‘Are you all right?’ He knelt in front of her and sat the shoes down next to the chair.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. Then she offered a nervous laugh ‘Other than my feet.’
He sat back on his heels. ‘When women come in here alone at this hour, they’ve usually come over from Juno or the office after an argument with their bloke. Of course there are a fair few who’ve simply had enough dancing the night away in ill-fitting shoes.’ He offered her a smile that made her feel warm down low in her belly. ‘There’s a reason I keep my shop open after hours on weekends.’ He nodded down at her aching feet.
‘It was a girls’ night out,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m alone, I mean. We got separated.’ He didn’t need to know that her friend was getting shagged and she wasn’t. ‘These aren’t even my shoes. I borrowed them from my friend Vivie.’ She nodded down to the little red feet-killers. ‘Well, she insisted, actually. And the skirt too.’ She felt stupid for telling him that. Could she make it any more obvious that she was clueless when it came to fashion and dressing to impress the opposite sex?
He glanced fleetingly at the skirt, and she was suddenly aware of just how short it was, and just how much he could see from his position if he really tried. ‘The skirt I like,’ he said. ‘However, wearing another person’s shoes is not a safe thing to do.’ The lines of his face hardened. His lips were suddenly set tight as though he were warning her about a serial killer on the loose. When he smiled up at her, his eyes reminded her of the sea that lapped at the cliffs around Tintagel: neither blue nor grey nor green, none of those colours, yet all of those colours.
The clerk lifted her right foot. She tried to squirm away but he held her firmly, flashing her a concerned glance from under a drawn brow. ‘You could have seriously injured your feet walking around Shoreditch at night in someone else’s shoes.’
The skirt she wore was a denim mini, and the way he sat between her legs made her feel exposed, vulnerable and something a lot more yummy. As he ran his thumbs up her instep and over the pad of her foot, she shifted in the chair, sliding down to accommodate his inspection.
‘Shoes are so important. They protect our feet, our soles, the only part of us that regularly contacts the earth. They allow us that intimate connection with our planet while at the same time keeping us safe from it.’ He continued his inspection of her feet, hands moving gently over her arch to the ball then to her toes as he cupped her heel in a warm hand. ‘No two people’s soles contact the earth in the same way.’
Her pulse thudded at the enthusiasm of his little speech, which, along with his gentle inspection of her feet, felt shockingly intimate, even more so than if he had actually peeked up her skirt. His actions were having a cumulative effect low between her hip bones. ‘Maybe you could sell me something a little more suited to me.’ Her words rushed out breathless and unsteady.
He placed both hands on his thighs and looked up at her. ‘Did you have a pair in mind?’
She gave a quick glance around the store, and her eyes lit on a pair of mauve boots that came up just over the ankle, low on the calf. They sported delicate kitten heels and were threaded with sage-green laces that looked more like ribbons. ‘How about those?’ she said. Then she blushed fiercely. They were lovely, elegant and, any idiot could see, totally not suited for someone like her. ‘Or maybe something a little more practical.’ She avoided his gaze. ‘A little less flashy.’
Ignoring her second thoughts, he stood and walked to the rack. She couldn’t help noticing how nicely his butt filled out his jeans. She could imagine that arse had sold more than a few pairs of shoes to women who liked a good view. It was then she realised he had taken the boots straight off the display. ‘I’m hard to fit,’ she said as he knelt in front of her and unlaced one boot.
‘Trust me –’ he smiled up at her, opened the boot and offered it to her like Cinderella’s Prince Charming ‘– I can fit you just fine.’
Everything in her went warm and liquid. Her breath caught at the feel of the leather as he guided the boot up over her heel. ‘I’ve never felt anything so soft,’ she said. ‘And they’re so pretty.’
‘Shoes should be a sensual experience,’ he said, moving his large hands up to cup her calf while he eased the boot into place. Then his agile fingers began to work the laces, plucking at them, caressing them, stroking them almost as though he were making music on them, like they were some exotic stringed instrument of leather and lace. And though she couldn’t quite hear the melody, she felt the reverberation of his plucking and threading beneath the hem of the short skirt and all the way up into her warming panties.