Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Lucas made no apologies about lifting his bare hand for her to see. No ring glinted under the salon lights, but a fancy watch with a recognizable name stamped into the face did.
“No wife.” He smiled tightly while she reached for the clean cape and rolled towel on the shelving unit beside her station. “I just don’t think the fades are for me. Also, I’ve already washed it this morning. Trying to save some time here, you know?”
She didn’t believe that for a second. His excuse about the fade—not so much the wife. She took him at face value in that regard; he’d not cared one bit or barely gave a thought about flashing a bare finger.
He had strong shoulders and a thick neck corded with muscles. Good for high fades. It might give him a more military appearance, however, and some people didn’t prefer that.
Delaney opted not to push it. “Can we take the blazer off? The cape will be more comfortable.”
“Sure.”
He didn’t hesitate to stand and shrug off the navy-blue blazer that hadn’t been buttoned. She had the opportunity to properly admire the way his back and trunk-like arms filled out the dress shirt as he shifted the waistline of his pants at the belt before sitting back down in the chair, blazer folded in his lap.
Delaney wasn’t the only person who noticed, apparently.
Dual, feminine ohs echoed from across the salon. Both she and Lucas turned at the sudden noise to find Linda had left her perch behind the desk to lean against the workstation of another stylist behind Delaney. How she hadn’t noticed the change happening in the reflection of the mirror was another matter she didn’t give much thought to.
She wasn’t distracted.
Just doing her job.
The stylist at her back quickly turned the client in her chair back around to face her own station and mirror while Linda barely suppressed a smile at being noticed.
Delaney tried to play it all off. “Sorry about that. You’d think they never met a man with a nice smile before.”
Lucas chuckled, and scratched at the underside of his clean-shaven, prominent jaw. The cleft in his squared chin became more pronounced when he laughed, but it was the shift in his gaze that said he was more uncomfortable than he let any of them know. It took a hell of a lot of control to keep his discomfort hidden.
“No worries, it’s fine,” he assured.
It wasn’t. Professionalism counted for a lot in her business. As much as someone didn’t come into a hair salon or barber shop looking to get judged, they also didn’t expect to be gawked at and fawned over. All people wanted, for the most part, was a fucking hair cut. She could, however, focus them back where they needed to be.
“Let’s get you trimmed up,” she said, whipping out the cape to open it up.
Lucas smiled at her reflection; his gaze seemingly unseeing the background of the salon around them in the mirror. “Sounds good to me … It’s Delaney, right?”
“That’s me.”
He nodded once and settled into the chair with his eyes turned forward. “I’ll remember it. Let’s go.” Then, without any warning, his smile melted into a smirk as he asked, “So, you think I have a nice smile, huh?”
She hadn’t been ready for that comment, or the way his voice dropped with richness when he asked it.
It even made her blush.
Delaney used the cape she swept around his front, and hooked at the nape of his neck, as a buffer of sorts until the heat in her cheeks subsided. Even as she tucked in the folded towel between his tanned skin and the black cape, she did her very best to ignore the way he watched her in the mirror with a knowing grin.
Yep.
He’d definitely caught the blush.
“Are we cutting this hair of yours?” she asked, settling her nerves with a light laugh. “Or not?”
*
Lucas Dalton was a talker.
Real smooth, too.
Over the course of a twenty-minute trim, the man never quieted for more than a handful of seconds. He had a way with words, and conversation, too. It almost felt like sitting down for tea with an old friend as he pulled information from Delaney like ribbons while snips of hair fell in wisps around his shoulders.
Before she’d even dampened his hair with water from a squeeze bottle he had her admitting that she wasn’t from the city, despite living here. His uncanny ability didn’t stop there. The man learned her favorite colors—black and white until she died—her age and birthday, her latest read, and even her feelings about the recent weather. While he also kept the conversation entertaining.
A feat.
He could make her laugh, didn’t prod into personal waters, and knew when to turn a question or comment around on himself if he noticed that it landed the wrong way with Delaney. All in all, he made her comfortable.