Falling for the Enemy (Private Pleasures 3)

“More silent treatment?”

She stopped messing with his hair and stared him down in the mirror. “I got the impression you didn’t like to talk, sugar.”

“Sugar?”

“Sorry, is that not what you like to be called? How rude of me.”

He ignored the jibe. “You like to talk.” In response to her unspoken question he added, “I’ve passed by a time or two. You’re always chatting with clients while you work. Don’t change on my account. I like listening to you. There’s something very relaxing about your voice.”

The admission softened her. She ran her fingernails lightly over his scalp, and searched for a topic. Thing was, monologues weren’t her specialty. Normally she too

k her conversational cues from the client. She listened, responded with interest, and considered it part of the job of making the person in her chair feel comfortable. She picked up her spray bottle, pumped a few spritzes of water onto his hair and got to work with her comb. “What do you want me to talk about?”

“Anything…Whatever you were talking about with your last customer.”

She thought back to her conversation with fifteen-year-old Dilly, which now seemed like a lifetime ago. “Okay.” She started to snip. “We had a lengthy discussion about which member of One Direction is cutest. Dilly thought Harry. I’m more of a Zayn fan myself. And you?”

“I find it impossible to choose.”

She grinned. “I know. They’re all so adorbs.” Her breast brushed his shoulder as she trimmed around his ear, and heat simmered through her at the brief contact. Her eyes darted to the mirror, found his, and registered the awareness in their depths. She cleared her throat and soldiered on. “I have to admit, I sometimes get Liam and Niall mixed up. I hope that doesn’t shock you. Dilly practically swallowed her tongue when I told her I had a hard time telling them apart.” She got into the rhythm as she spoke…comb, lift a section of hair, snip.

“God forbid,” he murmured.

“She set me straight.” A quick look up confirmed his eyelids had started to droop. She deliberately slowed her movements. If the haircut didn’t send him off into dreamland, the conversation probably would. “Apparently Niall is a real blond, and kind of a goofball, which is, and I quote, ‘totally obvious in every picture because there’s this devilish glint in his eyes.’ Liam, on the other hand, is a brunette with occasional blond streaks, and, according to Dilly, ‘way more soulful and serious.’”

She glanced at the mirror again and smiled. Shaun’s closed eyes and deep, even breaths declared him somewhat less enthusiastic a 1D fan as her previous client, who could have talked about the band for hours. Since there was nowhere particular she had to be, she took her time with the haircut and let him sleep. Why waste the opportunity to observe him unawares and appreciate his masculine beauty? He looked younger, all clean shaven, freshly trimmed and combed. Younger and…familiar. The shape of his chin, the wing of his brows, triggered the odd, déjà vu feeling again. She stood stock still, staring at him as some memory danced along the perimeter of her consciousness, but it faded like a mirage as soon as she tried to pull it into focus.

Damn it, who was this guy? Impatient with herself, she gathered up her tools and set about putting things away. She removed the cape and shook it out, but he barely stirred. He snoozed with the same quiet containment he radiated when awake. Her trip to the supply closet for her broom and dustpan went unnoticed, but on her way back to the workstation she heard him moan—a flat, reluctant sound escaping from the depths of a dream. Not a fleeting noise though. It increased in volume and urgency as she approached the chair, and the haunted, hopeless tone sent a shiver down her spine. Then his whole body jerked, and she nearly choked on her own startled scream.

Enough. She propped the broom against the wall and crouched down in front of him. “Hey,” she said gently, not wanting to startle him, but determined to coax him away from whatever nightmare had sunk its claws into him. His moaning stopped, but his breathing turned choppy and a bead of sweat trickled down his temple. Without thinking, she reached up to wipe it away.

As soon as her fingertips brushed his skin his eyes popped open. Hard hands clamped around her upper arms. The room spun, but before she could utter a single cry of alarm, she was face-first against the mirror, trapped by his weight and his arms banded around her.

She swallowed hard, drew in a breath, and called, “Shaun!”

Chapter Three

Congratulations, you’ve finally had a psychotic break. Just as quickly as the unhelpful thought formed, he pushed it away. This was a dream. A bad one, mixed with flashbacks to make it extra nasty. Except…something wasn’t right. An out-of-place, citrus-y smell didn’t mesh with the all-too-familiar flashes of darkness, rubble, and some other horrific crap his mind refused to acknowledge. A voice called to him. Too high-pitched and feminine to belong to one of the other SEALs on the strike team, and laced with urgency—which in and of itself was not necessarily wrong, considering their target and what had gone down—but wrong because this voice called him by name.

Wake the fuck up. Now. He forced the word “Stop” from his tight, dry throat, and used the sound of his own voice to wrench himself out of the nightmare, and into…oh shit.

Adrenalin originally activated by the dream continued pouring into his overcharged system, even as he realized he had Virginia trapped between his body and the mirror, restrained in a bear-hug, with his forearm wedged against her soft breasts and a hard-on of undisguisable proportions prodding her backside. He immediately released her, stepped back, and waited for her fist to connect with his face, or her foot with his balls, or whatever else she dished out, because he definitely had it coming. She turned to face him, staring up at him with wide, cautious eyes.

“Sorry,” he said lamely into the yawning silence. Heat crawled up his neck. His sleep problems usually took the form of insomnia, but on rare occasions he sleepwalked. He’d woken up in his closet once, the kitchen a few times, and in the garage once, which had been inspiration enough to flush the last of the sleeping pills his doctor had prescribed. Up until now he’d figured he’d flushed the sleepwalking as well, but tonight took the prize. He’d never laid a hand on anybody before. Of course, he’d been bedding down alone for the past several months, too tired and, frankly, too screwed up for company. Way too screwed up. He opened his mouth—to say what, he wasn’t sure—but she interrupted him.

“Sugar, if you’re not happy with your haircut, all you have to do is say so.”

He caught the glint in those clear, green eyes. “Not funny.”

“Oh, come on. It is kind of funny, when you think about it.” She straightened her top. He ordered his eyes forward but they went AWOL and dropped to her chest. The skin on the inside of his forearms prickled with the phantom sensation of her rigid nipples poking him. His cock throbbed hard enough to have him biting back a groan. He had to get out of there. Now.

“Besides,” she said, and smoothed her hands over her short denim skirt in an unconscious gesture designed to kill him, “you were having a bad dream. You didn’t jump me on purpose. No harm, no foul…” She looked up at him and trailed off, her eyes wide. He knew then and there all the desire surging through him showed on his face.

Retreat. But he didn’t. He reached up and touched the small red mark riding high across her cheekbone—a souvenir from the mirror. Her skin felt like warm silk. “What would you have done?”

Her eyes were round and all pupils. “What would I have done if…what?”

“If I’d jumped you on purpose?”