she said, gesturing limply toward his fleshy dome. “Women like to run their fingers through a man’s locks.”
Nigel gave the dome a shake. “I can do the clothes, even try on a new name, but the head stays as is.”
“Why?”
“Because I like it. No muss, no fuss.”
“But women like to run their fingers—”
“Over my shiny bald scalp. After wrestling matches, I can’t tell you how many fingers skimmed and rubbed and tickled the surface. Old women, young women, kids. Here, you do it.” He leaned down, holding his head inches from her.
“This is ridiculous,” she managed to say despite her pulse leaping into her throat.
“Feel it.”
“I can see it.”
“Feel.”
“If you had so many fingers feeling you—I mean, your head—why didn’t you just hook up with…” It really wasn’t any of her business why he hadn’t latched on to one of the finger-feeling woman back in his Phantom days.
He glanced up, and something in his expression gave her heart a squeeze.
“Just ’cause they wanted to cop a feel didn’t mean they wanted to know the real me.”
She blinked, thinking how many women had complained about the exact same thing. Men just wanted them for their bodies, not their minds and heart. “You know, that’s what a lot of women say about men.”
He shrugged. “It’s a curse and a blessing being a sensitive man.”
She was wondering about the blessing part when he dropped his head, waiting for her to feel.
“Oh, no, that’s all right—”
“I insist. Because afterward, you’ll never ask me to grow my hair again.”
“Okay,” she whispered, reaching toward his scalp. She became aware of his scent—a citrusy aftershave. And she tried not to be overly aware that this mountain of a man, dressed in nothing but black stretchy briefs, was bending over in what looked like a bowing position.
For a moment, she felt like Anna taming the King of Siam.
And then her fingertips brushed lightly over his scalp, the connection warm, solid. She gasped and withdrew her fingers.
“No, touch me,” Nigel insisted.
“I did,” she said shakily.
He straightened a little, his blue eyes firing her a look. “That wasn’t a touch.” He gently took her hand and, bending down a little, placed it full on his bare scalp.
Her heart raced like a schoolgirl’s as her palm pressed against his head, her fingers resting on smooth skin over hard skull. Back here, tucked away in a curtained room, pressing flesh to flesh, she suddenly felt as though they were doing something secretive, forbidden.
“It feels so…” She breathed in and out, her chest rising with the effort. “…silky, yet hard.” She swallowed back a nervous sound, realizing how what she’d just said must sound.
Nigel still held her hand, his grip confident, warm. “Run your fingers over the surface,” he said in a low voice that rumbled from deep within the mountain.
For a split second, she thought about lying and saying, oh, no, no, she’d felt enough, thank you. But in that blip of time, he started to guide her hand slowly, trailing her fingers in lazy paths over the sleek, pink dome.
“See?” he said, his voice low and husky. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”
She murmured something in the affirmative, not trusting herself to form coherent words. The pounding of her heart had escalated to a pagan beat, pulsing loudly over the piped-in music.
Nigel straightened, slowly, causing her hand to slide ever so gently off his bare head and drift down the side of his face. Her fingers touched the bristle of his unshaven face.
As he straightened to his full height, her hand slid to his chest. She paused on the thick carpet of chest hair, feeling his heat through her fingertips.
After several long moments, as though awakening from a dream, she slowly withdrew her hand and stepped back through the curtain, her last image being the big, nearly naked man whose simmering blue eyes looked at her as though he’d discovered far more than she had in that sensual interlude.
3
Step two: Act like a bad boy
LATER THAT EVENING, Kimberly sat at the bar, sipping a diet cola, watching the front door. She’d told Nigel to meet her here at 7 p.m. so they could start step two, act like a bad boy, and here it was 7:20 and still no sign of him.
Of course, she’d gotten here only five minutes ago herself, but that was different. She was a one-woman corporation with responsibilities and meetings. Although, if she was perfectly honest with herself, she was developing some bad time-management habits. She used to occasionally run late in the mornings, but now she was late for almost every appointment. A few years ago, she had stayed on top of everything, juggling multiple responsibilities and never dropping one.
But these days…
She stirred the straw in her drink, thinking how the swirling ice cubes were like her life. Chunks of responsibilities, clattering against each other, going in circles. And she was jumping from cube to cube, trying to keep her balance, keep it all together.
“You want anything else?”
She looked up at the Tom Cruise look-alike bartender, reeking of testosterone and youth. Once upon a time, she’d fallen hard for that flavor of sultry, dark come-on. That’s why she was so good at coaching men in the bad-boy department because she had ample firsthand experience.
“No, thank you.”
He cocked an eyebrow, his mouth sliding in a half grin. “Alone?”
Stud Boy, test-drive it on someone else. “Temporarily.”
“Aren’t we all.”
He turned, nodded to a customer flagging him down. “Need anything, let me know.” He gave her a knowing wink.
Do I have Gone Without Sex Too Long tattooed on my forehead? She reached in her jacket pocket and extracted the half-eaten candy bar she’d been noshing on all day and took a bite.
A noise spread through the room. Alight, suctionlike sound.
She turned, dropping the bar into her pocket, realizing the sound was actually a series of gasps from clusters of women who were staring at the front door.
Kimberly followed their line of vision and froze.
There, filling the doorway, was a man bigger than life. Hercules in jeans and leather.
