by Dawn Atkins
“That’s a difficult move.”
Nevada had pulled herself high on the pole, graceful as a circus star. “Yeah. Nevada’s had gymnastics training.”
“She’s the one who bought my makeup, right? She’s very skilled.” Heidi hadn’t taken her eyes off the stage. “The frills on that top don’t fall right for the moves she’s making.”
He couldn’t believe how casual she sounded. “Don’t worry. I’ll take you home in a bit. If we wait till Duke gets here, I can ask him about restaurants for you—”
“The waitresses don’t have to dance, do they?” She was still watching Nevada.
“No, but—”
“And they get big tips?”
“When they look like that.” He tilted his head in the direction of Rox, who passed by wearing a strapless black leather top and silver hot pants.
Heidi evaluated the passing woman, then turned to him, a determined glint in her eye. “But there’s no required uniform?”
“No, but—”
“Then I’ll take the job.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Not at all. It’ll be fun.” She gave him one of her brilliant smiles, the most confident he’d seen so far. “I’ll start tonight.”
“Tonight?” he said faintly.
“I need the money, I’m dressed for it and I’m wearing sturdy shoes.” She looked down at the brown blobs on her feet.
He opened his mouth to argue, to tell her she’d made her point, but he looked into those fierce blue eyes—so bright they made his own eyes sting—and decided he’d better shut up.
If Heidi thought cleavage didn’t count, she didn’t know much about men, but if she wanted to try a shift, he wouldn’t be the one to say uncle. “Let’s get the paperwork,” he said on a sigh. His joke had backfired, but he found himself smiling.
TWO HOURS LATER, Heidi climbed onto a stool at a high table in the break room at Moons, exhausted and sweaty and aching all over. The clothes she’d bought at Goodwill to make a point about modesty with Jackson were an un-breathable poly blend, so she’d sweated horribly and the skirt had no kick pleat, so it not only interfered with her stride, it chafed her knees with each step.
The cheap but sensible shoes were leather and easy on her arches, but they’d given her blisters on the tops of her toes and her heels. At least the sores were in different places than the ones caused by the wedgies.
She was grateful to Jackson for sending her on break. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, he’d said, a warm hand to her back. He was constantly helping people, she noticed, and seemed to see everything at once. One second he was taking change to a waitress, the next, fetching paper goods for the bartender, supervising the DJ, settling a bar-tab dispute, joking with the customers, making sure the dancers made their cues.
She lifted her feet from the carpet, which was a bizarre hodgepodge of squares in sixties designs—pink-and-orange stripes, lime-green shag, white daisies in AstroTurf—and planted her stinging heels on the stool beside her.
She’d asked for the job partly to show Jackson she was no wimp, but she could see she could make decent money if she built her stamina. And got better. She’d transposed one order, been late with three others and forgotten one, but the customers were so transfixed by the dancers on stage and the ones doing lap dances that they hardly noticed when their brandy and sodas came late. She’d get better and faster and smile harder and her tips would grow, without her having to show any more leg or breast.
Dying of thirst, she gulped the 7-Up she’d gotten from the bartender and tried not to stare at the two bare-breasted dancers standing a few feet away doing their hair in front of makeup mirrors. She hadn’t met these two. Jackson had introduced her to three dancers he’d called “Moons’ stars”—Nevada, who’d bought Heidi’s makeup, Autumn, who’d given her the clothes, and Jasmine, a gypsy with hair she’d bleached a blond all wrong for her skin color. She’d liked all three right off.
The break room was inside the dancers’ dressing area, so there was a Coke machine, a snack dispenser and a refrigerator, along with two rows of lighted mirrors, one with sinks. The bathroom, or what passed for one, was around the corner. It was just three toilets with low tiled barriers between them.
The walls of the huge room were Pepto-Bismol pink and Day-Glo orange and the air was dense with the smell of hairspray, cosmetics and clashing perfumes. Overhead, speakers piped in the throbbing pulse of strip music from the lounge.
She sneaked a glance at the women at the mirror. Both sets of breasts were huge and barely quivered when the women moved their arms to work on their hair. Had to be silicon. And they both had hair extensions badly in need of repair, cheap and snarled.
Rox, the waitress training her, whipped in then, climbed a ladder behind the two dancers, opened the cupboard and removed a clear plastic sack of bar towels, which she carried back out. The dressing room was a very busy, very confusing room. It was used for storage and janitorial supplies and men and women wandered in and out while the dancers changed clothes or walked around with no tops on. Very bizarre.
Jackson entered the room and she adjusted her posture to seem calm and energetic. It hurt to fake it, but she didn’t want him to think she was in over her head. She had her pride. Lately, that seemed like all she had.
“So, how are you holding up?” he asked in a tone that suggested he expected her to be suffering.
“I’m getting the hang of it. Doing great,” she said cheerfully.
The two dancers tied each other’s tops and bobbled past them, nodding at her and shooting Jackson flirtatious smiles. He smiled back, but didn’t even glance at their bodies. Amazing. He must be used to it.
He moved to sit beside her, so she took her foot off the stool, then winced in pain.
“Feet hurt?”
“Not really. Well…maybe a little.”
He looked down at them. “Look at those shoes. Sturdy doesn’t necessarily mean comfortable, you know. Give them here.” He gestured for her to lift her feet.
“I’m fine. Really.”
Jackson leaned down and popped off both shoes.
The relief was enormous. “Oh, wow,” she breathed.
Then he lifted one foot to his lap, his palm warm as a hot pad on her sole, and examined it—top, sides and heel. “Major blisters. Let me grab bandages. Scoot out of your panty hose for me.” He left the stool, then headed for the cupboards.
She became vividly aware they were alone in the room. Rather than run to the restroom alcove, she stood and reached under her skirt to wiggle out of her panty hose while Jackson had his back to her. The dancers would have made this into something erotic, but she was just shoving them off, keeping herself mostly covered.
When she looked up, Jackson was staring at her, mouth agape, first-aid kit in one hand. Caught, he jolted forward to his seat.
She felt a little twinge of triumph. Sexy didn’t have to be graceful, she guessed. She balled up the stockings and sat on them.
Jackson opened the blue metal box and took out adhesive strips and an antiseptic gel. She expected him to hand her the stuff, but he picked up one foot and set it on his lap. It was nice the way he was taking care of her, this big bear of a man, so gentle and solicitous. He made her feel…safe. She didn’t want to think too hard about how much that meant to her right now.
The air between them warmed with intimacy. With her leg high like this, cool air reached her panties. She felt…exposed. All Jackson had to do was duck his head and he’d be able to see the place between her legs. The thought made her damp and she wanted to squirm on the stool.
She noticed that her toes were incredibly close to Jackson’s zipper. She could shift her foot just a little bit and touch him there, where he…bulged? As she watched, he swelled upward. Oh, wow. He was aroused.
She lifted her gaze from the sight and snagged his. He knew she knew. Her heart leaped in her throat and her blood surged through her in thick waves. She took a raspy breath.
Jackson cleared his throat and busied himself squeezing antiseptic gel onto his finger—was his hand shaking?—which he applied to her injured spots, his touch so careful she fairly melted.
He used his teeth to tear open a Band-Aid, holding her gaze. Could something happen? Chills raced along her nerves and she held her breath while he softly pressed each pad in place.
Finished, he lifted her foot. “Nice toes,” he said, running a finger over their tops, studying them. “Round and even.”
She shuddered at the sensation.
“Feel good?”
She could only nod.
“I bet your arches ache.” He massaged her instep with both hands, using a firm stroke.
“Oh, God, that’s soo-o-o good.” She had to brace herself with two hands on the backless stool so she wouldn’t fall off altogether.
“Sounds like it.” He had to clear his throat again. He did a lot of that around her, as if he were clearing thoughts, too—intimate ones, she hoped. He curved her sole over his knuckles and tugged downward in a fabulously skilled way.
She fought the urge to moan—it sounded too much like sexual pleasure, which this almost was.
“I do this for the dancers once in a while,” he said, moving to the ligaments in her toes and the muscles at the ball of her foot, avoiding her blisters. “They wear monster heels.”
“No wonder the girls like you so much.” Of course, he probably slept with some of them. Why not her, too?
“Mmm,” he said, rubbing the base of her heel. He moved to her ankle and slightly up her calf with a delicious twisting motion that turned her to taffy. He kept at it, squeezing the muscles with perfect strength so that she had to gasp and wiggle in her seat. A faint moan escaped, despite her efforts to hold it in.
At her knee, he hesitated. Would he go higher? She wanted him to. Desperately.
But he released her leg with an outblown breath and picked up her other foot, rubbing its surface with his hot palm, then running his thumbs across the tops of her insteps and along the ligaments between her toes. So lovely, so relaxing, so arousing. The looser her feet and calves got, the tighter her sex became.
She wanted him to keep at it, keep going, slide those fingers higher, until he was touching her there. She wanted him so bad she was feverish with it. Did he want her as much? There was the bulge to consider. She opened her eyes.
Jackson stopped rubbing and looked at her. Oh, yeah, he wanted her. Bad. She had to take action. Her heart battered her rib cage and she could hardly breathe, but she made herself move. She extended her toes and deliberately rubbed the ball of her foot across Jackson’s zipper and the solid length of him, warm under her foot.
He made a sound, his body quaked and his eyes drifted closed. When he opened them, pure fire blazed there. Pure fire and helpless desire.
JACKSON COULDN’T BELIEVE what his sweet houseguest was doing with her toes. Or that he was allowing it. And he had no intention of stopping her, either.
He’d had women caress his joint with incredible skill, but the barest brush of Heidi’s foot over his zipper had blind lust pounding through him like never before. She sat there, dressed like a bag lady, arousing more than a lap dance from the hottest dancer.
God, he wanted her. He wanted to do what her eyes were asking him to do—slide higher up her leg, shove under her skirt and touch her. She breathed roughly and fingers of blush surged up her cheeks the way blood filled his parts. He knew his reaction was as plain on his face as it was under her foot.
He imagined touching her under those sensible panties, making her squeal and rock against his finger until she came.
But he couldn’t do it. No matter how hot and hungry and desperate she made him. She would want more than he had in him.
Two dancers entered the dressing room, laughing together, granting him the perfect out. “Company,” he said, nodding at the women, then regretfully moved her foot off his lap and to the floor. “Back to work, huh?”
“Right. Back to work.” She flushed with surprise, uneasy about what had just happened, he could tell. She really was out of her depth. More proof he shouldn’t let things get out of hand.
“Better soak your feet when we get home,” he said. “There are salts in the bathroom.”
“Salts, sure…Jackson…I…”
“Let’s just move on.” He smiled a reassuring smile. Without her foot in his palm, his hand felt empty. He’d liked the weight of it there, the heft of her leg, being connected to her that way. He almost wished he had a foot fetish. Anything but what he was feeling—fresh, clean desire. Something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
Heidi picked up the glass in front of her, the bubbles clear and round as tiny marbles, and drank, exposing her pretty throat to him. Abruptly, she set down the drink, winced and grabbed her jaw.
“What’s the matter?”
“I broke a tooth this morning.”
“Sounds like you need my dentist.”
“I can’t afford dental work right now.”
“Dr. Dave takes payments. He’s a friend of mine. Teeth troubles only get worse.” He was always hounding the girls to get in. Some of them would happily plunk down thousands for bonding and bleaching, but ignored toothaches and bleeding gums. “The number’s at home. In the meantime—” he fished a packet of Tylenol from the first-aid kit and handed it to her “—take these for the pain.”
She swallowed the pills, licking moisture from her lips in a way that had him limping out of the break room as though he was the one with the blisters.
He kept an eye on her the rest of the night. She made up for her inexperience with effort, he noticed, whipping from table to table, zipping around the lap dances, as if the dancer sliding her body against the seated man—hands glued to the chair arms, since the customers weren’t allowed to touch the dancers—was merely chatting about the weather. Ignoring the erotic action all around her, she slapped down cocktail napkins, took orders with a big smile and dashed off sporting her baggy costume.
He could tell she was worn out, but whenever she caught him looking at her, she beamed, hiding it. She was…spunky. And determined. She made him smile. Perked him up. He’d thought all that energy and motion would annoy him. Instead, it made his blood kick up. He’d been sluggish, he realized, out of it. Asleep at the wheel of his life.
He could still feel her heel in his palm, her toes on his cock, and hear her moan in his head.
After the bar closed, he went about his end-of-night tasks, looking over the receipts, talking through the liquor orders, checking the dancers’ schedule for the coming nights, and when he finished, he found Heidi asleep, curled in a ball in one of the round upholstered chairs. Her shoes were off and that god-awful skirt had slid high on her thigh. She looked like a child who’d collapsed with exhaustion trying to stay up past her bedtime.
He squatted so he was at eye level with her. “Heidi?”
She opened her eyes, blinked in confusion, then rubbed her face with both hands. “I dozed off. Sorry.” She pushed to a sit and put her feet on the floor.
“No wonder. It’s the middle of the night. I’m ready to go.”
She nodded, picked up her little purse, slipped on her shoes with a grimace and pushed to her feet, ignoring his proffered hand. She started off at a quick march that instantly collapsed into a limp.
“Here.” He extended an arm as if to put it around her, but she smiled foggily. “I’ve got it. I’ll just…” She braced herself against him and peeled off her shoes with another wince. “Much better.” She strode forward on feet that were bare except for a few flapping Band-Aids. She seemed determined not to show any distress. Why did she insist on making it so tough on herself?
He sighed and caught up with her. At the car, he lifted the cover on her side and opened her door.
She dropped into the seat and leaned her head back. As he rolled up the cover, he watched her. She was wiped out. She wasn’t cut out for Moons. She needed an office job
. Something that used her brain, not her feet.
He climbed into the car, planning to mention that she’d make more money at a temp job, so she wouldn’t feel like she’d failed, when she turned to him and said brightly, “That was fun.”
“Fun?”
She blinked her big eyes at him. “Intimidating at first, of course. I mean the air is heavy with sex. Women walking around bare-breasted and the lap dances are overwhelming.”
“I guess.” For him, the nudity was just part of the scenery. Not even particularly sexy anymore. Kind of like working in an ice-cream store. Soon enough, you had your fill of every flavor.
“And all those turned-on men,” she continued. “I kept my eyes away from their laps, I’ll tell you.” She laughed and even in the dark, he could see she’d turned red.
“Very sensible of you.” He smiled, happy to have her in his car, he realized. Happy to listen to her chatter, which she continued to do.
“Of course, with me so new, it helped that the customers were distracted. I gave a guy who’d ordered scotch-rocks a gin-tonic and he sucked the whole thing down without noticing.”
“That happens.”
“I figured out the secret to handling it, though. I just focused on the people—the lonely men behind the rapt stares, the struggling women behind the G-strings. Jasmine has a daughter, did you know that?”
“Huh? Yeah. Sabrina’s cool.”
“She seems to be a stabilizing influence. She gives Jasmine a future focus.”
“A future focus?”
“Yes. This lifestyle seems to go with a lack of impulse control, an inability to delay gratification. Of course, there were probably traumatic issues during childhood and adolescence that contributed to the mindset—”
“Hold up on the Freud. It’s way too late at night.”
“Sorry. I guess I’m just wired. Figuring this all out.” Her husky voice squeaked from exhaustion. She was amped on leftover adrenaline. He recognized it from how he felt after spinning a great set of music.
“I really liked Autumn,” she said more slowly. “I was adding a tab and she did it in her head like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Of course, she rolled her eyes at me for being so pokey.”
