It’s just me. I don’t do things by half measures.
All or nothing, with a little extra on top.
I take her panties off my face just in time, smiling at her as she makes her way back to the kitchen, sorting out the shelves and groceries.
I don’t expect her to do that but it looks like she’s doing some thinking of her own, so I decide to leave her be for now.
As long as I can keep an eye on her, I’m happy.
I pocket her panties into my robe pocket, and pass by the front window, I notice a hideous looking woman storming up the paved driveway, making a beeline for the front door, which chimes directly.
What next?
Another kooky neighbor?
I roll my eyes and make sure I get to the door before Sonya can, who deliberately stays in the kitchen, calling out something I don’t catch, but can guess what she means.
In the few steps it takes to reach the door, I resolve to go back to the original plan for this house and decide to have that huge wrought iron gated fence installed after all. I don’t like it, having so many people with free access to me.
To Sonya, to us.
A man’s home is his castle, and so far today I feel under attack.
Opening the door with a sigh, I can tell it’s just been escalated to a full frontal assault.
Her eyes are narrowed, peeved and focused but as soon as they travel from my feet up to my chest, which is showing through my robe, they dart back down, hovering over my groin.
I groan in disgust. I get this a lot, being ogled by random women I have no interest in, it’s disgusting.
“Yes?” I ask her, the last polite word I decide to speak to her once her face shifts to that horrible, leering look. The kind that sends her plastic, shining face up at each corner as she sticks out her silicone chest as though it’s something I’d care to notice.
“I’m giving you fair warning, Mr...?”
I don’t say a word, noticing the cab pulled up a way up the street, the elderly neighbor talking excitedly to a tall, balding man. I can put two and two together.
“My husband will be down here any minute… and well… I came here to warn you… but you seem to know how to… look after yourself,” she says, showing her teeth with a thick line of garish red lipstick staining them.
I shudder at her fake smile, her plastic personality and her revolting smell, which unfortunately starts to take up my whole entrance hall.
As if catching it all the way from down in the kitchen, I can hear Sonya making her way down the hall towards me, making this… creature try and dart a glance behind me.
“Oh…” I hear Sonya groan behind me, but I don’t budge, nor do I take my eyes off vintage Malibu, left out in the sun for twenty years too long Barbie here.
I’m no spring chicken, but I don’t dress like the grocery boy either.
Mutton dressed as… well. Mutton…
The guy up the street has rolled his sleeves up, left his luggage on the sidewalk and is striding towards us, double time.
He’s about six foot, and two hundred pound at best. Looks like he can handle himself too.
I don’t mean to, but I crick my neck, loosening myself up. Checking my hands are dry and I can make ready fists.
“Sonya!” The woman in front of me squawks. “We thought you were coming to collect us from the airport? Not whore yourself for the whole neighborhood to see.”
My eyes squint, like I’m looking into the sun. This woman, whoever she is, I assume she’s Sonya’s stepmother… She’s the most annoying, high-pitched, pathetic excuse for a woman I’ve ever seen and I’d like nothing more than to close my front door in her face right now, but I figure having it out with her parents is inevitable.
She knows better somehow than to take a step towards me or the open door, which I’ve narrowed somewhat, just in case she decides to rush in. I don’t like unannounced visitors and I like this one less than most.
If she wasn’t Sonya’s stepmother I’d have slammed the door in her face long before I let things get this far ahead.
Her Dad is at the end of the drive and in seconds, he’s used his own arm to scoop his wife behind him, staring me down as he puffs himself up in front of me.
I open the door all the way, hearing Sonya right behind me now.
“Fox… please…” is all she says, and I know what she means. It grinds my gears, but I keep my arms down.
The wife screeches again from behind him now, “She’s in there, Martin, I can hear her… he’s got her in there.”
Martin. I should’ve known…
I haven’t really said anything yet, and I only look at Martin’s feet, frowning as they threaten to cross that space between the outside and the inside of my house.
Our house.
My castle.
“Alright you,” Martin snarls, “Where’s my daughter? What have you done to Sonya?”
I keep my eyes fixed on his, noticing he’s not the backing down type either.
“I’m right here, Martin.” Sonya calls out from behind me, and he moves forward, his upper body crossing the threshold.
Bad idea, Martin.
His body is stopped by the flat of my palm, then pushed back by it.
I take a step forward, looming up over both Martin, whose flat on his ass and his wife.
“I’d recommend you remove yourselves from my property,” I caution them. “You’re both trespassing, and I-”
But Sonya scuttles past me, rushing to help her dad up.
She gives me a ‘what did I just say?’ look, but I won’t have people barging into our house. I don’t care who they are.
But Martin’s half way up already and he’s not wanting to just push me. I narrow my eyes, glancing at Sonya, who’s in the middle of mouthing something to me, and I know I have a clear choice to make.
A second to make it in as everything seems to slow down.
The choice that might affect everything, so I do the right thing over what I feel like doing.
I curl my nose up, not wincing but resigning myself to the fact. I have to let him have one.
If it makes him feel any better, go ahead. I’ll have plenty of footage for my legal team from the patio, porch and hall monitor cameras.
Sonya’s arm reaches out for his as it pulls back to swing, but it’s too late.
She can’t stop it.
I hear my nose crack, and keeping my eyes open, I watch Martin recoil in horror, nursing his hand like a slow-motion movie as soon as he realizes what he’s just done. Realizing my broken nose equals a broken hand for him.
Fortunately, he missed my teeth, but I doubt his swing could’ve taken out any of my pearly whites.
Nose, yeah. But not my teeth.
Nah… This guy still swings like a girl.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Sonya
I’ve only ever called my dad Martin twice in my whole life, this time and the last time I could’ve hit him myself for being so stupid.
I only ever call him by his first name when all else fails, and even now it fails to stop him from making a huge mistake.
Aside from the fact I know Fox could wipe the floor with him, I know that throwing punches after trying to launch himself into a stranger’s houses isn’t a clever idea, no matter what he thinks is going on.
But what happens, and despite me rushing out to help dad up, he’s done all the damage before I can get my hands on him, as if it would make any difference.
Now I’m torn between the two men in my life, but it’s an easy choice.
“Fox!” I gasp, rushing to him, not knowing what to do as he just stands there, actually smiling now, blood streaming from his nose and dripping onto his robe, dripping all over the entrance way.
Karen is nursing Dad’s hand, which must be broken from the terrible sounds he’s making. Howling and groaning, but at the same time he’s whimpering like a child.
“Look at what you’ve done! I’m calling the police! We’ll s
ue your ass!” Karen spits out at Fox, who as far as I can tell, is actually enjoying himself now. It’s as if the pressure’s been taken off literally as well as figuratively, so how much worse could it get?
“Are you okay?” I ask Fox, tugging at his robe to get his attention. He looks down at me, half-closing his eyes, squeezing my shoulders.
“I’m fine… See? I didn’t get mad,” he says, pleased with himself and making me proud of him too. It could have been a lot bloodier if it was Fox doing the punching. The thought making me shudder.
“Alright, you two,” Fox announces in his booming voice, making the pair of them and even me totally silent and look up at him as he speaks.
“So far you’ve got trespassing, property damage and assault with malicious intent… wanna add anything else? And by all means, call the cops, you’ll save me the effort.”
Karen looks at her feet, opens her mouth with her finger in the air, but thinks better of it.
“Just tell us you’re not hurt, Sonya,” is all my dad can say, crying now and I go to him, hugging him gently, telling him I’m fine.
“Both of you, I’m fine. What did Mrs. Pollock tell you? That I was…?”
And then it occurs to me what the old lady would’ve told them: that a very large man in a bathrobe carried me from my house into his before a terrified grocery boy ran from the same house, probably telling his own strange, twisted version of events about being threatened by some maniac.
I peer up the street, and sure enough, there she is. Leaning over, pretending to fuss with her roses, but Mrs. Pollock’s really just trying to see what’s happening.
The street’s never known so much drama and I’m horrified it escalated this quickly, and all with me at the center of it.
Fox produces what I think is a handkerchief, something to stem the flow of blood as he winces, applying gentle pressure to the bridge of his nose.
I hear Karen cry out, then swoon into a near faint, falling into my dad, who’s not fairing much better himself.
Looking back up at Fox, I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
“Is that my underwear?” I ask him, shaking my head as he only shrugs with a smile and a sly wink, not even trying to figure out how or why myself anymore.
There’s the distant sound of a siren, and within half a minute, we’re all taking turns to try and explain the situation to a pair of very confused and disappointed police officers who finally responded after that terrified grocery boy I was just thinking about did call them.
“We’re sorry Mr. Silverman, we can press charges, no problem. Quite a bit more than what we were called about out here by the looks of it.”
I look over to Fox, then back to the police, who seem to be undecided over whether it’s a handkerchief or a pair of bloodied women’s underwear themselves.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding more than anything, don’t you?” I ask, looking at everyone in turn, including old Mrs. Pollock, who despite herself, has come on down to make her own statement once she sees the police.
Mainly, I’m looking at Fox, who I know could clear all this up just by snapping his fingers, but for some reason he’s making my Dad and Karen sweat.
“…Serious charges Mr. and Mrs. Basset. Felony charges… you’d be looking at jail time… Mr. Silverman is a highly regarded member of the community…”
The cops aren’t kidding, then there’s the civil suits Fox could hit them both with. It would ruin them both.
“Fox?” I say, giving him my best puppy dog eyes, but my dad, Martin. He just has to pipe in again.
“I might have known… Fox Silverman… throwing his money and power around again, getting whatever he wants… we just want our daughter back!”
Fox’s growl makes even the cops take a step back, his dark eyes boring into my Dad’s as he takes a step over towards him.
“Your daughter?” he asks him gruffly.
“The daughter you adopted, yourself knowing what it’s like to be an orphan.”
My dad’s eyes widen and I feel a stab of guilt mixed with painful confusion.
Dad, an orphan?
“And what then?” Fox asks him with contempt, leading on to annunciate his words at certain points he’s more than happy to make.
“You sent her away, didn’t you? Every chance you got, it was always putting her to one side because raising kids isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, is it?”
“Fox...? Dad…?” I hear myself asking, bewildered, but Fox is only just warming up.
“Boarding schools, then sending her to college, years and years with no one to protect her, nobody to guide her. Nobody to love her.”
My dad’s crying again, Karen’s face is stone and I’m wondering where Fox is getting all this.
I never told him I was sent away for school before college…
“…And now you want to break down my door, tell me how it’s gonna be, because once again, you’ve abandoned your daughter, taking yourselves on a holiday so she can stay at home alone… again?”
I have to step between Fox and my Dad, I’m really worried Fox is gonna hit somebody now.
Even the two cops are sneering over at my Dad, murmuring to themselves.
“Fox, enough already!” I plead with him, pushing him back with my hands on his chest, begging him to talk to me, to tell me what he’s talking about.
“How do you know any of this?” I ask Fox, then turning to my Dad, to Karen, “Is this true, Dad? Were you an orphan too?”
There’s so much to take in, I feel dizzy, but in a second I feel Fox’s strong arms around me, holding me tight. Reassuring me again.
“It’s not your fault, Sonya. I’m sorry, but this just makes me so mad.”
“How do you know so much about my Dad?” I ask him.
“Why don’t you ask your dad?” Fox says, leaning in to kiss me tenderly before he addresses the cops.
“I won’t be pressing charges, officers, I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
He goes back inside, leaving me torn between following the man I love, the man I’m bound to and finding out the truth about my own family and Dad’s connection to Fox.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Fox
I should’ve put two and two together, but what are the odds?
I should’ve recognized him, should’ve known it was him by that girly punch. I always told him, “It's okay to hit like a girl, but for Christ’s sake, hit like a girl who can punch!”
He’s lost a fair bit of hair though, and I see so many people in a day.
It all seems so long ago now as well.
Yeah, I knew Martin Basset and he knew Fox Silverman. The Fox and the hound, as in Basset hound… that was the standing nickname for us.
We were both juvenile delinquents before being old enough to be released from our ‘ward of the state’ status.
They never intentionally split us up, thinking we were the only family the other had… and they were right.
Nobody ever adopted us, and not because we were chubby either. Nobody adopted us because we were boys. Two troublesome, mischievous boys who grew into lads, who grew into a pair of royal pains in the ass.
Martin was always bitter about never being adopted, and he always swore he’d adopt a child as soon as he was able to, swore he’d give his kid everything he never had.
Me? I channeled my energy into bettering myself once I was old enough to be free of his influence. I put myself through night school, finally getting a job as a runner on the stock exchange then working my way through college, paying my own way until I could afford more than college tuition.
I’d heard somewhere Martin Basset had adopted a little girl. Heard he was doing alright for himself. Kept his nose clean, he’s in insurance I think…
But I never dreamed, not for a second that it would be the girl I claimed as my own. The girl I’d seen to womanhood and the woman I’d vowed to defend and protect to the end. For the rest of my life and beyond.
Forever.
I never imagined his house would be on the very street I built my next place on, right up the road from the woods, from the park we decided to save from development.
That’s what I really do. The stock exchange? That’s a freak show. I leave other people to run all that stuff.
I buy wilderness, parks and land that’s earmarked for development. Usually I have to pay double, but it’s put into trust, set in stone through government and private contracts that the land will remain just that, land. For future generations, for my kids.
For our kids, and their kids.
I never thought I’d fall hard for anyone, and as soon as I saw Sonya, I knew she was the one I’ve been waiting for all these years.
Much like her dad, Martin, I guess I really wanted a family too. It took me a few houses to realize it, but I kept designing them next to parks, with huge yards and always with a choice of baby colors for several of the rooms. Even yellow, just in case the little one wasn’t sure what they wanted to be known as. I understand there’s a fair bit of that going on nowadays.
But it wouldn’t ever matter to me, my family, whoever they are, will always be my most prized, treasured possession. They’d be my everything.
I just never met the right woman, never met the right mom for the babies I knew I had inside me. Truth is, they were all like that Karen creature.
All plastic, bow-legged and with an insatiable appetite for one thing, money.
I’d almost given up hope when I moved here, figuring I may as well shelve the idea of a family.
Until I opened the door, and it was only yesterday.
So much can happen in just one little day. It changed my life in a second, and the first day of the rest of our life has been anything but boring so far either, that’s for sure.
I could stand outside, beating my chest and rubbing Martin’s nose in it. I could tell Sonya what she should or could think of her old man, her fake mom…
But those are things for her to work out, between her Dad and her. Not me.
I know where I stand with her now and I know she feels surer about herself, positive with me at least. She knows she’s my woman now, and regardless of who she calls her father, I’m hers forever.
Possessive Neighbor: An Instalove Possessive Alpha Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 174) Page 7
