by Nikki Duncan
Alone, with his eyes staring up at her, she wished she were the water running over her palm and down the drain. With no escape, she averted her gaze from his and instead focused on his hair. She’d had her hands in his hair, felt the silky strands moving between her fingers, when he’d kissed her three days ago.
If she’d been braver or more experienced she might have pulled him closer and asked for more. Swallowing regrets, she set the hose against his hairline and wet his hair. She tried to be professional and look at him like any other client. She failed.
His dark hair darkened more beneath the water, became silkier. Her stomach knotted as she squirted shampoo into her palm. Sparks erupted along her hands as she worked the cleanser into a lather.
Ryan’s eyes drifted closed, but his lids fluttered quickly. He kept them closed while she rinsed, but his fingers gripped the arms of the chair. He kept them closed while she reached for the conditioner, but his lips parted on a shaky breath when she slid her fingers into his hair again.
Not seeing the intensity of his gray gaze suited her almost as much as getting to study him privately. Waves of awareness rolled through her with each stroke of the creamy conditioner gliding through his hair. An image flashed in her mind of her straddling him while she massaged his scalp.
Shaking her head to clear the mental picture, she squeezed her fingers together, tugging lightly on his hair. He scrunched his eyes the slightest bit and released a tiny moan. His throat rippled with a swallow.
Her mouth watered with the desire to have him stretched out, shirtless, before her. She bit back a moan of her own and rolled her hips as the picture of her straddling him returned. She could glide her slippery hands over his chest and down his stomach to the waist of his pants. To the buckle, button and zipper… Her eyes widened when she followed the path of her fantasy and saw the length of his arousal.
Carmen shook her head—hard and fast—to clear the haze. Turning her face to the ceiling, she sent up a silent prayer for control. Needing to get a grip, and not on him, she quickly rinsed his hair and tugged at the towel around his neck.
Ryan sat up and asked quietly, huskily, “Where do you want me?”
Her brain shut down, allowing no thoughts or actions to be processed.
“Carmen?”
She blinked and then nodded to the second of the four chairs. Once he’d settled, and she’d recovered some control over her breathing, she followed him. Unsure of what to say, other than asking what kind of cut he wanted, she silently snapped the collar of the cape at his neck before pulling out her scissors, comb and clippers.
“I hope you’re only using those clippers to clean up my neck.”
She picked up the comb and began working it through his hair. “Sure.”
“Damn, Woman. I’d almost forgotten the sound of your voice.”
The demand that he stop calling her Woman in that degrading and militant tone of his lay heavy on her tongue. She’d always had a problem with overbearing men, though, for once, something had her gritting her teeth instead of giving him the pleasure of getting a rise out of her.
With his hair combed smooth, she picked up her scissors to begin trimming.
“I like it short.”
She nodded, meeting his gaze briefly in the mirror, but said nothing.
“And she slips back into silence.”
The salon was empty, except for the sound of her snipping blades. Her mind was full, though. Full of the man sitting before her. His scent. His size. The impression of his hair in her hands.
Wet. Cool. Silken. She almost didn’t want to cut off the ends that had begun to curl around his ears. As militant as he was, the unruly look suited him. Not that he needed anything else to add to his appeal.
“Are you pissed that I kissed you, or pissed that I stopped?”
She set the scissors on the counter and then used her clippers to clean up his neck. When she finished, unsnapped the cape and motioned for him to get up, Ryan turned the chair and looked at her. He watched while she swept up his hair and the hair she’d dropped earlier. His gaze moved warm and liquid through her veins until her entire body was a pool of warm arousal, just as she’d felt washing his hair. And when he’d kissed her.
She’d cut his hair. He’d looked at her. What about any of that was arousing?
“It wasn’t the kiss, was it, Carmen?”
Her name on his lips, spoken with the slow pace of Whispering Cove, took her desire up a notch. She wanted to explain, to tell him how much he’d hurt her, but she didn’t want him to know the kind of power he had over her. Ryan Alden was a man who loved power and wouldn’t hesitate to use it to win.
“I think you misunderstood what I meant about non-natives. I was talking about plants.”
She shrugged. He may have meant plants, but he wouldn’t be able to deny he’d thought the theory applied to people—her—as well.
“You can’t ignore me forever. Not if you want any say on how your design is executed. Or if you want the 3-D figures to look right.”
She headed toward the door to unlock it for him, not caring about payment. She only cared about getting distance from her awakening desires.
He rested his hand on hers over the door and looked down to meet her gaze. Reading him was impossible, other than to know that whatever he felt or thought was intense and heated. Then she remembered the length of his erection that had pressed against the zipper of his pants and her cheeks heated more than his stare.
“Carmen. Let me buy you dinner. We can talk about the gazebo project.”
The words about to come out of her mouth were unwise, quite possibly the most unwise thing she’d ever said, but she took the leap. “I don’t want people to know I’m involved with that.”
“People are going to know.”
“Eventually.” With as much thought and effort as she’d put into the design, she wanted to see it executed. She wanted to help even if that meant working with Ryan and playing into Byron’s matchmaking hands. “If we’re going to keep the design a secret, like the council wants, we shouldn’t be discussing it in public.”
Ryan locked his gaze with hers, brushed the tips of his fingers across her knuckles, and spoke quietly. “Are you inviting me to your place, Carmen?”
Borrowing a page from her sister’s book of bravery, Carmen nodded. She could allow Ryan in without risking too much. The only man who’d ever been in her apartment had been Josh, but he didn’t really count because he was her brother-in-law and he’d been picking up his daughter.
There was nothing so innocent when it came to Ryan and the way he affected her. “Yes. I’m asking you to come to my place.”
“I’ll grab a pizza and meet you there.”
Chapter Four
Ryan had considered kissing her in the salon. Hell, she’d had him on the verge of grabbing her and pulling her into his lap from the moment she slipped her fingers into his hair at the wash sink. Then she invited him to her place.
He could have invited her to his, but he preferred more privacy than his apartment above the garage of his parents’ home offered. And until he knew why he was drawn to her, why he couldn’t dislodge the memory of her curves against him, and what he wanted to do about it, if anything, he wasn’t in the mood to share her.
She’d avoided him without even having met his family. Meeting them wouldn’t likely endear her to him. He didn’t need their scrutiny.
With a warm pizza in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, Ryan toed off his dirty boots and set them against the wall. Using his foot, he rapped twice on the metal door and called, “It’s Ryan.”
Carmen answered his knock quickly, which offered a change of pace from standing on her stoop like an ass. She scanned him quickly, frowning when she got to his feet. “What’s with you and shoes. Don’t you wear them indoors?”
“Not my work boots.” He lifted the pizza box. “I brought dinner.”
“Dinner doesn’t come in a box.”
“Do
a tour during wartime. A box never looked so good.”
“I’ll have to trust you on that.” She jerked her head and stepped back, indicating he could enter. The gesture was casual, but her neck and shoulders were tense, like she didn’t often allow people into her space.
Ryan followed, taking the chance while it lasted. “I’m a trustworthy guy.”
Her response was muffled, but he found himself struggling to focus beyond the decor. Her clothes and hair and creamy complexion weren’t the only part of her that suggested she was living in the wrong time.
A black and white checker print rug dominated the living area’s floor. Centered on the rug was a round, glass-topped table with a red couch and two yellow chairs around it. The furniture and every knick-knack and picture in the place had to have come straight from the fifties.
Following her to the small kitchen, he saw that she’d carried on the same theme, though there was only so much she could do with the building standards of the modern-day apartment. She’d compensated for the modern by bringing in touches that made the room look like a diner. He could so easily picture her with an apron over her dress as she moved around the room in heels to cook a real meal.
“You decorate yourself?”
“Yes.” She pulled out a couple of plates.
He set the pizza box on the silver-edged table with plastic-covered chairs and turned to take the dishes. His chuckle escaped. They were shaped like vinyl records with the edges curved up. The centers were even painted with a label to identify the album. The two she’d pulled down were for Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Great Balls of Fire” and Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti”.
“Carmen, do you ever feel like you’re living in the wrong decade?”
She smiled as she closed a cabinet, holding two wine glasses. “Life then seemed simpler.”
Ah. She was an idealist. Life had never been simple, though. According to his parents, the fifties had been filled with people struggling with major changes, like the introduction of TV and rock ‘n’ roll being two big ones. It was a time of discovery. A time when family ideals began to shift, to make room for something new. Maybe that’s why it appealed to Carmen. Maybe she was in a time of self-discovery.
“Whispering Cove is pretty simple.”
She nodded. “That’s why Aimee and I stayed. We loved it as soon as we arrived.”
He pulled Carmen’s chair out for her and then sat beside her. He could go for some simple. “Aimee’s your sister, right? I heard she married Josh Bryan.”
“Yeah. Long story short, she was a fling he couldn’t let go.” Carmen flipped open the box and served him before sliding a piece onto her plate. “Turns out she didn’t want him to.”
“I heard someone say they’d be back in town for the parade. There’s a rumor floating that Josh will do another concert.”
Carmen shook her head. “They’ll be back, but not for him to do a concert. This is his home between appearances and when he’s here his only plan is to spend time with Aimee and Kendall.”
“It has to be rough to be Josh. People always wanting something from him.”
“Even in Whispering Cove people can forget that sometimes all anyone wants is to be left alone.”
The loneliness Ryan had witnessed on the beach crept into her tone. He didn’t think she wanted to be left alone so much as he suspected it had become a state of normalcy for her. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask about her family, other than Aimee. He changed tactics, choosing instead something he thought she’d find safer.
“So, about the gazebo.”
“Yes.” She perked up, like she was relieved he’d changed the subject. “How’s that going?”
“We have the old bushes pulled and the bed area is ready for plants. I was thinking, instead of flowers and plants for every picture, we could alternate.”
“What do you mean?”
“In one section we could dye the mulch from the bushes we pulled and use it around the base of a large rock with one of your pictures painted on it. Then the next section would be plants or maybe a few flowers at the base of the rock statues.”
“What about the border?”
“I liked the white in your drawing, so I was thinking a white turtlehead outline around each section.”
She nibbled on her slice of pizza and watched him steadily. “It doesn’t sound like you need my help planning what to use.”
“No, but you deserve a say. It’s your design.”
“I drew the strip of pictures around the gazebo because I thought it would be a cool way for people to see the history of Whispering Cove without feeling like they were in a museum.”
“You didn’t have any thought on how it would look if it was done?”
“No, and frankly I wish I hadn’t let Byron talk me into entering and I wish I hadn’t won.”
“I can handle the materials, Carmen. And the heavy lifting. I’m not an artist, though.”
“I sketch a little.” She shrugged her shoulders. “That doesn’t make me an artist.”
Her shoulder shrug spoke louder than any words she chose. She didn’t want to think of herself as an artist any more than he wanted to be a landscaper. What he’d failed to notice while fighting the idea of working with her was that she’d felt a connection to her subject.
Her feelings for Whispering Cove had come through in each stroke she’d laid on the page, but what she didn’t realize, or maybe she did, was that she was gifted. She may enjoy the life she’d created for herself, but she could have more than a small apartment and a job cutting hair if she allowed herself to believe.
“I did some traveling in the Corps. Saw some things. Toured some museums.” To make his mother happy. Carmen rolled her eyes, but Ryan continued. “Woman, you’re an artist.”
She tensed when he called her Woman, but she didn’t comment on it. “Why plants instead of flowers? And why dye the mulch instead of smaller, colored rock?”
“Rock is more expensive than the mulch and flowers die and have to be replaced more often than plants.”
“So you want to do something that’s basically maintenance free.” She served him another slice of pizza. He hadn’t even realized he’d eaten, he was enjoying her company so much.
“It’s easier on the town’s budget.”
She shrugged, again minimizing herself. He’d thought her to be a strong and confident woman when he’d watched her with the friends she’d made in town. Her friends had been a few years behind him in school, but he knew them well enough to know they’d never lacked confidence. She seemed to fit in smoothly with them; it was when she was alone she seemed different.
The unexpected side of her drew him faster than a bowl of cookies called to a sweet tooth. Maybe it was how clearly he remembered her reactions. Her touch. Her taste.
“Carmen.”
She glanced sideways, looking leery. “What?”
Ryan risked rejection and leaned close. “You never answered my question earlier.”
“What question?”
“Were you pissed that I kissed you or that I stopped? Or was it something else entirely?”
Her throat bobbed as she turned her head to him. Her hands flattened on her legs before her. “I wasn’t mad about the kiss.”
“That we stopped?”
She shook her head.
“So it was the comment about the non-natives.” He leaned a fraction closer, close enough now to catch the scent of shampoo and hair product she’d used during the day at work. “You thought since I had that view on plants it would transfer to you.”
She nodded.
He angled his head, watched her. “You weren’t too far off base.”
“Ugh.” She lunged back. “The women in the salon were right.”
“Yeah?” He didn’t move. Carmen would relax soon and when she did she’d be close again. “What did the town gossips say about me?”
“That you’re cold, almost cruel. When you set your sights on a woman you rock her w
orld, but the thing people remember you most for is your skill at running away.”
He smiled. It never hurt a man’s ego to hear women call him a world rocker. As for the leaving part, truth was truth and there was no point denying it. He hadn’t stayed away and he wasn’t a player now, though. “So that’s why you reacted the way you did on the beach.”
“What way?”
“Surprised when I approached, though I have to say you recovered your surface cheer quickly.”
She leaned close, confronting him. “My cheer is not surface.”
“Not always.” He drew in a deep breath and caught the scent of salon shampoo that blended with the pizza dinner.
“You’re not even going to defend yourself against what they said?”
“No.”
She made a face like she was disgusted with him, which only made him smile because she was dropping her public masks. He was going to have to get her alone more often.
“Fine.” He digressed. “I used to date girls, fool around with them and then break up if they began to get serious. Sixteen years ago.”
“They talked like it was recent.”
“I’ve only been back a couple of months.” He leaned in and with his cheek almost brushing hers drew in the clean aroma of her shampoo. He whispered, “You’re the first, the only, woman I’ve kissed since coming home.”
“Why?” Carmen asked, wanting to believe him.
The idea that everything she’d heard was based on who he was sixteen years ago, when he was only a kid, suggested that he could be different. If he could change who he was, maybe people really could change and become something more. Something better.
“Why did I behave like I did in school? Or why are you the only woman I’ve kissed since coming back?”
“Both.”
“I never thought I belonged here.”
“So you never let people in as your way of proving that.”
He shrugged, not wanting to think about it.
“Why would you think you didn’t belong here?”
“It’s complicated.” His voice was barely a breath below her ear. “Turns out I was right and wrong.”
