Page 41 of Lawless in Leather

She shook her head. “Not quite.”

“Taking off those ridiculous heels might help.”

“They’re not ridiculous.”

“Maybe not. And granted, they’re very sexy, but you’ve been on your feet all day.” He leaned forward. “Take them off, then come over here and I’ll rub your feet.”

Damn. The man played dirty. She loved foot rubs. But letting Mal Coulter put his hands on her bare feet was definitely stepping into dangerous territory. She hesitated.

“Just a foot rub, I swear.”

“Dancer’s feet aren’t pretty,” she said. Hers weren’t as beaten up as an ex-ballet-dancer’s—small mercies—and now that she wasn’t performing in eight shows a week, they were starting to look less battered than they used to. But they weren’t going to win any beauty contests.

“I’m offering to rub them, not judge them,” he said. He patted the sofa. “Come here, Raina Easton.”

Good sense told her to stay right where she was. But whiskey and tiredness and the irresistible lure of feet that didn’t hurt were outvoting good sense tonight. She unzipped her boots, slipped them off, and then sat beside Mal on the sofa, feeling her heart pound. Her hands gripped the cushions for a second. Stupid body. Why did it react to Mal like he was the most delicious thing ever?

Maybe because he was.

“This is going to be easier if you put your feet in my lap,” he said.

She reached for her drink, drained it, then set it on the side table. Telling herself it was the whiskey making her head spin, she scooted back until her spine hit the arm of the sofa where Wash was napping. Which earned her another protesting meow.

“Hush, cat,” Mal said. “Captain’s orders.”

The laugh escaped Raina before she could stop herself.

Mal grinned. “I’m assuming he is named after Wash in Firefly then?”

“How did you know?”

He jerked his chin toward her desk. “Well, you have Mal and Inara figurines on top of your computer, for a start.”

“You like Firefly?” Damn. Points to him.

“What’s not to like?” He grinned at her then. “We Mals have to stick together. And I like his style. Though I’m not so big on his stoic repression of his feelings for Inara. But that’s a conversation for another time. Now…” He patted his lap. “Give me your feet. Captain’s orders.”

She laughed again. “Sure thing, Captain Tightpants.” She put her feet into his lap.

“My pants aren’t tight,” he said. “This is a very well-cut suit. Lucas took me to his personal tailor and made me pay a fortune for it.”

Given how good he’d looked in the suit back at Deacon, she thought that it had been money well spent. He looked even better now. He’d lost the tie and loosened his collar. Revealing a very distracting strong male throat. “Suit shmoot,” she managed as he wrapped his hand around the ball of her foot and pressed his thumb into just the right spot beneath it.

She bit her lip to stifle the moan that rose in her throat.

Good fingers. She was a sucker for good fingers.

Clever hands. Lips that?—

No. This was a foot rub.

Nothing more.

And if she believed that then she should probably try to sell herself a few ownership shares in the bridge that she drove over every other day. Because damn, he had very good fingers.

She bit her lip as he hit another spot that made her muscles shiver in delight and tried to remember all the things that she’d thought were wrong with him.

Right now most of them were escaping her.

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