AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His eyes went big. “Really? You’d dance for us here?”
“I’d be happy to. Anytime.”
He glanced at the stage. “This set is done in a few minutes if you want to hop up. I know it would be a real treat for the guests.”
I passed a glance around the room, noting all the handsome young men who would leave here interested in meeting me. “Yes. That sounds lovely.”
His smile nearly broke his face. “Fantastic! Just let me know what you’d like the band to play, and I’ll get them cued up for you. Do you need anything else? There are some costumes and shoes in the back. Of course, nothing as fancy as what you’re used to, but you’re welcome to go back and sift through the outfits we use for the other shows.”
I glanced down at my gown, noting how the flared skirt I chose to showcase my legs tonight would allow all the high kicks and leaps my little heart desired. “Wonderful.” I grinned. “My dress and shoes will be just fine, but I could use a different pair of bottoms under this dress, though.” I leaned in. “Unless you want me high-kicking in a thong. Either way works for me.”
A pink blush swept across his cheeks. “I think the dancers have extra bloomers in the back. This way.” He gestured to a door behind the stage, and I followed him back.
After being introduced to the handful of performers getting ready for their set, I grabbed a new pair of tight, brief-style bottoms to slide over my thong and under my dress. After making sure I was ready for my debut, I stood behind the curtain, waiting for Jake, the emcee, to announce me.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a very exciting treat for you tonight. The star of the hit Las Vegas show,Gammy¸is here with us on our cruise, and she’s agreed to dance for you all tonight! Let’s put our hands together forGammy!
The sound of applause flooded into my soul as I waited for the curtain to open. When it did, and the light hit me, all the pains in my feet and knees faded away as my body moved in the steps it knew by heart. I leaped and spun out to the front of the stage, relishing every second in the spotlight. For so many years, I had craved its heat, desired the brightness nearly blinding me, and now that I had it back, I never wanted to step out of it.
The audience cheered as I danced, and though the spotlight made it hard to see into the crowd clearly, I made out enough faces of hot, young cubs staring at me in awe. Jessica Rabbit watched with her lips squished into a tight, white line, and I had to keep from flashing her a special smile.
As I finished up a five-minute set that had everyone oohing and aahing over my moves, I leaped into a spin from a high kick. When I landed, I cursed the fancy heels strapped to my feet, and for a moment, I wished I was in Marge’s honkin’ orthopedic kicks. In my youth, I could dance in stilettos, but now, whenever I came down in them, it felt like I’d strapped razor blades to my feet.
“Why the hell can’t they make fancyandcomfortable dancing shoes?”was the last thought that registered before the crippling pain shot through my left foot, stealing my breath as it radiated through me. I collapsed onto my other foot. The quick movement to relieve the agony sent me a hefty step forward ... a step out past the front of the stage.
My eyes flashed wide when I felt the open air underneath me. As I began my plummet to the ground, I caught the horrified faces of the widows staring back at me.
Holy. Shit. I’m falling off stage.
The horror! A dancer’s worst nightmare. A nightmare worse than Freddy Krueger coming to life and slashing me to pieces with his fingertip scalpels. No. That was nothing compared to this. Falling off the stage was the greatest nightmare of all ... a nightmare that was now happening to me.
It seemed like time slowed to a stop as I careened toward the black and white tiled dance floor below. Pure horror and embarrassment overtook any fear I had of injury upon landing from the five-foot drop. But instead of smashing into the ground in front of an audience filling the room with their gasps, my fall stopped short when I landed in a pair of strong arms.
“Whoa,” a deep, Spanish voice said as he pulled me to his chest. “You okay?”
Embarrassment like I’d never known flooded through me. I struggled to gain my bearings and process how I’d fallen from grace in such a horrific and public way.
But then ...
Then I looked up into the most beautiful pair of amber eyes on the face of a gorgeous, tanned-skin man. My stunned gaze traveled to his chiseled jaw and salt and pepper hair, then down to the ship’s uniform covering what felt like a muscular body beneath it. My breath trapped in my throat as my heart stalled out while feelings I’d never known awakened inside me.
“Are you okay?” he asked again.
“I, uh, yes ... I, uh.” Words stuck on my tongue as I struggled to form any sort of coherent response. The beautiful man clutching me to his chest left me too stunned to form words.
“That could have been quite a spill,” he paused and looked at my chest, then his eyebrows rose to his hairline. “Single and Horny.”
Now it was my turn for my eyebrows to shoot up. “Excuse me?”
“I said, that could have been quite a spill, Single and Horny.” He pointed to my chest. “Or is that not your name?”
I peeked down at the nametag I’d forgotten to take off, and my cheeks flamed with heat. “Oh. That. Uh, a joke.”
“So, do you have a name then, or should I just keep calling you Single and Horny?”
“Alice,” I answered quickly, glad my tongue had finally loosened up in the presence of the Adonis of an older man clutching me tight. “My name is Alice.”
“I’m Captain Alejandro,” he responded, his Spanish accent more noticeable as he said his name.
