I picked up a napkin and pretended to fan myself. “Slow down, big fella, or you’ll make me too nervous to eat.”
“We could skip ahead to dessert.” He blinked innocently, fluttering thick, dark lashes at me.
CHAPTER 8
“Skip ahead to dessert?” I asked innocently.
“Yes. I trust you like fresh panna cotta?”
My extremely helpful brain flashed a preview image of me licking panna cotta off Dalton’s chiseled chest. I crossed my legs and draped the napkin over my lap.
I hadn’t eaten since lunch, and I should have been hungry, but nerves had scrunched my stomach. Dalton put greens and fixings on my plate, and we started eating.
“Why an Airstream?” I asked between bites. “Did you go on a lot of camping trips with your family?”
“Not exactly. My family wasn’t the conventional type.”
“Are your parents also actors?”
He made a funny expression, as though we were enjoying a private joke.
“No, I stayed in this very trailer for another film I worked on about two years ago. It was a rental, and not in the best condition. At night, you could hear the vermin moving around in their home, inside the lower pan.”
I gulped and lifted my feet up reflexively, which made Dalton laugh.
“They’re gone now,” he said. “Along with the skeletons of the things they ate.”
“Wow. Some people have skeletons in their closets.”
He raised his eyebrows, grinning again. “They sure do.”
My brain flashed an image of me, screaming on the tile floor of a bathroom. “Some things are best left undisturbed,” I said, slicing into the seared steak. “So, you bought the trailer and restored it?”
“I had a company do the work. I wish I had the time to do things with my hands, but the show takes a lot of time and energy.”
I looked down at his hands, poised over his plate. “You have nice hands,” I said softly.
He set down his steak knife and reached over to wrap his hand around mine. Without looking away from my eyes, he steered my hand, along with the fork and a chunk of steak, toward his mouth. He slowly bit the meat off my tines and gave it a thoughtful chew. Still staring at me, his green eyes dark and moody, he said, “Tender enough for you?”
“Very tender,” I whispered.
“Why aren’t we drinking wine?”
I held still, my eyes held by his, my hand in his. “I don’t know. Is there wine?”
He pulled my hand to his lips and kissed my fingers. “Red, white, or pink?”
I giggled. “Pink?”
He looked down, breaking eye contact and letting out a nervous laugh. “Just kidding about the pink, but I do have red. It’s all the way over in the kitchen.”
“Oh. All the way over there?” It was all of four feet away in the Airstream trailer. “Do hurry back before I get lonely.”
He got up, ducking artfully to dodge the light fixture above the table.
“Do you know anything about wine?” he asked as he pulled the cork from a bottle.
“I usually just buy the mid-priced wine with the cutest animal on the label.”
He turned the label my way. “This one has a koala.”
“Oh, yes. That’s a very good one. I’ve had it before.”
He grinned, revealing his TV-perfect teeth and making me feel fun—more fun than I’d ever been.
“You look right at home in my Airstream.” He sat back down next to me on the banquette. “I might have to keep you.”
I brought the glass to my nose to smell the bouquet of the wine, rich and earthy. “You mean chain me up and keep me as your personal…” I took a sip. “Housekeeper?”
He stifled a laugh, his face red and his mouth full of wine. Fanning his face, he swallowed, then said, “I think your talents exceed mere housekeeping.”
“I also play the French horn.”
He snorted, his hand over his mouth. “New rule. You don’t say anything scandalous while I’m taking a sip.”
I batted my eyelashes. “Whatever do you mean? I really do play the French horn. It’s not a euphemism.”
He turned his head and gave me side-eye. “First your extensive wine knowledge, and now this. You were a band geek, weren’t you?”
“Guilty as charged.” We both picked up our utensils again and started eating. I’d never felt such an unusual combination of being completely at ease with someone and also utterly nervous.
“What about you?” I asked. “What were you like in high school?”
“I know all actors are supposed to say they were total dorks in high school, to make them seem relatable, but before I dropped out, I was really popular.”
“No shit. With that face? I can’t believe it.”
He chuckled. “Back in ninth grade, I was the most popular guy in school, and I dated the most popular girl.” He looked me straight in the eyes. “And her best friend. At the same time.”
I picked up my wine and swirled it around in the glass. “You cad.”
“That’s a good word,” he said. “People don’t call each other cads nearly enough.”
I glanced at the door to the trailer, as did he.
“I was fifteen, and we didn’t do any more than kiss,” he said.
I crossed my arms and shrugged, acting cool.
“I don’t know why you’re telling me this.”
“To be completely honest with you, because I really like you.”
“I liked you a little more before I pictured you kissing two girls and breaking their hearts.”
“They’re fine, I’m sure.”
“What about that girl who was taking our picture? Alexis?”
“I never dated her. Not even one kiss. I swear.”
“Pinkie swear?”
He linked pinkie fingers with me. Even his pinkie finger was sexy. The heat from the wine spread through my belly and the rest of my body.
Keeping his finger wrapped around mine, he shifted his body closer to mine on the rounded banquette seat, so our knees and the sides of our legs were touching. The trailer felt warm. Very warm.
He murmured, “You’ve hardly touched your dinner. Was the marinade too salty?”
I stared at his lips, deep red from the wine and food. “Everything was perfect. I guess I wasn’t that hungry.”
He moved his free hand to the tops of my knees, then pushed his hand down between my legs, the heat of his palm radiating through my jeans.