Dicking Around by Amarinda Jones

Chapter One
Thirty minutes earlier
    “That’s her.” Mickey pointed to the woman opening the door to the changing room. He and his partner in crime, Theo, stood awkwardly among the racks of clothes in the up-market ladies’ boutique. They had been following their target for hours, waiting for the right moment to strike.
    Theo looked over at the woman. “The fat one?”
    Mickey surveyed the brunette. “I wouldn’t call her fat. She’s got curves. I like a real woman and—”
    “I don’t care what you like.” Theo turned and glared at his companion. “If she has the USB stick we have to get it from her.”
    “But how? We’ve tried breaking into her apartment. It’s like Fort Knox.”
    Grudgingly, Theo had been impressed by her security. The lady lived in a bad part of town. Even they couldn’t break in and he and Mickey had been robbing people for years.
    She was smart to be cautious. “Then we mug her.”
    Mickey grimaced. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. She looks like a nice person.”
    “We’re not going to. We steal her handbag and take her apartment keys and get in that way.”
    “What if the stick isn’t at her apartment?”
    It had to be. Theo wanted that stick. He needed the money it would bring. “Where else could it be?”
    Mickey shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe we should ask her.”
    “You mean go up to her and say, “pardon me, we noticed when you went to that garage sale the other day and bought that two-dollar surprise box of crap, we have rock solid information that a USB stick with sexually explicit pictures of a certain politician, with a hooker, was in the box. We plan to financially benefit from selling it to the highest bidder.
    May we please have a look inside the box of crap you bought?”
    “That sounds reasonable.”
    Theo slapped Mickey on the back of the head. “And what if she says ‘well hell, I’ll use those photos for my own gain’?”
    “Nah, she doesn’t look that sort.”

    Theo sighed. “I have no idea why you put such a valuable item into a pile of junk for your sister-in-law’s garage sale.” For a career criminal, Mickey was as smart as a block of wood.
    “Well, I made a promise to help out at the sale and I was in a rush to get it too. I dropped it in by mistake and—”
    “Shut up! Just hearing you explain it makes me what to slap you again.”
    A junkie had sold the stick to Mickey for fifty dollars. When they later found out that a certain politician was missing some extremely personal information downloaded onto a USB stick, Theo had considered Mickey’s purchase extremely fortuitous. They could sell it to the highest bidder and clear their debts. That Mickey had lost it so quickly was unbelievable.
    “Now we’re screwed.” Theo blew out a breath and ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. It had been a bad year when it came to making a profit in crime. That they were standing in a ladies’ boutique waiting to snatch a bag from a customer indicated to Theo how low he had sunk. “We could kidnap and threaten her.”
    “She looks like a nice lady.”
    Theo glared at his short, round accomplice. “What sort of a criminal are you?”
    “I can’t help it if I have a conscience.”
    That was the first thing a career criminal lost. “I say we make our way over to the changing room and snatch her handbag.” It wasn’t going to be easy. The two men stood out like a sore thumb among the clothes and the women. But Theo was determined. “I will get that stick.”

    ****
“Bloody hell!” No matter which way she pulled at the dress, it wouldn’t budge. Carlisle was trapped by the scarlet, silk fabric holding firm to her large breasts and shoulders. The worst part was she couldn’t see anything.
    “Anyone out there? I need help. I’m stuck.” She called out several times before someone finally answered.
    “Stuck in what way?”
    Crap. A man . Just who I don’t need. “Is the sales lady out there?” Carlisle struggled to free