Holy shit, Bonetti. Ease up.
“Hey, it’s good to see you again.” Heat rushed over his face as she approached, and he quickly looked away from her. “And yeah, the place looks great.” He prayed his tone was casual, but holy shit, did his voice just crack?
Fuck. My. Life.
“Apparently, the crew worked around the clock to get everything ready,” she said from beside him.
He glanced down at her, and a smile tugged at his lips, and some of his nerves eased. Even in her black heeled boots, she didn’t even reach his shoulders.
She looked up at him and smiled. “You ready?” Her sparkling ice-blue gaze socked him in the gut, and he forgot to breathe.
He wasn’t sure if he replied. If he actually uttered any words. But he must have pulled something out of his ass, because Freya was laughing as he followed her to her workstation. She continued talking—and apparently, so did he. He sat, and she placed a black salon cape around him and secured it behind his neck. His brain was finally catching up with their conversation—something about her running into Carmichael earlier. She gently pulled the hair tie from his customary man bun and finger-combed his hair, fanning it out around his shoulders.
Her warm hands brushed against his neck, and his mind short-circuited. All thoughts fled. For a few moments, he could only blink as he watched her in the mirror.
A grin spread over her cherry-red lips. “Are you nervous?” she teased, absently running her fingers through the ends of his hair. “I promise I’ll be gentle.”
His mind—blank just moments ago—hit the gutter.
Yeah. This may not have been the best idea.
Head in the game, man. Head. In. The. Game.
Holy shit, the woman had him beyond distracted. He cleared his throat as he nodded. “I can admit that I’m a little nervous.”
“You did mention it’s been a while since you got a professional haircut.”
Not at all why he was nervous, but he’d go with it. “I’m not quite sure ‘professional’ would describe any haircut I’ve ever gotten. I think the last person to cut my hair—who wasn’t me—was my teammate Wilson back in the Army.” He gave her a playful grimace. “Let’s just say the end result wasn’t pretty.” But it sure had been necessary. He’d gotten caught on some barbed wire as they’d been crawling out of some jungle hellhole. It was either lose his hair or lose his head.
Freya placed her hands on his shoulders and squeezed, meeting his gaze in the mirror. “I promise I can do better. Now, did you have anything in mind?”
Loaded question. Because what was currently running through his mind had nothing to do with a haircut and everything to do with the woman with her hands in his hair. But he was an adult, dammit, and he pushed those inappropriate thoughts away. He aimed for a casual shrug.
Don’t. Be. A fucking. Creeper.
“Not really. I’d like to keep it longish but cleaned up.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Not sure that’s helpful. Obviously, I’m not familiar with the lingo.” He held his hand flat at his shoulder and moved it up to his chin. “Maybe cut it to somewhere in this range, but so I can still pull it back.”
He suppressed a shiver as she ran her fingers through his hair, pulled the top section back, and formed a bun. Damn, Kwon was right. Freya’s hands were damn near magic.
“That looks really good. Not many guys can pull off a man bun,” she said with a smirk before letting his hair fall back down. She quickly ran a brush through his hair, sectioned the top part again, but this time clipped it up. “What do you think about just trimming up the top? We’ll keep it long to just above your shoulders, and then do a disconnected undercut here?” She ran her fingers along the lower section of his hair.
Goosebumps rose on his arms. He swallowed. Loudly. “I’m still not sure what disconnected undercut means, but if you think it’ll look good, I’m game.”
The smile she flashed him was brilliant. “It’ll look really good. I promise. You’ve got the whole hot alpha thing going, and this will add a little oomph to it. Think of it as a modern-day Viking haircut. It’ll also be easy to maintain, basically wash and wear, product if you’re feeling fancy. Best of all, you’ll still be able to pull it back into a bun since Carmichael told me that was kinda your thing.”
A smirk lifted his lips as warmth filled his chest. “Hot alpha, huh?”
She chuckled and rolled her eyes. “That’s what you got out of everything I said?”
He shrugged. “That and Carmichael has been blabbing his mouth.”
“But his blabbing was all good things about you. Promise,” she said with a grin before turning to grab the clippers. “Ready?”
“I’m all yours,” he said with a wink, loving how her cheeks pinked.
“You’re a flirty one, aren’t you?” She flipped the clippers on as a smile tugged at the edges of her lips. “I’ll cut first, then we’ll wash. After, I’ll do a final trim.”
As she took down his sides, he watched Freya in the mirror. Her movements were precise and held a certain amount of grace that told him she’d been doing this for years. Contemplating her earlier words, he was hard-pressed to think of anyone who’d describe him as flirty.
