Working Stiff(49)
“Her surgeon is great. She looks great for forty.”
Cash looked up at the dark wooden beams on the ceiling, considering. He must have decided that he wasn’t violating confidentiality, because he said, “Josie is fifty-five.”
“No way! She looks forty!”
“Yes, but she doesn’t look like a cartoon of a twenty-year-old.”
“Wow. Now I seriously want the name of her plastic surgeon.” The sitcom came back on, but the television was still muted. The remote sat beside Midnight, close to Rox’s hand.
“He is an artist. Not that you need any plastic surgery at all.”
“If Josie offered, I have a list of procedures that I would do. A long list.”
He laughed out loud that time. “Surely you don’t.”
“Obviously, I would start with liposuction or just go whole-hog for a tummy tuck. Or a lap band. Or a gastric bypass.” She didn’t grab the chub that hung around her waist. She had some pride left. If she’d had a little more wine, she might have gone for it. “And then we would move onto a nose job and lip injections.”
His expression turned to disbelief. “You wouldn’t let a scalpel near you, would you?”
“Oh, heck, yeah. In a heartbeat, if I had the money.”
“Promise me that you won’t.”
“Drunken promises never count.”
He set aside his computer and turned on the couch, rumpling Pirate, who stalked down the couch to collapse by the arm. “Promise me that you won’t let a surgeon cut you, even if you had the money. Your skin is beautiful.”
Rox laid aside her own laptop and turned toward him on the couch, jostling Midnight, who stalked off and flopped on the arm of the couch, because she was very, very buzzed. If she had been sober, she probably would have turned the TV volume back up and ignored him.
But she was buzzed. So she turned.
His emerald eyes—so dark in the dim room—were unfocused from the wine, and he stroked her cheek with his knuckles. He said, “It’s like you don’t even have pores.”
“It’s dark in here,” she said.
“It’s not the dark. I marvel at you all the time. No matter how good the surgeon was, he couldn’t improve on this. If you let someone cut you, it would destroy this satiny feel.” His fingers warmed her cheek, and he ran his thumb over her cheekbone almost all the way back to her ear. “Your bone structure is incredible. Your nose is perfectly straight.” His fingers wove into her hair. “You don’t color your hair, do you?”
“They don’t make a bottle called ‘Garden Dirt Brown.’”
He chuckled, but he watched his fingers comb through her hair. “It’s lustrous. I’ve been accused of highlighting mine, but I don’t.”
Her own hand rose, and she kind of watched it, too drunk to want to do anything about stopping it. She touched one blond streak at his temple that ran though his dark auburn hair. “I can tell. It’s growing out, but the streaks are still there.”
He turned his chin, resting his face against her hand, and watched her. “Your hair doesn’t look like dirt. It’s glorious. It’s so dark, and then the sun shines on it and picks out gold and copper.”
“It’s—” She couldn’t think, not with his fingers deep in her hair and cupping the back of her head. “—It’s not.”
“I like your hair,” he said. “I think it’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”
“I am not,” she said, her voice getting more breathless. “Stop saying that.”
“You are beautiful. I won’t stop saying it, even if I have to whisper it late at night when we’re both a little too drunk.”
“You’ve been setting out two bottles every night. This is obviously part of a fiendish plan.”
His hand was so warm and strong on the back of her head. “I don’t have a fiendish plan.”
“I’ll bet you say that to all the girls,” Rox said to him, her voice too damn breathless.
“I usually don’t have to be drunk to make a pass at a woman, but you’re married.”
Guilt wormed around her. “Oh.”
“Why doesn’t he tell you that you’re beautiful?” Cash whispered, and he leaned toward her.
“Because he doesn’t lie to me.” His lips were an inch from hers, less than an inch.
“Then he’s blind. Or purposefully stupid. Or a cad. Or he doesn’t want you to know it.” Little puffs of his breath—scented with wine and mint—touched her lips.
“But it’s the truth. I’m just ordinary. And chubby. And not cute.” Just a fraction of an inch. A sliver of air separated their mouths.