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  I faced him, dancing backward, guarding my flank, and resisting the urge to sprint toward the nearest exit. At the same time, I couldn’t stop giggling as Marty demonstrated his alpha qualities, not following, so much as giving chase.

  Before I grinned too big, he caught up with me and turned me around, pulling me into a hug that seated his groin against my rear.

  “Are you going to dance or put on a show,” he growled into my ear.

  “Put on a show,” I sniped back and exaggerated my hip sway, grinding my ass against his very impressive package.

  “Be careful what you ask for,” he warned, holding me in place with a left hand on my hip when I tried to spin away. Securing me even more, he caught my right hand and locked fingers, raising my arm with his to cradle my breasts.

  His cheek pressed against mine as his long legs framed my long legs, his big thighs plastered to the back of mine, and his hand moved from where he’d placed it on my hip to my stomach. He surrounded me with his body, demonstrating his authority as he pressed me backward against his massive frame.

  “See if you can follow this.” His breath brushed my ear as he whispered his order.

  He rocked left, my body followed. He rocked right… Yeah, I got the picture. He was stronger than me and had me locked in place.

  “Okay, tutorial over,” I muttered.

  “Ready?” he murmured in my ear right before he snapped me out, unfurling me like a ribbon at the end of his arm. When he pulled me back, I was not prepared for the lift and toss, and before he caught me, I’d shrieked loud enough to rival Little Richard.

  “Not so sassy now,” boss man grunted and slid me through his legs.

  I’d previously had a partner where I’d been the thrower, not the throwee, so I sort of knew the move. When he stood me on my feet again I prepared to dance away but he retained control. “Try to keep up.”

  I clutched his rock-hard bicep and vowed to use him to polish the floor.

  Time fell into an in-between world of forever as we moved to The Crows, The Penguins, The El Dorados and The Turbans. The big guy could dance. If his attitude indicated his personality, in real time Marty was a hulking, rude clunk. But set to music he became fluid motion, and somewhere during the evening, his frown changed to a happy grin.

  Although few words passed between us, we hit our rhythm and fell into a weird kind of sync with me anticipating every move before he could give a gruff order. As he guided with a light touch, magic happened on the dance floor and I forgot this was a performance and we had an audience.

  During the first set, I rode his thigh, wrapped my legs around his waist, and hugged his neck when he slid me between his legs again. When he duck-walked behind me across the room, I was distracted by the size of his package. I mean the guy was obviously big all over but it kind of felt like he had a baseball bat in his pants. It didn’t slow either of us down, though.

  It didn’t matter what music played, we danced as if we’d known each other forever. Sometimes, I’d pout, close my eyes, cross my arms over Marilyn’s abundant chest, and pretend to forget him altogether.

  I don’t know if the DJ fit his music to us or if we were just that good. But, I heard applause more than once, and I knew it was for Smoke, Inc. Team One.

  Hours later, when the music finally slowed to The Great Pretender by The Platters, I rested against my partner’s big frame and pressed my face into his chest, breathing his spicy scent.

  He smelled good. I on the other hand, acutely aware of the perspiration trickling down my spine, doubted the caliber of my own aroma.

  I glanced up at the clock. Shit. I should be at Balls & Bones serving drinks.

  “I need to go to the john.”

  “You’ve got fifteen minutes,” he growled.

  Excuse me? I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. Before the inclination became reality, Harley-Jane crossed the room and I met her at the edge of the floor.

  I had more important things to do than insulting the dance partner from hell. But really, fifteen minutes? I called off work with Harley-Jane’s phone, and decided I’d better pee while I was free, since Simon Legree didn’t believe in taking breaks.

  “You two are hot,” Harley-Jane exclaimed as soon as we were in line at the restroom. “Do you, uh, dance professionally?” No doubt Janie thought my dancing included a pole and tit-tassels.

  “No, I’m kind of an entrepreneur.” I smiled at her, not giving up more personal information as advised by Megan. Besides, I had too many jobs and none of them particularly interesting.

  She took the hint and as we stood in the line waiting for our turn to pee, she pointed at our dance partners.

  “He’s something, isn’t he?” she asked.

  “Marty?” He was something, all right. He-Man on steroids. He’d thrown me into the air and caught me as if I weighed no more than a sack of flour.

  “Gable,” she answered. Then added, “I hope this line hurries along, or it could get messy soon.”

  I looked at the men’s sign outside the male facility beside our line where men entered and exited rapidly.

  “Come on. I’m on the clock and time lost, is dance time lost, which translates into money lost.”

  When Janie looked doubtful, I took her hand and pulled her toward the other sign. Once inside the men’s potty-room, Janie claimed the one stall, and I took the time to study my Marilyn costume. No men came in while we commandeered their john. For that, I was thankful.

  My bolero jacket had become a crumpled mess. I wrinkled my nose and removed it, then frowned at the cleavage on display.

  “Think they’ll fall out?” I asked Janie when she emerged from the stall.

  “Ah, but it’s for a good cause. Think of the pledges.” Janie wagged her finger at me and then motioned me to turn around as she studied the dress.

  “It really does look great. And with this heat, I’d leave off the jacket.”

  I accepted her judgment and deposited Roger’s bolero at the table before we returned to our partners.

  Chapter Four

  Marty

  “So how did the job, go? I saw a hotshot team deploying on the news.” Gable’s question jarred me for a moment. I’d completely forgotten the fire, the crew, and everything else in my head but keeping up with the imp leading me in circles on the dance floor.

  “We lost a slew of equipment, but it could have been worse.” I clenched my teeth, memory constricting earlier, oxygen-starved, lungs. I leaned on the wall behind me, replaying in my mind my most recent disaster. Not the moment my oxygen had cut off, but the fact I’d thought about letting the inevitable happen.

  For a moment, I’d considered cashing out, and it hadn’t seemed like a bad idea. Insurance would pay out and pay off. Worries done, day end. Game over. Not until the wind shifted, clearing smoke from the air and providing oxygen for me to breathe, did I remember Jack, my father-in-law.

  The old fucker wouldn’t know what to do without me to keep him straight. And that wasn’t my ego talking. We’d been through too much together for me to bale early on him.

  “Equipment check before we go out again,” I told Gable. Maybe a head check, too. “My breathing equipment shut down. Had the wind not shifted, it would have been my ashes coating Clyde’s vineyard.”

  We were Smoke, Inc.—in this case—smokejumpers for hire. We’d been employed from half way around the world by a friend of my late wife, Kitty Jones. Her buddies ranged from royalty to thugs and all of them had loved her. They didn’t all share the same affection for me. But sometimes, knowing Marty Jones still proved handy for them.

  This was one of those times. Clyde Ramsey had called when he required a clean-up for one of his problems. Clyde considered me a janitor for the rich which was fine. Dirty jobs didn’t bother me a bit. And they usually paid well. He’d had a fire needing doused and I knew his check was good.

  “Marty, my people identified a wildfire. Two spotters already pinned it. Hell, it might be out of hand, already.
The government’s broke. I’m not. I want you to put it out before it gets worse.”

  Smoke mobilized a crew and had boots and equipment on the ground eight hours after first contact. Once there, it had been easy to see Clyde’s spotters had started the fire when they’d tried to clear brush with a drip torch.

  “We’ll collect for our lost equipment. Clyde will pay out a hell of a lot more in fines if the feds realize his people were responsible for the disaster. The locals probably already suspect, but that’s the client’s problem.”

  I really didn’t want to talk business. I scanned the room until my gaze settled on my dance partner.

  “Where’d you find her?” I continued leaning against the wall next to the snack machine and sipping water. In case he didn’t understand my meaning, I nodded toward Marilyn now standing in the bathroom line.

  “Baby Dolls,” Gable answered, not misunderstanding the question.

  “She’s one of Maxine’s escorts?” Didn’t seem possible. Even vamped out in red lipstick, Marilyn mole, and a blonde wig, it was still a laughing kid, wearing four inch go-to-hell heels on her already six-foot frame.

  “She okay?” Gable asked.

  I finished the water and eyed my dance partner. My query, considering my general disinterest in women since Kit died, no doubt flagged Gable’s attention.

  “Once we settled on who was in charge, she got okay.” Okay, like hell. I hid my smile. She’d matched me beat for beat, and I’d actually had fun, something that hadn’t happened in years.

  “You see her dancing by herself, giving me the cold shoulder?” I’d been dancing alone for six years and never wanted a partner. But I wanted this one. “She’s a fucking wild woman.”

  “She’s hot stuff,” Gable agreed but I was sure he was talking about Harley-Jane since that’s who he stared at.

  “Didn’t plan on staying the night.” The audience had gotten considerably bigger and they were eating our shit up. My couple of hours had expanded, and instead of wearing me out, my partner had me rocking.

  Kit would have loved her.

  Gable pulled me away from that fleeting thought, when he nudged me and pointed at the two women entering the men’s toilet.

  “I think your wild child’s teachin’ my sweet girl to misbehave.”

  I snorted, hard-put to keep a grin from showing. Wild Child sounded about right. Especially when she came sauntering back to the dance floor.

  Jesus. My cock tried to punch a hole in my pants and I wasted no time escorting her back onto the dance floor where I concentrated on the music and tried to forget about her tits now on display.

  She’d ditched the jacket, and even though the luscious breasts framed by the halter straps on Marilyn’s dress were no doubt fake, I and every other bozo in the room enjoyed the show. I had to resist the urge to cop a feel. I settled for pulling her against my chest and hugging her tight. Squashed between us, the tits felt real.

  I’d been awake for over thirty-six hours, fighting a fire on the other side of the country during most of the time. But the Marilyn impersonator’s sassy strut and perfect timing had me on high alert with adrenaline pumping through my veins.

  I rolled her into my embrace, bent her over my arm, and held her for a beat too long while my nose brushed a spot on her neck, and I scented green apples. Jesus. I wanted to eat her up.

  The brat spun loose and danced another circle around me. I could hear laughter and applause, and I knew it was for her. I figured I’d better rope her in and remind her who was boss.

  I linked our hands, whirled her into my arms, and duck-walked her across the floor, pressing my hard-on against her rump to the beat of The Kingsmen singing Louie Louie.

  My uncontrolled bodily response surprised me. I hadn’t had any spontaneous flare ups of lust since well before Kit died. Now I had a full-blown erection for a kid working the skin trade. Shit.

  Holly

  If he noticed the change in my costume, my partner didn’t mention it. Nevertheless, when Marty’s hand rested on the bare skin of my back, I wished I’d left the jacket in place.

  And then the DJ abandoned the fifties and changed things up with Elle King and modern swing.

  “One, two…” I started counting. As I swayed to Elle’s sound, my hips followed the teasing beat. A grin spread over Marty’s face and he started snapping his fingers and shadowing my moves. What a dance partner. He wasn’t good. He was splendiferous.

  The crowd went nuts, clapping and cat-calling their encouragement. And true to my disguise, Marilyn put on a show, teasing, taunting, and flirting to music. Marty laughed out loud, reeled me in, and bent me back over his arm.

  His laughter changed to a surprised grunt when his nose brushed my shoulder. He stayed low so long, I was afraid he’d gotten tangled in the wig, somehow. Me being me, I didn’t want him snuffling my shoulder.

  I had a sinking feeling my deodorant had stopped working three or four hundred spins before. So, I improvised, dancing away from him to give his nose a break from eau du sweaty Holly.

  Should have known it wouldn’t suffice. He captured my hand, turned me so my back plastered to his front, and danced us forward. Aside from his junk grinding against my butt, I was in heaven. Ginger and Fred couldn’t have done it better.

  Time blurred, and gradually the music slowed until we stopped doing fancy and just leaned on each other. The four-inch heels brought my mouth level with his chin. If I tipped my head the slightest bit, and he did the same, our lips would meet.

  The night ended as we danced to Elvis singing Fools Rush In, and I tilted my chin, gazing up at my dance partner. His mouth lowered to mine, our lips touched, his lingered for a moment, then withdrew.

  I sighed. Applause sounded in the background, and cameras flashed, bringing me out of my trance. I’d forgotten where we were.

  “Ten hours, forty-five minutes, and ten seconds. But who’s counting, right?” The microphone crackled weird electronic noises as the DJ made his announcements.

  The floor had filled and emptied again while we danced. I hadn’t paid any attention to the time since I’d taken my one fifteen-minute break.

  Whoa. What a ride. I started to ease away, readying to leave, but my dance partner caught my arm, stopping me.

  “Standing still isn’t a good idea,” I muttered. Tired hit me in double time.

  Marty must have felt the quaking of my legs, because he dropped my wrist and circled my waist. Sweet. I slumped against him and gazed blearily up ready to say goodnight, or morning, good something, and totter away.

  His eyes were heavy-lidded, his chin covered in heavy morning stubble, and his pink shirt a wrinkled mess.

  I hated to think what I looked like. I figured when I pulled the wig off, a puddle of sweat might gush out as well. Nor did I want to investigate the black dot on Marty’s shirt. It looked suspiciously like the beauty mark representing Marilyn’s mole.

  Rather than retrieve it, I’d factor the cost of its replacement into the dry cleaning before I returned Roger’s dress. My thought tangled with another. I need to borrow cab fare.

  “Sponsors of Smoke, Inc. Team One, prepare to write those checks,” the DJ announced.

  I expected a smattering of applause, not the huge roar, greeting his words. Evidently, local news channels had been light on death and murder the night before, so they’d fallen back on the “phenomenal dance for cash” going on.

  Anyway, we’d made News at Eleven, and because of that, call-in pledges poured in and the station sent a crew over to film the rest of the dance. Wow. Marilyn and Boss were celebrities.

  Cameras flashed as Marty raised our linked hands in a victory salute. On the stage, the DJ started putting away his equipment. After we finished posing, I untangled our fingers.

  Barbara Carlson, a tough-talking local news woman had me in her sights as she crossed the room, her film crew trailing behind. Uh oh. “I don’t do interviews,” I muttered.

  Marty blocked her before she got close, an
d I eavesdropped since the conversation concerned his dance partner—me.

  She led with a friendly request aimed at him, not me. “Just a few words with your partner.”

  No, no, a thousand times no… I didn’t want to talk to her or the news media because a) Maxine had sent me; b) I had day jobs; and c) my life was nobody’s business.

  “Sorry, Barb. We’re tired. Call my office later.” He stopped her from getting to me, and her tone turned spiteful.

  “So, good to see you’ve found someone to replace Kit.”

  I wondered who Kit was when Marty’s newly-minted amiable expression congealed into a blank stare. He brushed her aside and steered me away from them, keeping his body between me and the camera. “We’re tired. Glad the family will get some help.”

  “Thanks,” I told him, leaning closer to keep our conversation discreet and maybe to have a final whiff of his expensive cologne. He was big, strong, taller than me, and after a night of sweaty fun, he still smelled good. What was not to like. I smiled up at him. “Who’s Kit?”

  His expression changed from friendly to hostile. “My wife was my last dance partner.”

  “You break up or something?” Go me, ever the persistent. Well, I was interested in him, and if he’d just gotten a divorce or broken it off with someone he was likely looking for a fling which I didn’t do, and I thought my question appropriate.

  “She died.”

  “Oh.” I squeezed out a final, “I’m sorry.” Ever the subtle me. I intended to put this example of my klutziness behind me and move on to something more on my social level like, socket wrenches and miter saws.

  “You sellin’ fucks this morning?”

  Whoa. Shit. Damn, on so many levels. I’d completely forgotten the role I was playing. Way to cool me down fast.

  “No,” Marilyn said and clocked off.

  To heck with the sore feet, I strode away from Maxine’s client without a backward look. Except I didn’t leave him behind, he walked beside me, his long legs matching my stride.

  “Breakfast?”

  He’d obviously not gotten my mental memo. The night was at end. We didn’t know each other. I, Holly Smith, had a life to live which didn’t include widowers who used crude words to solicit paid sex. After twining with him all night, I might have succumbed to his charm if he’d asked nice. I’d been thinking about it so there was no point in getting self-righteous.