Kinky Boots (Mischief Books)

Table of Contents

A girls’ night out with Vivie usually ended up a solo act for Jill. It always started with the best intentions, but then Vivie would hook up with someone hot, shag his brains out and call Jill all apologetic the next morning, or whenever the hangover wore off. Every time, Jill promised herself she wouldn’t let it happen again. But she could never say no to Vivie.

This time they’d been separated at the Bluu Bar just off Hoxton Square. Jill figured Vivie and tall-dark-and-dressed-for-success – who had at least been polite enough to buy them both a drink before he whisked Vivie away – were probably occupying one of the benches in the square having a good grope. From there they would graduate to his flat or hers, possibly even the nearest alley if they couldn’t wait that long. Vivie was a bit of an exhibitionist. Crowded into a standing-room-only corner next to the bar, Jill finished her wine then texted Vivie that she was going out for some air.

It wasn’t supposed to be a late night. Her twat of a boss had informed her an hour before quitting time that he needed her to work tomorrow. More like he needed her to do
his
work tomorrow. He’d been sniffing around the new receptionist every chance he got. It didn’t take a genius to figure their habitual two-hour lunch breaks had nothing to do with business or lunch. He boned the silicone-enhanced receptionist, and Jill got screwed.

Still, she was in Shoreditch on a Friday night. If she were going to end up alone, she couldn’t think of any place she’d rather be. It was easy to get caught up in the excitement along the streets lined with bars and clubs and interesting shops. She loved the higgledy-piggledy architecture that often involved glass and steel in the personal space of very accommodating Victorian brick and stone that had already gone through who knew how many marriages of convenience before. All around, the concrete ugliness of the 60s groped and nuzzled solicitously at streets that could have come straight from a Sherlock Holmes novel. It was a great patchwork of a place, heaving with frenetic humanity all bound and determined to enjoy the hell out of every last drunken, chaotic, celebratory second of the weekend. She was jostled by the enthusiastic spill-over of people with drinks and fags in front of Juno. A hen party pushed past into an off-licence. People on the busy pavements crowded onto the narrow side streets, impeding the odd taxi or limo. Jill hadn’t walked terribly far before she’d realised two things: her feet were killing her in the suicide shoes she’d borrowed at Vivie’s insistence, and she was feeling very disoriented, not entirely sure where she was. She blinked and looked around to find herself wandering along Shoreditch High Street.

She half stepped and was half shoved into the entryway of a shop to avoid a handful of blokes in Chelsea football jerseys ambling by laughing drunkenly. As she leaned against the rough brick to slip out of the murderous shoes and wriggle her brutalised toes against the paving tiles, the irony wasn’t lost on her that she found herself standing in front of a shoe store.
Kinky Boots
, the softly back-lit sign informed her in elegant gothic script. Underneath in smaller letters it read,
Wicked Vintage Shoes.
In spite of the late hour, the place was open.

She hadn’t planned to go in. But when she leaned against the door, balancing herself to slip back into the vicious bite of the red stilettos, it swung open. Quickly she straightened herself and glanced around to make sure no one had noticed her less than elegant move. Then there was nothing to do but act like she intended to come right on in. And the thought of a cheap pair of comfy shoes to walk back home in sounded like a pretty good idea.

The shop smelled deliciously of well-worn leather and shoe polish with a bass note of strong coffee. Immediately she found herself nose to toe with a row of vintage-looking kitten heels flanked by a sexy display of thigh-high boots ranging in style from BDSM du jour to Goth on steroids to sassy sex goddess. She would be the first to admit that fashion was not her forte. But it was very much Vivie’s, thus the enforced suffering of her aching feet.

‘May I help you?’

She looked up to meet the questioning gaze of the store clerk, and couldn’t hold back a little yelp at his unexpected nearness. He glanced at the killer heels, which she still held in one hand, then down at her feet and offered a knowing smile.

‘Just thought I’d stop in for a look.’

She tried to slip gracefully back into the shoes, but he took them from her hand. ‘Leave them off.’ The slight gruffness of his voice was deliciously tactile, rubbing up against her like raw silk. ‘I can see your poor feet need a break.’ He motioned for her to follow him into the bowels of the store, right in deep, between the high racks of shoes and boots and sandals and mules and old and new and quirky and just plain strange. And in the midst of all the funky, freaky, fantastic footwear, there wasn’t a single pair of trainers or Uggs or Crocs to be found. He guided her to sit in a Queen Anne chair upholstered in pale-blue chintz.

‘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.

‘Nice, huh?’

It took her a second to realise he was responding to her response. God, was she actually moaning? And please, surely she wasn’t grinding her bottom against the chintz. The blush flashed hot across her chest but then, instead of spreading to her face, it headed south, settling against her clit with a heated, unexpected nip. And her moan became a yelp, just a tiny one, but a yelp nonetheless. She would have apologised, she would have died of embarrassment and fallen completely through the chair, but he was already working on the other boot, strategically sitting between her legs, breath slightly accelerated, and … Surely she was mistaken. But as he shifted to cup her calf and smooth the second boot against her leg, there was no disguising the erection growing inside the front of his jeans.

Everything below her waist clenched in appreciation and she felt the heavy tingle of excitement up high between her thighs. The urge to rip aside the scrap of denim that was her skirt and the bit of satin that was her knickers, the urge to focus his attention somewhere far removed from her feet, nearly took her breath away. ‘You like your work,’ she managed, not actually looking at his crotch, but not actually looking away from it either.

‘Very much,’ he said, working the laces through his nimble fingers, making no attempt to hide his boner.

Was it her imagination or could she actually smell him now? It was not deodorant, not soap that she smelled but maleness. It was like baked bread and desert heat with some moist thick bass note that she felt at the back of her throat rather than smelled. It made her hold her mouth slightly open to take in the fullness of his scent, like a cat taking in the scent of a rival or a possible mate.