When she hesitated, he sighed. Not one of his usual, overdramatic gusts of breath, but a genuine sigh.
“Please, Lauren.” Waving aside the waiting doorman, who’d watched the entire encounter with barely contained glee, Alex swung open the salon’s heavy wooden door and held it for her. “Please. Let it go. Just for now.”
Slowly, she nodded.
They went inside, and the waiting area was cool and elegant. The impeccably styled man who greeted them from behind a glass desk asked if they’d care for refreshments, before gliding into a nearby room to gather their chosen drinks.
While they waited for his return, Alex blew out another hard breath and ran his fingertip down her bare forearm. Her skin tingled beneath his touch, the fine hair there standing on end, and she jerked her gaze up to meet his, startled.
“I still can’t talk about it.” He stared at his fingertip, now skimming over the veins on the back of her hand. “But are you okay?”
She covered his hand with hers. Squeezed it. “I’m fine.”
One more deep breath, and Alex dropped his hand and stepped away. “Then let’s focus on the matter of greatest importance here: me. Specifically, whether I should cut my hair short and get rid of the beard entirely, or just trim things a bit.”
“It’s your hair.” Confused, she frowned at him. “Why are you asking me?”
“Holy shit, Nanny Clegg.” He squeezed his eyes shut, and this time, his sigh was gusty and dramatic and entirely fake. “Why must you make everything so difficult? Oh, that’s right. Because you’re a millstone around the neck of humanity.”
Indignant, she set her hands on her hips. “Look at me, Woodroe. Do I seem like the kind of person who knows how best to cut and style hair?”
His lips twitched, but he opened his eyes and attempted a deadpan stare. “Yes.”
“Didn’t you once tell me I was a terrible liar?” Raising her brows, she flicked the limp ends of her straggly hair. “Pot, meet kettle. I believe you two will have much in common.”
He bit his lip and glanced away for a moment, then got himself under control.
“Lauuuuuuuuren.” It was an outright whine. “Tell meeeeeeeeeeeee.”
Fine. If he really wanted to know what she thought …
“The longer hair and beard kind of make you look like a Viking.” A stupendously gorgeous one. The whole look was way too enticing, frankly. “So if that’s what you’re going for, just get a trim.”
“Ahhhhhhh.” And now he wasn’t a Viking anymore. He was a big cat instead, with a shaggy mane and a purr that vibrated through her in that familiar, disconcerting way. “You like my beard, Wren?”
It was a lazy taunt, and she wanted to deny it.
She couldn’t. Because she was, in fact, a terrible liar.
He bent close to her ear.
“Admit it,” he breathed. “You like my beard. You like my hair.”
She clenched her unsteady hands, unable to speak. Unable to think.
Thankfully, a tall, lovely, elegant woman swept through the door to the waiting room then, her impeccable greeter close behind her carrying a tray of drinks.
Alex scowled at both of them for a moment before shrugging and gathering his stylist into an enormous hug, which she returned.
After a few social niceties, the two of them disappeared into the actual salon. Lauren stayed in the waiting room, took a seat on the low-slung, velvet-covered couch, and accepted her iced tea gratefully.
Her ear still tingled from Alex’s breath. And for reasons she preferred not to parse, she was way, way too hot.
15
WREN STOOD FROM THE COUCH AS ALEX ENTERED THE room. For a moment, she simply gazed at him, blank-faced.
Then her Santa Ana voice made its dry-as-fuck return. “When you said you were getting your hair cut, I didn’t realize you meant that literally. As in, one hair.”
“It was more a shaping than a cut, you follicular philistine.” He stroked his beard fondly, then ran a caressing hand through his hair. “Now I’m the best-coiffed and -bearded Viking in the village. Peasants will be lining up to be plundered by me.”
Her extraordinary eyes flew to his. “Please tell me you didn’t make your haircut decisions based on my input.”
Having been told mere hours earlier that he too was a terrible liar, he didn’t answer. Instead, he merely opened the door and waved her ahead.
Once the valet brought his car around, they climbed inside, and he paused before putting it in drive. “Anywhere else you want to stop?”