Page 33 of River
“Done!” I exclaimed when I was satisfied.
“I’m surprised that you left some of it. Why didn’t you just shave it all off?”
Without thinking my hands touched his face again. “You’re one of the people who can grow a decent beard and I think it looks…” The word sexy was on my tongue, but that would give him false hope, so I went with “strapping.”
“I feel like I should pay you.”
Removing the cape from him, I made adon’t be sillyexpression.
“But how can I repay your kindness?” he said in such a formal tone that it made me laugh.
“Actually, there’s something I’d like, but you’d have to do it with me.”
“And what’s that?”
“I want us to get a manicure and pedicure.”
Noah wrinkled his nose up. “That’s a chick thing.”
“Nonsense. Men get beauty treatments all the time in London. Let me see your hands.”
Reaching his hands out, Noah joked. “Don’t be scared by how big my hands are.”
I didn’t laugh because I’d seen him in his briefs this morning, and although I hadn’t seen him naked, his bulge had been intimidating.
“You have dry hands.”
“It’s the salt in the water.”
“Exactly. If you don’t want to end up looking like an old weathered fisherman before you’re thirty, you need to take better care of yourself.”
“But I’m already thirty-five.”
I still held his hands but raised my gaze with surprise. “Impossible.”
He broke into a laugh. “Why don’t you believe me?”
“Because I’m always sharp at telling people’s age, and you’re somewhere around twenty-eight.”
“I’m twenty-nine, actually.”
“Huh. So, I was right.”
“Is that why you’re not interested in me? Because you know I’m four years older than you?”
“Four years is nothing. I’ve dated men ten years my senior.”
His eyes widened. “Are you saying you’d date me?”
“No.” I let go of his hand. “What would be the point? I’m leaving in two and a half weeks, and we’re from different countries.”
“If I say yes to the hand and foot thing, will you consider dating me while we’re still in the same place?”
I should say no, but taking another step outside my comfort zone, I bravely said, “I’ll consider it, but I don’t think it will change my answer.”
We didn’t have far to go, since the neighbor shop offered beauty treatments.
“Which color do you think I should pick for my toes and fingernails?” I asked him, and Noah went straight to a crimson red.
