by Julie Kenner
And then—rather abruptly—everything got really strange.
CHAPTER FOUR
Micki tottered uncertainly as she slipped on her shoes. She so wanted to be a stronger woman, a capable woman. Someone who was respected by her students, who exuded grace and skill. Someone who could clean up a kitchen, kick butt against gang members and then still have the skills—and attitude—to jump this hunky cop without double-thinking everything. She sighed. She was only herself, and yet—
She was herself jumping off the refrigerator, grabbing the broom and swirling the glass into a tight little pile. She kicked the dustpan with her foot, flipping it into the air, then caught it one-handed. Swooping down, she pushed all the glass into the pan, then did an elegant ballet leap across the room. The glass shards dropped into the wastebasket, then she tossed/spun the broom back to its place in the inch between refrigerator and counter. Last—but definitely not least—she gave Joe a flirty little wink before sashaying back to the bedroom. She didn’t stop until she was stretched out on the bed, her body arrayed in a sexy, sideways lounge. She didn’t come back to herself until she felt her own hand at her blouse, making sure it was open to her navel and showed everything. At that point she simply froze in place, one hand on her stomach, while Joe slowly entered her bedroom.
She raised her gaze to meet his. He looked startled, aroused, and extremely wary as he stopped just inside the doorway.
“I’m possessed,” she whispered. “By the spirit of Jet Li and . . . and . . .” She looked down at her open shirt. “And Vampira.”
“Don’t people have to be dead before they can possess you?” he asked.
“Fine!” she snapped. “I’m possessed by some kung fu Mae West!” She abruptly closed her blouse.
He frowned. “That’s your explanation? You’re possessed?”
She blinked, startled and ashamed by the tears returning to her eyes. “Yeah, I guess it is. You got a better idea?” She looked at him, praying he did. “And don’t go with secret undercover fed or anything,” she added. “You know as well as I do that’s not true.”
He frowned as he moved slowly into the room. “I like it a lot better than possessed.” He settled slowly onto the base of her bed. “You’ve never done any martial arts before?”
“Not even kick-boxing.”
“Huh.” That was it, the sum total of his response. And Micki was hard-pressed not to lose it completely. He must have seen how close to the edge she was, because he abruptly scooted closer on the bed and said, “Okay, okay. I believe you. Not a fed.”
“Feds too tough to cry?” she taunted, for really no reason at all.
“Let’s just say you don’t give off the cop vibe.” He touched her arm. The stroke was tentative, but she felt it all the way through her spine. “So, let’s go through this step by step. Have you ever . . . um . . .”
“Run across treetops before? Pivot-turned off my refrigerator? No.”
He nodded. “When did this start?”
“The fight this afternoon.”
“What about when I came into your classroom? You said you fell, but you managed to get Damian’s face. Was that a—”
“I kicked him. A solid round house to the face. I thought it was a lucky accident at the time, but . . .”
“Now you think you might have gone all ninja on him.”
She nodded.
“So, what changed between yesterday and today?”
She threw up her hands. “Nothing! Nothing at all. Same bagel and coffee this morning, same drive to school, same everything.” Then her gaze dropped to her overstuffed wastepaper basket. An empty shoebox teetered half in, half out. “Well, new shoes, but that doesn’t count.”
“No, that doesn’t count,” he agreed. “Unless you think the shoes are possessed.”
He said it as a joke, but then again she didn’t think he was taking any of this very seriously. She, on the other hand, knew for a fact that she did not have secret kung fu skills of her own. Ergo, something was possessed with superpowers. Shoes made as much sense as anything else.
She scrambled off the bed to pull out the empty shoe-box. “I ordered them from some Web site. Here it is: www.hiheelia.com. It promises shoes that will give and get a girl exactly what she needs.”
“You don’t seriously think it’s the shoes, do you?” He folded his arms across his chest and his tone was uber-ironic.
Resolutely ignoring him, Micki turned her attention to her shoes. They were black, Chinese-style Mary Janes. Not that exciting. And yet . . . She toed them off, watching them drop to the floor with a slight pfft—as if power evaporated off her skin the minute she slipped them off. Then again, that might have been her overactive imagination.
Whatever. She squared her shoulders. “Punch me.”
“What?”
“Punch me. Right in the face. My plan is to block it, then . . . uh . . . slam my other arm straight for your nose, and then knee you in—”
“We don’t need to go that far, do we?” His tone continued to be mocking, but he stood up from the bed. Apparently, he intended to humor her.
“Okay, no groin kicks. But I swear to you, I’ll fight back for all I’m worth.”
He nodded and threw the punch. It was a slow punch, obviously half hearted. She met it with her palm extended—smack—but she couldn’t stop his forward momentum, and she certainly wasn’t braced for how very big he was. He drove her shoulder backward to bang painfully against the wall. As for the cool arm-block move—she’d forgotten to do it. Within a half second, she was pressed flat against the wall, Joe’s large hot body tight against her. She couldn’t even raise her knee. His legs trapped hers quite nicely.
She swallowed and looked in his eyes. His honey-brown irises were dark, and his breath heated her lips.
“This wasn’t what I planned,” she said, her voice ten times huskier than she’d intended.
He arched a brow. “You sure?”
She nodded, though only by a fraction of an inch. She didn’t dare move or she’d be kissing him. Hell, her lips were tingling from the desire, but she wasn’t going to go there. Because she wasn’t Mae West and she wasn’t that bold. No matter how much she liked his weight against her.
“Ease off,” she said, pushing uselessly against the solid wall of his chest. “Let me put on the shoes.” She was able to stretch the toes of her left foot to drag one shoe closer. A couple more seconds, and she would be able to slip it on.
Meanwhile, Joe wasn’t moving. If anything, he was dipping his face closer. “This doesn’t work, you know, unless you really fight. Unless you’re really in danger. You could be faking—umph!”
With one shoe on, she suddenly discovered a zillion ways to escape. Whereas before he had been an unmoving wall of muscle, now he was a man with vulnerabilities. She let one hand slip down, and she abruptly dug a single, pointy finger into his side. He squirmed, resisting mightily, but it gave her the inch she needed to wiggle away. She simply slipped down, rolled her hips around him—managing to tease him with her breasts in a strangely erotic move—and then elbowed his back hard enough to slam him into the wall. Then she whipped around, leaned into his back, and pressed her groin hard against his behind.
“One shoe on, Joey, and I’m more than a match for you.” Her voice was taunting and frankly sexual. She’d never been so overt in her life, but she suddenly liked it. Or she did until he shoved backward.
He’d caught her off guard and, worse, her balance was on her bare foot. Apparently, her bare foot didn’t have the same skill as the one with the magic shoe. She slipped and fell backward. Magic foot still managed to kick out and nail him in the thigh, but there wasn’t enough force in the move and she dropped to the floor.
He spun and began stalking forward, his eyes dark with intent, but also with an electric kind of hunger. He was aroused and willing to fight for domination. So was she. And yet, the thoughts were so unlike her, she knew it wasn’t her. “It’s the shoes!” she cried. “Joe! P
ut one on. You’ll see! It’s the shoe!”
He halted, looking down at her covered left foot. Then his gaze slipped to the abandoned right shoe. “It won’t fit me.”
“Maybe if you hold it. Put it on your hand.”
He arched a brow at her, but she simply echoed the look right back at him. “I can feel the difference,” she said with total honesty. “My left foot has balance and power. My right . . .” She waved at her other foot. “It’s just . . . normal.” She twisted a bit on her bottom so that her feet squared up with her nightstand. She kicked out with her bare foot. It connected awkwardly with the old oak leg, then slid sideways off it, scraping the ball of her foot in the process. “Wow, that hurt,” she groused.
“Well, of course—”
Her other foot shot out. The outside ridge of shoe and foot snapped the oak leg clean in two. She hadn’t even been thinking about kicking, and wham, the nightstand was broken. “It’s the shoe!”
He frowned at her, obviously unconvinced. But then he shrugged and picked up the black Mary Jane. He turned it over and over, inspecting it from all sides. It really was a simple design. Rubber sole. Black velvet. The Chinese character embroidered on top was done in a rich bright red. She wore “kindness” on her left foot. He was slipping “love” onto his right hand. And yes, it looked really silly, but her heart kinda melted when he looked at her, a shoe on his hand.
“Well?” She straightened to stand before him.
“Well, what? It’s a shoe. On my hand.”
“You don’t feel any different?”
He shrugged. “I feel stupid. Why? Do you feel different with them on?”
She concentrated on her feet. A little bit of energy seemed to tingle up her left leg, but she thought it was because the shoe fit really well. “Good shoes always give me a bit of a lift.”
He started to roll his eyes but froze at her grimace.
“Yeah, I’m a girl. I like shoes,” she said.
“So hit me, girl,” he taunted, spreading his hands, one shoe-clad, wide in the air. “Hit me like you mean it.”
Wham. She did. She didn’t even think about it, and bam, her arm was flying out toward his face. He blocked it with his shoed hand. Then they were kung fu fighting just like in the movies. It was just arms at the moment: Punch, block, double punch, double block, jab. It was too fast for her to follow even as she was doing it. She saw his eyes widen in shock, and yet neither of them stopped. It was as if they couldn’t.
Then she cut under his punch, spinning to grab hold of his upper arm and throw him across the room. He countered by wrapping his arm around her belly—but that was a critical mistake. It knocked the shoe off his hand. Meanwhile, she was too committed to the throw to stop. She bent and catapulted him to her bed, but with his arm wrapped around her belly, she flew through the air right along with him. They ended up flipping over, landing with a thud, Joe on his back, her on top.
But without the shoe, he didn’t have the dexterity she did. Plus, he might have been a bit winded from her full weight dropping on his admittedly wide and muscular chest. She let her mind dwell on that—his large, studly body beneath her—because otherwise she’d be thinking about her next move, and that was certainly the way to disaster. The magic only seemed to work if she let it take its own course.
So, she concentrated on how she’d love to get Joe nicely naked beneath her as her body flipped around to land hard on his hips. Then she leaned down to pin his arms, but he obviously wasn’t completely vulnerable—even without the magic shoe on his hand. He muscled her over onto her back. She might have gained super ninja powers, but she couldn’t defy the laws of physics. He had at least fifty pounds on her and she couldn’t stop their momentum.
But she could wriggle beneath him. And she did have amazing flexibility and abdominal strength as she kicked out at the back of his head. He reared back but didn’t let go. She used his backward momentum to pull herself upright and neatly flip him over. Except, he didn’t have the flexibility to land on his back with his legs under him. She was sure she heard his knee snap—well, pop at least—and she immediately slid to the side, off him.
“Are you all right?” she gasped.
He was straightening, slowly, and so she reached out, gently supporting him as he came back up to his knees. Then he looked at her, his eyes dark, his breath fast.
“That is the coolest thing ever!” He sounded like an eight-year-old boy. He leaned over and grabbed the shoe, popping it back onto his hand. “Let’s go again.”
She grinned. “Don’t you think your knee has had enough?”
He frowned at his leg, then gingerly maneuvered off the bed and tested his knee. He slowly lunged forward, then again faster. Deeper. Twisting. “It hasn’t felt this good in years!”
Micki bit her lip. “But what about when the shoe comes off?”
He paused a moment, slowly straightening to stand in front of her. “I don’t care. God, you don’t know what it’s like to be suddenly whole again! To be strong and . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t care. This is too cool!” Then he frowned. “What about the neighbors? We’re going to get noisy.”
Yesterday, she would have worried, but today she had magical shoes that let her live out her bold and brassy fantasy with her perfect man. She grinned. “Let them suffer. Tonight, it’s my turn to play.”
He matched her grin. “And I do have some pull with the authorities. Professional courtesy between officers.” Then he lunged at her. She hadn’t been prepared, but that didn’t seem to matter. She leapt backward and he crashed on the bed. But he arched his back and flipped his feet over himself in a move that he probably could never, ever have completed normally without major surgery. But he did it, and she was so stunned that she slowed to stare.
Was this really possible? Apparently so, because he was once again facing her, a grin making him look so much younger. “Ready?”
His joy was infectious. And exciting. She could see his pants were tented, and had a moment’s double take at his size. The shoes couldn’t possibly be . . .
“Micki? I’m coming for you, and I’m not stopping.”
She looked into his eyes, all too aware that her nipples had pebbled and her thighs were trembling and wet. They both knew where this was going. It didn’t matter how it started, they were headed for bed.
She smiled, and her tongue slipped out to wet her lower lip. His gaze riveted there, and his nostrils flared. “Micki,” he began, her name a low growl.
In her best Mae West voice she said, “Bring it on, big boy.”
He lunged, she parried, and they fought. Against the wall, on her dresser, over the bed, actually on the wall as she ran around the room, then out the bedroom door. It rapidly became clear that he was the better fighter. Whereas she had super kung fu powers, that didn’t make her a smart fighter. He, on the other hand, had equal skills, more body mass, and an awareness of fighting techniques.
It also became clear that his objective wasn’t to pin her, but to undress her. She lost her blouse over the dresser. He ripped her skirt in half as she ran into the main living room. Her bra disappeared during a half nelson, but her pan ties remained firmly in place.
Meanwhile, he managed to quickly divest himself of his shirt and pants without ever once losing the shoe on his hand. Pretty amazing, actually, given how she would take those moments to pummel him. Knee kicks, face punches, round house whatevers. She went at him with them all. He parried one-handed or simply took the blows with a grunt. And soon, he was completely naked.
Then he grabbed her around the middle. She had been halfway through a leap over the couch, but he caught her and slammed her against the wall. She twisted, taking the impact on her shoulder so that she could roll to the other shoulder, then right out of his grip. But he was prepared.
He spun with her, then toppled them both down to the floor. She gasped in surprise, but his grin was triumphant. And then he kissed her. He pushed his mouth against hers and invaded in one swift
motion. She arched against him, allowing their fight to continue with teeth and tongues. Here, too, he was the victor, owning her by touching every part of her mouth despite her best efforts.
And yet she had the distinct feeling he was getting as branded as she. She was nipping and taking and thrusting into him almost as much as he into her.
He lifted up a bit, taking his weight on his shoed hand, while the other roved all over her body. Face, collar, breast. Oh, he spent a masterful time on her breasts and nipples. She gasped, shifting her arms to tweak his chest. He pulled back enough to grin at her. Her legs were already spread wide to cradle him. He was thrusting hard against her wet pan ties, but the fabric still kept them apart.
“What you going to do now, big boy?” she taunted.
He stretched above her head, his body weight enough—for the moment—to keep her pinned. She was too breathless and aching to fight him just then. But in a moment . . .
Zzzip.
She looked up. “What did you just do?” She asked the question, but the answer was obvious. “You handcuffed me to my couch?” Her right wrist was held fast.
He grinned. “That’s not a handcuff,” he answered as he slid back down her body. “That’s the plastic thingie.”
She yanked hard against the thin strip of plastic zipped tight around her wrist and the couch. All she got was a red mark on her arm. The couch didn’t even wobble. “Plastic thingie?” she taunted. “Is that a cop term?”
“Yup. Very technical.” And then he bit lightly down on her nipple, sending a lightning bolt straight through her brain.
When he lifted his head, she bared her teeth at him. She knew how she looked—nearly naked with one arm stretched above her head. She looked and felt gloriously wanton. “We still got a problem, big—”
