His touch on my foot is like…it’s sinful. It makes me feel things I don’t understand, makes my stomach roil, makes things flip and twist. Something happens down low, near my core. I don’t know if this is an unusual reaction to a foot rub or not. Maybe I have sensitive feet. Maybe he’s just amazing at rubbing feet. All I know is, it feels incredible and I can’t help but relax into my chair as he massages my foot. And then I realize I’ve been on my feet all day, and they probably stink. I jerk my feet away and tuck them under my leg, keeping the fabric of my skirt modestly draped over my knees.
“Don’t like foot massages?” He seems amused.
“No, I just…they stink. That’s gross.”
“Your feet don’t stink.” He leans forward and grabs my foot. His hand is on my thigh, near my backside, as he tugs my feet back out. “Now, give them here. I wasn’t done.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” He resumes his slow, thorough massaging of my right foot.
I start to shrug again and then stop, which ends up in an awkward roll of my shoulder. “Why are you here? Why did you…why are doing all this?”
His eyes are intense, going dark and stormy as he regards me and considers his answer. “Because I want to.”
“But why?”
He doesn’t answer, but instead returns with his own question. “Why are you questioning it?”
“Because you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be rubbing my foot. You should just go home and leave me alone.”
“But that’s not what you want. And it’s not what I want.”
Damn him, he’s right. I want him here. I want this foot massage. His presence is…intoxicating. I’m drunk on his proximity. This is all a dream I’ll wake up from, I’m sure. But I don’t want to.
“You don’t know what I want,” I say. It’s a lie, and I’m a bad liar.
He doesn’t answer again, just sets my right foot down on his thigh and picks up my left, and his fingers slid along my calf, his thumb rolls into my arch, eliciting another moan from me. And then his fingers slide a little higher, toward the underside of my knee, and it’s too much, too intimate. Too sexual.
I tug my foot away, and he doesn’t let go, but the motion brings my leg away from his touch. “Don’t, Dawson.”
“Why?”
“Because…please, just don’t.”
He only watches me, and now the only contact is his hand around my Achilles tendon and his thumb on my arch and his fingers just above my toes. Silence reigns then, as I struggle with myself. I want to take my foot back and ask him to leave. He sees too much; his eyes pierce my soul and see what I want when I don’t even know it myself. But I also want to slide off my chair and onto his lap, and I want to kiss him again. The thought terrifies me. I shouldn’t want him. He’s…wrong. Wanting him is wrong. Sex is wrong. That’s been drilled into me since I was a small girl. Marriage happens out of chaste, godly love, and children are born out of some kind of pure and holy act. But this is what I want and it’s sinful and sexual.
It’s a war inside me, and it freezes me into stillness. I watch him, watch his arms flex in his tight gray shirt, watch his eyes shift and roam. My skirt has hiked up to my knees, and my legs are pressed together to present a modest glimpse of calf and nothing else, but I feel like his eyes see through my clothes. He looks at me as if seeing me as I was in the VIP room of Exotic Nights.
“Dawson, listen—” I start.
“Don’t. Not now. We’ll discuss that later. Greg will be here with the food in a minute.”
“That’s not necessary. I’m not hungry,” I say, just as my stomach growls, showing up my lie.
He just shakes his head, bemused. I close my eyes and lean my head back to rest on my desk, my legs stretched out in the chair and across Dawson’s lap. I’m so tired suddenly. The press and roll and rub of his hands on my feet is soothing, amazing, relaxing. I feel myself drifting and can’t stop it.
Dawson’s phone chimes, and then my door opens. I struggle toward wakefulness, force myself to sit up and blink the sleep away. A middle-aged man, who I assume is Greg, stands in my dorm room, his head shaved into egg smoothness. He’s thick and burly, with crow’s feet around his dark brown and sharply intelligent eyes. His arms stretch the sleeves of his Lacoste collared T-shirt, and he has a cell phone clipped to a thin black leather belt. He brings in a stack of carry-out containers, which he sets on the desk in front of me. The smell of grilled burgers and fresh french fries breaks my resolve and I rip open the top container. I’m three bites in to the giant bacon cheeseburger before I realize neither Dawson nor Greg has moved. They’re just watching me eat.
“What?”
Dawson just wipes at his smile with a palm, then grabs the container beneath the one I’m eating from. “Nothing. Just…this is L.A. You don’t often see girls dig into a burger like that around here.”
I swallow, suddenly overcome by embarrassment. I was pigging out like I was starving, I realize. “Oh. I—oh. I’m hungry. I just…Sorry.”
Dawson frowns. “Don’t apologize. It’s refreshing.”
I force myself to take smaller bites. I haven’t had a burger this good since I’ve moved to L.A., and it’s delicious. I want to devour it, but slow down instead. I don’t want Dawson to see me as a hick.
I glance up at the man who brought the food. “Thank you…Greg, right?” Greg nods. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” His voice is gravelly, a smoker’s rasp. He has a tattoo on his neck, the “Don’t Tread on Me” snake on the side of his throat. I see the edges of more tattoos peeking out from under his shirtsleeves, and then the myriad of scars on his arms and face and knuckles register. Suddenly, I’m taking in the reality of Greg, and I’m realizing he’s a huge, hard, and threatening man, more of a Hell’s Angel type of biker stuffed into business-casual clothes. He’s a bodyguard, evidenced in the way he moves to stand with his back to the door, hands clasped in front of him in the way only security guards can do and not look stupid.
Dawson is devouring a corned beef reuben, and I feel better about my own appetite. He casts a glance at Greg and says, “Why don’t you wait outside? We’ll be leaving in a minute.”