice. You have no idea.
She found a quiet corner near a stack of empty kegs, the smell of stale hops sharp in her nose. Her heart was a frantic bird against her ribs. She opened her messages, scrolled past Liam’s name, and tapped on Josh’s. Their last exchange was from months ago, about shift swaps.
Her fingers moved before her mind could catch up.
Isla: Hey. I’m at a party at Rob’s. Liam’s wrecked. Can’t drive me. Any chance you could…?
She hit send. The whoosh sound felt final. She leaned her head back against the cold brick wall, waiting. This was it. A line, not just drawn, but actively crossed.
The phone buzzed in her hand less than a minute later. Her stomach flipped.
Josh: Address.
She sent it. Then, a second later, another text from him.
Josh: Be out front in 10. Don’t make me come in there.
The command should have rankled. It didn’t. It coiled low in her belly, warm and definite. She didn’t say goodbye to Liam. She just walked out, the night air hitting her bare shoulders like a shock. The red dress suddenly felt like armor.
His truck, an old Ford with a chipped paint job, pulled up exactly ten minutes later, headlights cutting through the mist rolling in from the sea. He didn’t get out. She opened the passenger door and climbed in. The interior smelled of him—clean cotton, fryer grease, and that faint, spicy cedar of his aftershave.
He didn’t look at her. His hands were tight on the wheel, knuckles pale. He was wearing a dark henley, the sleeves pushed up his forearms. He stared straight ahead. “Where to?” His voice was flat.
“Not home,” she said quietly.
That got his attention. He turned his head. In the dim green glow of the dashboard lights, his eyes were black pools, unreadable. He took her in—the red dress, the smudged mascara, the defiant set of her jaw. “Isla.”
“Just drive, Josh. Please.”
He held her gaze for a beat longer, then put the truck in gear. They drove in silence through the sleeping town, past the shuttered gift shops and the darkened pier. He didn’t ask again. He didn’t turn towards her estate. Instead, he drove the familiar route to the seafront, to the closed-up shop with the peeling sign. The Golden Fry.
He parked around the back, in the alley where the bins were. He killed the engine. The silence was absolute, broken only by the distant crash of waves.
“Why here?” she asked, her voice small in the dark cab.
“Because it’s neutral,” he said, still not looking at her. “Because it’s the only place I can fucking think straight anymore, and right now, I’m not thinking straight at all.” He finally turned to her. “What’s going on?”
She looked down at her hands, twisted in the red fabric of her lap. “I ended it. With Liam. Tonight. Before I texted you.”
The words hung in the air, thick and charged. He didn’t move. She could feel the intensity of his stare.
“Say that again.”
“I broke up with him.” She looked up, meeting his eyes. “I’m serious.”
For a long moment, he was perfectly still. Then, a sharp, ragged breath escaped him. “Get out of the truck.”
He was out his door before she could respond. She fumbled with the handle, her legs unsteady as she stepped down onto the damp asphalt. He was already at the back door, jangling keys. The lock clicked with a sound like a gunshot in the quiet alley.
He held the door open. She walked past him, into the dark, familiar hallway. The smell of old grease and vinegar was a welcome, grounding scent. He followed, locking the door behind them. The only light came from the neon “CLOSED” sign in the front window, casting a sickly red glow through the serving hatch and into the back office doorway.
He didn’t turn on the overheads. He guided her by the elbow, not roughly, but with a purpose that made her breath catch, into the small, cluttered office. The ghost of their morning confrontation was everywhere. Her notebook was still open on the desk.
He turned her to face him. His hands came up to cradle her face, his thumbs rough against her cheekbones. In the bloody half-light, his expression was stripped bare—hunger, fear, a raw, desperate hope. “Months,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I have wanted you for so many fucking months it feels like a disease. Do you understand that?”
She nodded, her words stolen by the look in his eyes.
“Tell me you’re sure. Tell me this isn’t some fucking… party rebellion. Tell me you want this. Me.”
“I’m sure,” she breathed. “Josh, I want you. I have always wanted you.”
A low sound, almost a growl, tore from his throat. That was all the warning she got.
He pushed her back against the edge of the heavy wooden desk, the shock of the impact rattling the old computer monitor. A coffee cup tipped over, spitting cold dregs across her sketches. He didn’t seem to notice. His hands were on her hips, hauling her forward, then hiking one of her legs over his hip. The red dress rode up, bunching around her waist.
He ground himself against her, and she could feel him, hard and massive, even through the layers of their clothes. A whimper escaped her. This wasn’t a kiss. It was a claim. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, his breath hot and ragged against her skin.
“This dress,” he muttered, his teeth grazing her collarbone. “Fucking ridiculous. He wanted you to wear this?” His voice was thick with contempt. His fingers found the zipper at the back and tugged it down in one violent, smooth motion. The cheap fabric gaped open.
He pushed the dress from her shoulders. It slid down her body, a pool of red at her feet on the greasy linoleum. She stood before him in just her plain black knickers and heels. The neon light painted her skin in streaks of crimson.
He froze for a second, just looking. His gaze was a physical touch, scorching her. “Christ,” he breathed, the word full of awe and a kind of pain.
Then his hands were on her, big and warm and possessive. One palm cupped her breast, his thumb sweeping roughly over her nipple, pulling a sharp gasp from her. He bent his head and took the other into his mouth.
The sensation was electric, a direct line of pleasure-pain that shot straight to her core. He wasn’t gentle. He sucked hard, his tongue lashing the tightened peak, his teeth grazing with just enough threat to make her cry out and arch against him. His free hand slid from her breast, down over the quivering plane of her stomach, and up the inside of her thigh. He pushed her legs wider, his fingers sliding under the edge of her knickers.
“So wet already,” he groaned against her skin, his voice muffled. “For me? All this fucking time, you’ve been getting this wet for me while you wrapped cod portions?”
“Yes,” she sobbed, her fingers tangling in his curls, holding him to her.
His fingers found her slit, slick and hot. He didn’t tease. He rubbed the pad of his finger right over her clit, a rough, circular motion that made her legs buckle. He held her up, his arm like an iron bar across her back.
“Josh… please…”
“Please what?” He lifted his head, his lips swollen, his eyes black with need. “You need to say it. You need to tell me what you want from your boss.”
The word, the dynamic, sent another thrill through her. “I want you to fuck me,” she whispered, the obscenity feeling foreign and powerful on her tongue. “Right here. Now. Please.”
A savage grin touched his mouth. He hooked his fingers in the sides of her knickers and ripped them down. The sound of tearing cotton was obscenely loud. He fumbled with his own jeans, the button fly giving way. He shoved them and his boxers down just enough to free himself.
He was thick, and hard, the head flushed and leaking. He pressed it against her, not entering, just rubbing through her slickness, coating himself in her. The sensation was maddening. She was panting, her head thrown back.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
She forced her eyes open, meeting his burning gaze.
“This is what you did,” he said, pushing forward, just an inch, a stretching, breathtaking invasion. “With your looks and your skirts and your fucking bitten lip.” Another inch, stretching her, filling her in a way that was almost too much. She gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders. “You made this happen. You don’t get to regret it.”
Then he drove the rest of the way home in one relentless, deep thrust.
She screamed. It was a full, shocking, raw sound that echoed off the office walls. He was huge inside her, a burning, perfect stretch that pushed past any discomfort into a realm of pure sensation. He didn’t move, buried to the hilt, letting her adjust, his own body trembling with the effort of holding still.
“Okay?” he gritted out, sweat beading on his temple.
She could only nod, her mouth open, breathing him in.
He began to move. There was no romance to it, no soft, exploring rhythm. It was a furious, driving pace, each snap of his hips slamming her back into the desk. The computer keyboard rattled. Pens rolled to the floor. His grip on her hips was bruising, holding her in place for his thrusts.
“Is this what you wanted?” he grunted, his breath hot on her face. “This what you thought about when you were supposed to be counting change?”
“Yes! God, yes!” She was clinging to him, each thrust sending shockwaves through her. The coarse fabric of his henley rubbed her nipples. The edge of the desk bit into the back of her thighs. It was overwhelming, a sensory riot of pain and pleasure, of grease and sex and his unique, maddening scent.
He shifted his angle slightly, and on the next thrust, he hit a spot that made her see white behind her eyelids. A broken, continuous moan was torn from her throat.
“There?” he demanded, pounding into that same spot, again and again. “You gonna come for me, Isla? Gonna come on your boss’s cock in this filthy little office?”
The vulgarity, the sheer wrongness of it, tipped her over the edge. The orgasm roared through her, violent and catastrophic, clenching around him in wave after wave of pulsing heat. She screamed again, her body bowing, her vision fragmenting into shards of red neon.
Feeling her convulse around him undid him completely. With a final, savage thrust and a raw, choked shout that was more pain than pleasure, he spilled into her, his own release racking his big frame. He collapsed against her, his forehead pressed to her shoulder, his whole body shuddering.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the endless, buzzing hum of the neon sign. The world slowly reassembled itself—the chill of the room on her sweat-slicked skin, the hard edge of the desk, the solid, heavy weight of him against her, still intimately joined.
He stirred first. Gently, he pulled out, the movement making her wince with a sore, spent sensitivity. He righted his clothes with quick, awkward movements, then, without a word, knelt and picked up her torn knickers. He looked at them for a second, then stuffed them into his pocket. He found her dress and helped her step into it, his hands surprisingly steady as he zipped it up the back, his fingers lingering on the nape of her neck.
He leaned back against the desk beside her, their shoulders touching. He stared at the stained, scribbled-over pages of her notebook.
“So,” he said finally, his voice hoarse, stripped raw. “What happens now?”
She looked at his profile, at the tired set of his mouth, at the streak of her lipstick on his jaw. She had no answer. The momentum had carried them here, to this shattered, quiet place. All she knew was that everything had changed.
She reached over and laced her fingers through his. He gripped her hand tight, like a man holding on to a raft in a wild sea, and didn’t let go.