by Misti Murphy
“Someone who cooks,” he says. “So are you auditioning, too? I heard I’m supposed to be on the hunt for a bride. Do you iron? Apparently, I need help in that arena.”
“No way. And you do. You dress like a homeless person. And why are you taking this so damn well?”
I hate his laugh, mostly because I like it and I don’t want to like anything about him. Not his glasses or his eyes or his scruffy face. Not the wrinkled T-shirt and faded, snug jeans, and certainly not those hands with long, sturdy fingers that handle whipping up food for thirty people as if he does it all the damn time. Does he own a catering company? Is that what he does for a living?
“I’m flattered you’ve been checking me out. If it helps, I’ve been checking you out, too. That skirt is hot, but I prefer the more laid-back look from the other day.”
“I am most certainly not checking you out.” I wince at the high pitch of my voice and then again when he laughs. “And what are you talking about? I’m not laid-back.”
A fat raindrop smacks my nose and I glance at the sky. Paynter’s deck is wide open with no cover, other than the small overhang under which his grill is situated. The girls who have been standing around making small talk all hurry toward the house.
Paynter slides a pile of steaming jalapeño poppers onto a plate and hands it to a passing woman wearing a lime green tube dress with no panty lines. Ignoring the rain that is increasing by the minute, he adds more food to the grill. I watch the finished jalapeños disappear from my sight, their lingering scent making me contemplate following. Especially since Paynter and I are now momentarily alone on the deck.
“That doesn’t seem to be the case, generally, but before you noticed me and Garrett watching you, you were. Speaking of, something about that day’s been bugging me.” He turns away from the grill to give me his undivided attention. “I couldn’t help but notice the lack of undergarments.” His gaze deliberately drops to my hips.
Impatiently, I brush a few droplets of water off my face. “My undergarments are none of your concern.” I pull my indignation around me like a cloak. It’s easy when we start talking about my underwear. Does he now think I don’t wear panties?
“What about you?” I try to deflect. “Are you a boxers guy or a brief guy? Or do you go commando?” Never let it be said that Chloe Green is afraid to take on tough topics of conversation. Even the dumb ones she shouldn’t.
“Wanna find out?” he asks, moving toward me, invading my personal space. He’s trying to get a rise out of me, and I’m letting him, which is irritating as hell.
The droplets of rain have turned into a steady shower. Paynter’s glasses are splattered with water and his dark, slightly-too-long locks are plastered to his forehead. His shirt is outlining wide, strong shoulders and a series of sharply defined muscles on his torso.
My hair, I know without looking in a mirror, is ruined and my makeup is probably running down my face. Glancing down, I notice my wet silk shirt is quickly displaying the bra I’m wearing under a sheer white camisole. I guess now he knows I at least wear bras.
I should hurry inside, through the house and out the front door, escape to my own home. Except I can’t seem to make my legs work the way they should. Stumbling backward, my butt hits the warm stones that make up the facade of his house. He presses his hands to the wall on either side of my shoulders, caging me in but still giving me plenty of space to slip under his arm and run away.
I don’t do it, and I don’t know why. It cannot be because I find him ridiculously sexy, with water streaming down his face, dripping from his chin, soaking into his shirt. I stare at his bulging muscles. Maybe he owns a line of gym equipment, maybe he tests it all in his basement every day. How else could he be so beautifully defined?
Glancing down, I’m a bit disappointed that wet jeans are not quite so revealing. When I look up again, he’s shoving his glasses onto his head and smirking. He caught me checking him out. Again. Crap.
“I don’t—”
“I didn’t think you had it in you, Chloe. I admit, I’m impressed. Maybe even a little turned on.”
Did he just say he was turned on? By me? I have to kick up my defensive mode, remind this guy that he isn’t my type. At this point in my life, no one is my type. I don’t have time to ogle sexy neighbors. I have a partnership to achieve, a career to get back on track.
“You’re just a sleaze looking to get laid.”
He’s steadily staring at me, and he isn’t laughing. In fact, he looks downright annoyed as he steps so close I can feel the heat radiating from his body. I’m surprised there isn’t steam curling off him. I can also tell, from this small distance, that the five o’clock shadow is actually a carefully groomed goatee framing incredibly plump and kissable lips. No, not kissable. I need to stop thinking about kissing and Paynter in the same context. Because I don’t like him, and I don’t want to know whether he’s refined that particular skill.
“And you’re the type where affection has to be scheduled. What would it take? All the lights turned off while you direct from on top? ‘Touch me here, fuck me slower.’ Want to boss me around, Chloe?”
I squeeze my thighs together and press closer to the wall, but there’s no more room, I can’t get away from his warmth or that sexy smell that’s now intermingled with rainwater. So his words, his scent, his body, his freaking glasses turn me on. It doesn’t matter. Ryan Gosling turns me on, too, but I’m not jumping his bones on a deck out in the rain.
“Why don’t you ask one of these girls?” I manage to say. “You know any one of them would sleep with you if they thought it meant they were the winner of that fake ad.”
“The ad was fake?” a girl hovering just inside the door asks.
“Practical joke,” Paynter says. “And I am not going to hook up with one of these girls just because they answered some stupid ad on Craigslist. You need to quit judging me based on some preconceived notion you have, probably from some lousy lay that you can’t seem to get out of your head.”
“My judgment of you has been pretty accurate so far.” My gaze darts to his lips and gets stuck there.
“Has it?”
Are his lips getting closer?
“Are you thinking I’m probably a damn good kisser right about now?”
“Uh-huh,” I say before my brain catches up to my mouth. And now I can’t take it back, because those lips are lifting in a knowing smile and, damn it, they are getting closer.
And now they’re pressed to mine, shifting ever so slightly back and forth for a scant moment before parting and nipping at my lower lip. I open for him as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be kissing my neighbor in the rain while thirty-two other women wander around his home. At least they’re all inside, hopefully distracted by his food and not witnessing this outrageous public display.
I should pull away, maybe even smack him for his audacity, but instead I clutch at his shirt with the hand that isn’t holding a glass of wine. Just a few more seconds won’t hurt. We’re already kissing anyway. His tongue is in my mouth, sweeping along my teeth. I taste rain and wine, the same Malbec he offered to me. I hadn’t expected him to enjoy the fruity, bold beverage. Figured he was a beer drinker, probably the mid-level American kind.
All thoughts of our potential audience are shoved away as I shift my hips, trying to get closer to the bulge pressing against the fly of his jeans. I need to rub against it, to ease this ache in my lower belly. It’s so hot. I’m so hot. It’s like we’re ablaze, caught in an inferno...
“Uh, Paynter?” a female voice calls out from inside the house. “Your grill’s on fire.”
“Shit.” He tears his lips away, leaving me feeling cold despite the heat radiating from the nearby grill.
I fall back against the wall and very nearly drop my wineglass. Holy God, I just kissed Tall, Dark, and Kissable. My lips are numb, swollen. Lifting my hand, I touch them with my fingertips. He’s kissed my lipstick off. He’s also kissed my senses away, because
I want more.
I have never gone weak in the knees, I have never stood afraid to move afterward because I didn’t think I could walk. I have never craved a second hit, as if his lips are a drug. I’ve not had a plethora of practice in the kissing department, but I’ve certainly had enough to appreciate his prowess.
The prowess of my neighbor. Paynter. The guy who hired an oiled up stripper to grind against me for three minutes and forty-two seconds. The same guy who managed to destroy my retaliating prank by actually enjoying it.
Standing in the rain, I watch as he slams the lid down on his grill and blows on the flames shooting out through the grease trap at the bottom. Glancing to my right, I see a cluster of women standing at the door, watching him and talking among themselves. I catch one gal’s eye. She smirks.
“Party’s over,” she calls out. “Looks like he picked a winner.”
Blindly, I stumble inside, shove my way through the crowd, and rush toward the front door. No, no he did not. I did not win.
But I will.
CHAPTER FOUR
PAYNTER
Is she fucking serious?
Laying my laptop bag down against the front door, I march toward my BMW M6. Taped across the windshield in a pattern of colors are little foil squares. I run my fingers through my hair before taking off my glasses and giving them a quick clean with my shirttail. Putting them back on doesn’t change the fact that she’s treated the one splurge I’ve made for my actual enjoyment with contempt.
It doesn’t change the fact that there’s a blow-up sex doll plastered to the hood and held in place by zip ties either. It’s partially blown up, its arms and legs kind of flat compared to its body. The doll’s head is twisted to face my door, her hole of a mouth gaping at me as if to say, I can’t believe she’d do this either.
And yes, those foil squares are condoms.
Fuck me.
God, I hope those ties she stuck the damn doll on with haven’t destroyed the paint, but it’s still damp and windy this morning after the storm that rolled through late last night, so they’ve probably been rubbing at it for hours. Never mind what the homeowners’ association will think if one of them happens to drive by now. I shake my head and stare up at the dirty scatter of clouds sprayed across the sky. Of course, that’s what she’s aiming for, isn’t it? It’s the only thing that makes sense for why she would have spent time putting together such an elaborate practical joke out in the pounding rain. She wants to get me in trouble with the HOA, because even though we had a perfectly good moment and I thought maybe she’d found a sense of humor when she pulled her last little prank, she’s still completely in love with the idea that I’m scum.
Well, screw her. While I don’t particularly care what a bunch of pretentious twats think of me, I do understand the value of not making my life any more difficult than it needs to be while I’m living in this neighborhood. I’m not here to make friends, especially not with someone as uptight as Chloe, but at the same time I don’t need something like this putting me in the association’s bad books either.
I glance toward the end of my driveway, fully expecting to see her there with victory written all over her face, those lips of hers turned up in a smirk.
It’s possible she’s unhinged, pulling this over-the-top prank. She’d had to have gotten soaked while she taped all those squares to my windshield. Wetter than when I kissed her a couple days ago. It was raining then, too. Fat drops that slid down her face, clinging to her skin and her hair before dripping onto her shoulders and that little sliver of skin at the collar of her shirt. She was so damn adamant that she knew exactly what type of man I am, that it made me want to make sure she understood I’m not the man she’s trying to paint me as.
And she was staring at me, at my mouth, and I’d been too close not to get a whiff of her perfume, of the soft, feminine scent of her skin. Too near not to notice how her eyes darkened, or that, for some reason I couldn’t quite fathom, a current of heat passed between us.
I couldn’t let her walk away without making sure she knew at least one truth about me. But I had not expected her to give in to the kiss. Hell, she did more than give in. She slid her tongue into my mouth while she gripped my shirt and tried to rub herself against my cock. Obviously, it’s been a while for her. And for me, because if the grill hadn’t caught fire, I’m not sure I would have let her go so easily. Not even with all those other women in my house.
When she doesn’t appear at the end of my driveway now to gloat, I head back into the house, picking my laptop up on the way. I still have a few packing boxes in the basement. Let’s see how she handles me giving her back her sordid sex doll.
It takes a while to carefully peel off every condom and toss them in the box, but at least the tape is easy to clean up. The blow-up doll comes away easily enough as well, without any damage to the paint. I’m equal parts grateful and impressed by the level of care she’s taken to keep from causing any real vandalism. It’s as though she isn’t out to do anything more than one-up me. I can appreciate the humor in her little act of sabotage. Unfortunately for her, I’ve had years of practice at getting even with my siblings. If she thinks I won’t do her one better, she’s got another thing coming, but it’ll have to wait since I need to meet Garrett. For now, returning her supplies will have to be enough.
Once everything is packed in the box, I stride across the lawn toward her house. She still hasn’t made her presence known, but her Cadillac CT6 is parked outside. I stalk straight past the sleek charcoal sedan.
Her house isn’t as imposing as mine, although even its smaller size still screams of this pretentious Stepford neighborhood, from its hewn stone walls and its white pillared balcony over the front door, right down to the large brass knocker that I ignore in favor of using my fist.
I jostle the box under my arm while I wait for her to answer. It doesn’t take too long before she opens the door. “What are you doing here?”
Her question throws me, or perhaps it’s the shortness of her skirt or how the top buttons on the pinstriped shirt she’s wearing are undone while the material clings to her breasts in a way that makes me imagine what she’s hiding underneath it. My brain sort of freezes up with the imbalance of blood pumping in that direction. Then it sparks to life. Sure we shared a kiss. One hell of a kiss I’ve enjoyed replaying a little too much, but she’s still a stuck-up snob who just defiled my car.
“If you want to have sex with me, all you have to do is ask, sweetheart.” I thrust the box at her. “I’m certain we could make a good dent in your condom supply. I’m not exactly sure what you were thinking with the blow-up doll, but I could probably come up with a few things.”
“I wasn’t. I don’t…” She pushes the box back at me, her cheeks going red while she glances past me out to the street. It’s as if she’s expecting people to jump out from hiding and catch her in the midst of a scandal. “I don’t want to have sex with you.”
“Sure you do. Otherwise you would have picked toilet paper or Post–It notes for your prank, not condoms.”
Her eyes widen and she clenches her hands by her sides. “I thought you could use them since you’re such a ladies’ man. I’m sure you must go through a ton of them with the way you treat women.”
“With the way I treat women?” I choke on my laughter. She seriously has no fucking clue, and I’m not sure I care to enlighten her. Not when it’s clear she truly is another one of those pretentious stuck-up women I want absolutely nothing to do with. “And what about the way you treat men? Doesn’t it ever get old to judge every man you come across by some ridiculous yardstick? Haven’t you ever heard the expression ‘to assume is to make an ass out of you and me’?”
“I’m not wrong about you. I’m not.” The tense muscles in her biceps push her tits together, which serves to make them stand out and harder to look away from. Her spine goes insanely straight, and it makes me want to dig my fingers into her sleek hair, bend her back, and kiss her again. She looked amazing
that day she wasn’t perfectly put together, and stunningly beautiful freshly kissed. I have the hankering to see her lose this rigid, straitlaced shell she’s wearing, but she takes a step closer, glaring at me. “You think because you have a pretty face that life should come easily to you, that women and power and prestige should come easily to you.”
“No, sweetheart, that’s you. I’m not interested in any of that.” I’ve never wasted my time on dreaming about being wealthy, or living a life where I make friends with people who will stab me in the back if it gets them ahead.
It doesn’t matter that Chloe’s attractive or that the idea of kissing her makes it so I can practically taste Malbec and something a little sweeter and ultimately her; she’s one of those people I don’t want in my life.
I ignore my taste buds’ fading memory as I push the box at her. “Excuse me if I don’t stand here arguing with you. You’ve made up your mind about me, and I can say the same.”
“No.” She takes a step back, moving farther into her house as she grips the door, preparing to shut it on me. “I’m not taking that.”
“Sure you are.”
“I don’t want it.” Another step back while her gaze remains plastered on the box, and then she yelps.
Dropping the box as she begins to fall, I grab hold of her hand before her ass lands on the ground. She’s not even wearing those ludicrously high heels she seems so fond of. Actually they’re laying right beside her on the Oriental rug.
“Okay there?” I steady her, one hand to her elbow, the other at her waist, because it feels nice to hold her even if it is at a distance. Her warmth twists the synapses in my brain so that they’re making me think about how it would feel to get my hands under her shirt. And now maybe I’m the crazy one for thinking about wanting more than just one little kiss.
“Take your hands off me,” she demands, pushing me away as she straightens up, and then she winces and bends as she lifts her foot again. “Ouch.”
“You’re not okay.” I take in the watery shine to her eyes and how her body curves in with the pain.
