I took a wider stance and said, “Just trying to have more charm. Probably a lost cause.”
“You’re brimming with charm,” came a male voice from behind me. “Leave some for everyone else.”
I whirled around, expecting to see another regular customer.
Dalton Deangelo sat at a round cafe table, a laptop in front of him and a foamy cappuccino next to it.
He grinned, the dimple in his chin deepening. “Wait, what were we talking about? Line?” He looked left and right playfully. “I’m lousy when I go off-script.”
“What are you doing here?”
He pointed his thumb at the window behind him. “Waiting for that bookstore to open.”
I swore under my breath and turned back to the counter to place my order. Maybe if I ignored him, he’d go away. Do not think about him putting his hand in your panties, I told myself.
For the next few minutes as Kirsten made my mocha, I could think of nothing but Dalton’s hand in my panties, his fingers playing me like a harp. And his lips on my neck.
A flushing sensation began in my belly and seeped up to my neck, causing my skin to sweat all the way to the top of my head. I accepted my mocha, put on the lid, and attempted to get out the door without walking strangely. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember how to walk normally. Hopping on one foot would have been more natural than how I stomped out of the coffee shop.
Across the street, my hands shook as I attempted to get my key in the lock. It was like that moment in a horror movie where the idiot girl is trying to get away, but she’s trembling so bad she keeps dropping the keys.
I dropped the keys.
Dalton picked up the keys and handed them to me.
“I’m in town shooting a little indie movie,” he said.
I tried again with the keys, keeping my back to him. “How long?” I tried to sound casual, but it came out sounding like a squeaky gate.
Don’t think about his hand in your panties.
Dropped the keys again.
“Long enough to get bored and look for trouble,” he said.
“I’m sure trouble finds you easily enough on its own.”
He laughed, making me feel just comfortable enough to get the door open.
We stepped inside the shop and I ran to turn off the alarm. In the silence as I flipped on the lights, I could hear him breathe in deeply.
“Can’t beat that smell,” he said. “Heaven is a place on earth, and it’s a bookstore.”
“Why are you here? Isn’t shooting a movie kind of an all-day thing?”
“I’m not the only star of this one. The girl is the one with the big transformation. It’s very inspiring.”
I got myself behind the counter, where I felt more comfortable, half hidden.
“You’re not the star? Then why are you doing it?”
“Because I get to play a really complex character, and do some serious acting. I don’t mean to bite the hand that feeds me, but talking around prosthetic fangs is not the reason I… worked really hard to get into this business any way I could.”
“What’s the movie called?”
“The working title is Waterfall, but that’s not going to be the final title. You’ve probably seen little arrow signs around town with the word Waterfall on them.”
“Have I?” I took a sip of my mocha, thoughts swirling around my head.
“You will now, since I told you.”
“Despite all the movies I’ve seen, I know absolutely nothing about how they get made.”
“That gives us plenty to talk about.” He gave me a sexy look, his eyes full of intensity. “I had a really nice day with you Saturday. And night.”
I took another sip, noting how flavorless the mocha was. Stress will do that to you—suck the taste right out of your mouth. As I tried to figure out why Dalton Deangelo was in my bookstore, I felt the stress crashing down on me like angry waves decimating a sand castle.
“I’m not going to talk to any reporters, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I said. “You don’t have to pretend to be interested in me.”
He leaned forward in a deliberate pose of relaxation against the counter, elbows on the countertop and chin in hand. Raising one sexy, dark eyebrow, he gazed into my eyes and said, “Tell the world.”
As sweet and naive as he’d seemed on Saturday, not knowing how a wedding buffet worked, now he was radiating dark sensuality and danger.
And me? I’d never been so turned on in my life. My ni**les hardened inside my bra, pulling the skin of my chest taut. My breathing quickened, and the heat sought every nook and crevice.
Never mind that he’d shushed me. He could shush me all he wanted. He could throw me onto the counter and shush me for hours. He could shush my neck, my br**sts, my lower back, my…
“Dinner tonight?” he asked. “Unless you’re still mad at me for shushing you.” His dark eyes were hungry and wolf-like, impossible to look away from. “Shushing you is something I swear I’ll never do again.”
“I don’t know why I got so upset. I’m certainly not perfect.”
“Let’s blame my stalker.”
The front door jingled with customers coming in. I waved at the woman with long, white hair, realizing she’d been at Dottie’s workshop the day before.
“Small world,” she said to me, then started browsing in the staff picks section.
Dalton turned to wave at the woman, then returned to staring at me. “This town is incredible. You all know each other, don’t you?”
“Beaverdale’s not quite that small. We’re not Wolfspit. That’s just down the river from here. They passed a law in the fifties, that you couldn’t marry within the town.”
“And?”
“People just stopped getting married.”
He laughed. “We love who we love, and we have little choice in the matter.”
“We always have choices.”
He drummed on the counter top. “Dinner tonight? Shall I swing by at closing and pick you up?”
“I don’t know. Your life is not like my life. You have a stalker. It’s been fun, but we had our day, and I know I’m not the girl for you.”
The white-haired woman came up to the counter, no books in her hand.
“Anything I can help you find, ma’am?”
She turned to Dalton, taking a really good look at him, then turned back to me. “What would Dottie say?” she asked me.
He said, “Who’s Dottie? I don’t have my Beaverdale-to-English handbook.”