All the Feels (Spoiler Alert #2)(46)

This morning, however, he hadn’t stolen her breath. Just her patience.

“Finish your breakfast, Woodroe. We need to get going.” She tapped the edge of his plate, still half filled with velvety scrambled eggs and roasted herbed tomatoes. “You’ve already missed one appointment with your stylist, and from what you’ve told me, she’ll eviscerate you with her trimming shears if you cross her a second time.”

Also, he definitely needed a haircut and beard trim, stat. Con of the Gates, the annual fan convention for Gods of the Gates, began tomorrow, and at the moment, he resembled a particularly fetching hobo.

“Every time I try to look at you, my neck hurts,” he whined in between bites. “How am I supposed to eat under such inhumane conditions? And why are you literally the height of a growth-stunted mouse?”

They’d discussed proper usage of the word literally too many times. She wasn’t having that particular conversation again.

“Then don’t sit next to me on the bench. Take one of the chairs, where you won’t have to bend your neck so much to see me.” Once he’d scraped up the last of his meal, she removed his plate and stacked it with hers on their tray. “Or better yet, just don’t look at me.”

“But I like looking at you.” He stood with a luxuriant stretch. “And if I sat farther away, I couldn’t complain that you’re a literal pain in my neck.”

Automatically, she said, “That’s not what lit—”

Wait a second.

“Oh, I know what it means. I’ve always known.” He smirked down at her. “I just like fucking with you, Nanny Clegg.”

I will not toss him down this mountainside, she told herself. I will not.

His smile died, and his brows slammed together. “Uh, just to be clear, I meant ‘fucking with you’ in the sense of teasing you, not, um …”

Instead of shoving him over the cliff’s edge, as he so richly deserved, she elbowed him in the ribs. “I know what you meant.”

He yelped and cast her a wounded look as he clutched his side. Even though she’d put zero force behind the jab.

“Abject cruelty,” he complained. “Just for that, I’m not letting you carry the tray back to the kitchen, you vicious virago.”

Then he swept off in a dramatic huff, flawlessly balancing the tray on one arm like a seasoned waiter. Which, given his profession, he’d probably been at one point, now that she considered the matter.

Their debate over neck pain continued during the entire car ride to the salon, and even while he gave his keys to the valet.

Yes, curbside valet service. At a hair salon.

She sighed. Stars. Just like us, my ass.

As they neared the salon’s discreet entrance, bracketed by ornamental palms, she stopped and made her final stand. “By looking down, you’re at least working with gravity, Woodroe. When I look up at you, I have to fight against the laws of nature.”

He snorted. Which she could see very clearly at this close distance and from so far below.

Even his nostrils were attractive. It was highly unfair.

Nevertheless, she made her closing statement with what she considered laudable aplomb. “Which means, of course, that my looking at you causes more neck pain than your looking at me. Thus, you are a bigger pain in the neck than I am. QED.”

“QED? Really, Wren?” He laughed down at her, and then—oh, asshole—casually leaned over and rested his forearm on top of her head, as if she were a console in his damn car, and he was going to pay—

“Excuse me,” a voice said from behind Lauren. “Are you Alex Woodroe?”

In a doomed attempt to recover her lost dignity, Lauren slid out from beneath Alex’s arm and backed several steps away, allowing the fan to greet him without an interloper.

The woman was a pretty redhead, maybe in her early twenties, and the usual conversation occurred. He confirmed his identity, thanked her for her gushing admiration, and agreed to a selfie. And then—

Cell phone held aloft in one hand, the woman nestled close and placed her other hand on the upper swell of his ass. With a strained smile, Alex tried to slide away, but his fan wasn’t giving up so easily. She laughed and followed his movement while taking more photos, and no.

No.

“I’m so sorry,” Lauren said as politely as possible, “but I’m afraid that will have to be your final photo together.”

The fan didn’t move an inch, and she didn’t acknowledge Lauren’s words. Another photo. Another. Then she began filming a video.

Alex’s smile didn’t reach his eyes, and Lauren could almost see him grasping for his self-control, could almost hear him urging himself to stay calm and out of trouble.

“—and lucky me, here I am with Alex Woodroe,” the woman was saying. “You would not believe how hot he is in real—”

At that point, Lauren marched behind the pair and physically removed the fan’s hand from Alex’s ass. The woman gasped. Apparently at Lauren’s effrontery, which was rich irony indeed.

The redhead swung around, livid color streaking her cheeks.

“Wait your turn, you ugly bitch,” she hissed, and suddenly she wasn’t so pretty anymore. “I wasn’t done yet.”

“Yes,” Lauren said simply. “You were.”