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That didn’t come off as cocky either, but more in a teasing tone.
It was cute. He was cute.
Damn it. Since when was her mid-thirties ass interested in chasing “cute?”
She snorted softly. “Sounds like a bad pickup line.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “It work?”
She studied him for a long minute. He had removed his baseball cap when they sat down earlier and she could get a much better look at him. “No, because you don’t need one.”
Were they flirting with each other? Sadly, she didn’t even know. She’d never been good with flirting and had always been more of the direct type. She’d always been more attracted to men who were direct, too. Just not the rude, aggressive type.
Whip was not rude or aggressive. He was not slick. He was just… Whip.
Fallon found that very attractive. And, again, refreshing.
Not to mention, tempting.
Very, very tempting.
She reached across the table and took one of his hands in hers. She turned it over to study the deep lines crisscrossing his palm and the underside of his fingers. Rough. Calloused. Grease in the creases that probably never came out no matter how much he scrubbed them.
A working man’s hands. A man who wasn’t afraid to get dirt under his fingernails. Or crack the skin on his knuckles.
She turned his hand over so they were palm to palm, his warm and solid against hers. Hers looked so much smaller than his.
She could hear his breathing quicken but she didn’t look up. Instead, she kept her eyes on what she held.
The men she used to work with had soft hands, manicured fingernails, wore fraternity or signet rings. Like Whip, they belonged to clubs, too. Just a different type. Rotary, Masons, even country or tennis clubs.
“You can tell a lot from a man’s hands.”
“Yeah?” he murmured. “What can you tell from mine?”
“That you’re hardworking, dedicated to your craft and not afraid to get dirty.”
“Don’t mind gettin’ dirty.”
She lifted her gaze from the fingers that had curled slightly in hers. That smirk was back but his eyes were heated and focused on hers.
He didn’t pull away, even though they were practically holding hands across the table. He didn’t seem uncomfortable with it at all. Maybe she put more weight into the gesture than he did.
She reluctantly released his hand when the waitress came over to ask them if they were finished and if they wanted dessert.
“Dessert?” she asked him, then pressed her lips together. Even so, she didn’t bother to hide her interest in a dessert not found in the case with the rotating glass shelves by the cash register.
She swore his timbre was a touch deeper when he answered, “Later.”
Fallon fought the shiver that unspoken promise caused. She pulled her attention from him to give it back to the server. “No, just the check, please.”
“Sure.” The gray-haired woman pulled her pad from her apron, looked it over quickly, then ripped off the top sheet, placing it upside down in the middle of the table.
Fallon snagged it before Whip could even move.
“Did you guys reserve the back room for Sunday?” the waitress asked him.
“Dunno. You know I don’t make those plans, Maggie. I just follow the rest of the pack.”
“You never know, one day you might be leading that pack.” The waitress squeezed Whip’s shoulder and gave him a warm smile. “Have a good rest of your evening, Whip. You, too, ma’am.”
Fallon thanked her and glanced at the total. So damn cheap. That was probably one of the positives of living in a small town versus a metropolis like Chicago.
But then, when she lived in Chicago she didn’t eat at neighborhood diners. She had eaten at restaurants where the bar bill alone was way higher than what both their meals cost tonight.
“You ain’t payin’,” he grumbled as he pulled out a leather wallet from his back pocket and placed it on the table in front of him, popping open the snaps.
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you—”
She cut him off. “It’s a thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“Didn’t do shit.”
“You did more than you realize.”
“You ain’t payin’ for me.”
“I asked you to dinner, not the other way around.”
His eyes narrowed on her. “Don’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
He stared at her and she stared right back at him. A silent challenge.
“Man pays,” he insisted.
“Not in my world.”
“Right now, you’re in my world.”
You’re in my world.
Good lord. Something in those words and the way he said it made flames lick at her all the way from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. She had no idea why.
Maybe because his tone hinted that he wasn’t really sweet.
He wasn’t a boy-next-door at all.
No, he was a man not easily manipulated. A man who held a silent strength.
Suddenly he was no longer only cute, he was much more than that.
“I have an idea…” She uncurled her toes in her boots and steadied her breathing so she could speak normally. “Is there somewhere we can go for a nightcap?”
