I pull a hand out from under the cape. Trace the sharp line of her cheekbone. Her jaw. "So fucking beautiful, Noelle."
Her lips slip closer to mine. Hope burns in my chest, warring with disbelief, freighted down by fear.
A sharp knock on glass shatters the moment.
"Darn it," she breathes, sounding irritated. She touches her lips to my cheek, pressing a soft, slow kiss there. "Be right back."
She glides gracefully across the salon to the door, unlocking and opening it an inch.
"We're closed today, sorry. Private appointment."
“Oh, okay. Thank you."
"I know we have some walk-in slots open on Monday morning, though."
"Wonderful," comes the elderly female voice. "I'll come back then."
"I look forward to seeing you Monday, ma'am. Have a nice weekend."
“You too, dear."
She closes and re-locks the door and returns to her station. "Haircut time."
For the next half an hour, Noelle uses a pair of scissors to snip here and there, pinching the ends between her index and middle fingers and trimming away the extra. No one cut makes anything look different, but when she steps back, sets the scissors down, and feathers her fingers through it, my hair does, somehow, look a hundred times better. Cleaner, lighter, healthier. The shape of it looks…neater. Less like a wild man who just came down from a winter in the mountains.
“Now your beard," she says, spinning the chair around so my back is to the mirror.
She runs her fingers through my beard a few times the way she did with my hair, assessing and scrutinizing. “Yeah, youneed some oil and a good brush. Your skin underneath is all dried out. It must itch, huh?"
I shrug. “Yeah, I guess, "I admit, realizing only as she points it out that I do have a habit of scratching at the skin under my beard a lot.
"For now, I'll just update the shape. I'll show you how to oil it and brush it later."
Standing between my knees, Noelle leaned forward, her scissors snip-snip-snipping away, sending curly red tendrils fluttering to the floor.
Her cleavage is right in front of my face, and the angle of her forward bend means I can see down her shirt, revealing the cups of a black bra and a whole hell of a lot of skin. I fight myself tooth and nail, my selfish desire to see more of her beautiful body at odds with my determination to be respectful. Eventually, I have to close my eyes because I can’t seem to look away.
After a while, the snipping stops, and her fingers trail down my cheeks, trace my jawline, and then feather down through my beard. "There,muchbetter."
I open my eyes—she's so close, standing between my legs, her hips wedged between my thighs. Her green eyes search my face, a smile on her lips.
"I didn't mind you looking," she murmurs. "But it's super sweet that you didn't."
My cheeks burned as I realized she knew I was staring and why I closed my eyes. “Noelle, I…” I trailed off, unsure what to say. “I can’t take my eyes off you."
Her smile brightens, taking my breath away. "The way you look at me, Bear. It's…you make me feel pretty."
"Pretty ain't the word, Noelle. Not even close."
She trails the backs of her knuckles down the side of my face, a gesture that makes it hard to breathe and hard to swallow. "You're pretty dang handsome yourself, you know."
I huff, shaking my head. "Need glasses, if you think that."
She frowns, laughing and shaking her head. "I have twenty-twenty vision, thank you very much." She tugs my beard through her fist. "Can I do one more thing?"
"Anything you want," I answer.
Her fingers work swiftly and nimbly in my beard, gathering sections and braiding them together into the three separate plaits, which she then weaves together into a single thick, complex braid, tied off at the end with a black hair tie. Moving out from between my legs, she stands behind me again and pulls the topmost section of hair around my temples and crown and braids them as well, leaving them to hang just behind my ears. The rest of my hair she leaves loose, but now, with the braided section out of the way, it's out of my face.
