Page 15 of Sleeper: The Palisades Edition
“The grandmother of the family I boarded with taught me a few tricks.” I beckon him with the fingers of my outstretched hands.
He pushes his coffee aside and stretches his hand across the table without hesitation.Surprising.I take his hand in mine and examine the shape of it. I am fully aware that this would play out very differently if we were at a bar instead of a supermarket and if my brother were half a world away instead of at some counter inside the store, chatting up a hot chick. I am also aware that the last thing I should be doing is pulling out the party trick I’ve employed to flirt with guys who are either too pretty or too shy to make the first move. But I guess this is what’s happening.
His hand.
Oh Lord, his hand.
The texture of his skin is not quite rough and not exactly smooth.It feels good.“You’re down-to-earth, but you’re also sensitive.”
“Am I?”
I turn his hand over to press my thumbs into his palm. It’s firm and resilient. “You’re very practical and hard-working.”
“And you’re still kinda weird, huh?”
“Am I?”
His skin has a pinkish hue.I bet his penis is really pretty.“Well, the lack of sleep isn’t affecting your overall health. That’s good.” He’s loving and supportive. MargoQuincey is a fucking idiot for letting this guy go. “Oh, you have a square palm.”
“What does that mean? I’m good at opening square jars?”
“It confirms that you have good energy and you’re a hard-worker. You don’t mind a challenge.”His long fingers are capable and sexy, and I want them on my body. Shit.“You’re responsible and you finish what you start.”I want these fingers inside me. Fuck.“This is your heart line,” I say, tracing the major line across the top of his palm with my fingertip. It’s long and strong.I want to see him wrap this hand around his cock, and I want him to ram that cock into me. He could really give it to me good. Goddammit, what is wrong with me?“This tells me something about your emotional life.”
“Oh yeah? What’s it telling you?”
His heart line is curved. Shit, it’s really curved. Sex is very important to this man. “I, uhhh…That’s about the extent of my palm-reading abilities. Sorry.”
He pulls his beautiful hand away to rake it through his amazing hair. “Well, I learned a lot about myself, thanks.”
I place my hands at the edge of the table in front of me and push myself against the back of my chair. This is a passionate man who will stop at nothing to make a woman come, and I can’t be that woman and I need to shift gears. “So, are you doing an ad for hair products later today or what?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then why do you look like that?”
“Like this?” He points to his perfectly tousled hair. “I literally wake up with awesome hair every day. I couldn’t make it look bad if I tried.”
“That’s kind of annoying.”
“I know, but to be fair, it’s my only annoying quality.”
“Unless one considers the inability to select a decent movie to star in a quality.”Shit. Too far. I’m going too far in the other direction.
And yet, he seems totally unoffended.
“Once again, to be fair, that’s just my inability to fire my agents for encouraging me to do those mainstream movies that pay me millions of dollars so I can feed my children.”
“And you couldn’t possibly feed your children with money earned from films that don’t star former wrestlers? I’m curious—do you even read the scripts before you agree to make these movies?”Oh my God, Willa, he’s a nice dad who is exhausted and he really needs your help. Don’t be a dick.
Where’s my idiot brother?
I need to shift gears again.
And Shane Miller needs to stop staring at my mouth or I’m going to fling myself across this table and never stop kissing him.
FIVE
SHANE
