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Cobblestone Press
www.cobblestone-press.com
Copyright ©2006 by Anna Leigh Keaton
First published in 2006, 2006
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Five Alarm Neighbor
Copyright© 2006 Anna Leigh Keaton
ISBN: 978-1-60088-000-1
Cover Artist: Sable Grey
Editor: Tammy Marini
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
Cobblestone Press, LLC
www.cobblestone-press.com
Dedication
To J.T. and B.L. The two women, who keep my writing in line, give me a nudge when I'm headed in the wrong direction, and are always there to lend an ear or a shoulder when I need it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Chapter One
Steve Sheldon.
Gracie Terrence stared through her windshield at the man who starred in every torrid late-night fantasy she'd had in the past two years. Tight ass always in blue jeans that fit like a glove. Rock-hard chest. Biceps that could squeeze the stuffing out of her. He sat on the porch of their duplex in one of her wrought iron chairs, his feet propped on the wooden railing.
Even with the car windows up, she could hear the steady thump thump of the music blaring from his side of the house. Another firemen party, she figured. Almost weekly he had a night of loud music and even louder men at his place.
She didn't mind the parties in the summer when they hung out in the backyard. Inevitably their shirts came off, their sweaty, muscled bodies flexing in the sunlight as they played kamikaze volleyball. But these winter parties royally pissed her off. Especially when she had a stack of midterm papers to grade before returning to school by seven-fifteen the next morning.
She hadn't left work until nearly nine tonight. Her body lacked food and her head still pounded after hours of forcing herself to read page after page of adolescent bullshit on the meaning of Romeo and Juliet. She gripped the steering wheel with her chilled hands and bonked her forehead against her fists. The pizza sitting on the passenger seat in its cardboard box was undoubtedly cold and congealed by now.
Gracie drew in a calming breath. She'd simply ask Steve to turn down the music. She'd let him know she needed some sleep, and feeling the bass vibrations from his half of the house was not going to help her accomplish that.
The porch light illuminated him as his raised a bottle to his mouth. As he tossed back a swig of beer, she focused on the strong column of his throat. Steve. Her pussy tingled at the thought of seeing him, speaking to him, hearing that deep voice. She squeezed her thighs together, making the sensation last a second longer. She'd wanted him since the day he moved in two years ago.
And then there was the memory of what she'd glimpsed for a few precious moments last summer, a sight burned into her brain so deep it would never leave—the sight of him magnificently naked.
She'd returned early from a teacher's conference and had caught him playing in the backyard. Stretched out on a lawn lounger only a few feet from her kitchen window, he'd been...
Sitting there, inside her car, the memory pulled a moan from her throat. She ground her ass against the seat, reached between her legs and pressed her fingers against the seam at the crotch of her jeans. She tilted her hips upward and rubbed her clit the same way she'd done that afternoon as she'd watched him slowly, tenderly stroke his engorged cock. It had been long and thick, curved ever so slightly at the tip, perfect for hitting the right spot every time.
She'd watched as he'd pumped himself, saw his speed increase. As his face had tilted back into the sunlight, his eyes shut, and his features became a portrait of pure animal heat, she'd shoved her jeans to the floor and sunk her fingers inside herself, coming with a force that shocked her to the core.
But then, after that mind-blowing orgasm, when Gracie's gaze had returned to him, hoping to catch sight of him coming, wanting to throw open the back door and pounce on him, to milk him dry with her mouth...
Gracie pushed her head against the car's headrest, pressing her hand against her pussy and stifling a frustrated growl. She brought the picture back. Not of the woman who'd draped herself over Steve that day and rode him as if he were a wild bronco, but of the look in his blazing blue eyes as he stared through the kitchen window at her.
He'd seen her.
He'd watched her come.
And even as his hands gripped another woman's hips, his dick pumping into her, he'd watched Gracie. Damn, he'd been so hot. Daring her to look away. Never in her life had she been so scandalized. Or so turned on.
She'd wanted to join them, to walk out there and straddle his face and make him eat her while he fucked the other woman. But the good girl schoolteacher inside her wouldn't let her move. Never had she had such lascivious thoughts.
He'd licked his lips as if he knew what she was thinking. A slow flicker of his tongue. She'd felt it then as surely as if he'd touched her clit with a hot, wet, deep lick.
She wanted to feel it now. Spreading her legs as far as she could in the confined space behind the steering wheel, she shoved her hand into her jeans. Her breathing sped up, heat rushed to her face, to her limbs, even though the temperature outside was in the low teens. She jammed her fingers inside her pussy, and pressed her other hand against the steering wheel. The red haze began to move into her periphery.
"Yes,” she moaned, remembering how he'd raised an eyebrow at her, taunting her to come again.
Then he'd mouthed two words. Words that had sent her hand back to her clit. “Suck me."
The woman had climbed off him, went to her knees at the side of his chair, and took him in her mouth. God, he was so huge, and she took every inch of him. His balls were puckered and round, ready to release their load, and yet his gaze never left Gracie.
He'd slid one hand up his rippled abdomen to his dark, pebbled nipple and squeezed, as his other hand did the same to the woman's tit. Gracie had mimicked the action and squeezed her own hard nipple through her silk camisole.
His eyelids had drooped ever so slightly as he thrust his hips, his cock disappearing into the woman's mouth again and again.
Then he'd come with an animal growl she heard even through the closed window. And yet he'd watched her until she'd climaxed again.
The thought sent Gracie over the edge as she threw her head against the seatback and came with a whimpered cry, rubbing her clit until every last bit of the orgasm had drained through her.
"Damn him,” she whispered into the dark car. “Damn you, Steve Sheldon."
She gasped for breath even as the chill of the cold night settled against her heated skin.
The blonde bombshell with Steve that day had been Erin Rinehart. His fiancée. And even though Gracie knew he was engaged, and even though they'd never once made mention of that steamy afternoon, she wanted him to fuck her more than she ever wanted anything else in her life.
But with his wedding just weeks away, that was
as far from a possibility as the next Great American Novelist winding up in Gracie's freshman English class.
I'm not a home wrecker, Gracie thought with disgust as she pulled her hand from her underwear. Even if she lusted for him, she wasn't one to have an affair with a taken man. She'd never survive the guilt.
Watching them, being a third party to their intimate afternoon, had been as close to the line as she dared step.
With a heated flush to her face, she wondered, once they were married, if there'd be many afternoons in the back yard.
Jeez, I'm a sick woman.
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Steve sat in the poorly padded chair freezing his ass off. Inside the house, his crew laughed, listened to obnoxiously loud rock n’ roll and got shit-faced on cheap beer and even cheaper bourbon.
They deserved it tonight, he thought as he took a swig of his smuggled Corona. So what if he saved the best for himself? The guys didn't care what they drank as long as they could forget about the half dozen fire calls they'd been on today. It never failed. The colder winter got, the busier they were.
Gracie's electric blue, two-seater sports car pulled into her side of the driveway. That damn car was a deathtrap. How many times had he and his crew pried victims out of those tin cans? The one time he'd tried to say anything to her about it, she'd informed him that she was an adult, and therefore could pick her own forms of transportation.
The imp.
He chuckled and settled deeper into the chair. Gracie Terrence was something else, all right. One hot babe with a quick-as-a-whip mind.
Now that he was a free man, and he'd gotten over the fact that Erin had left him for a guy with a safer job, he wondered if it was time to play a little. What could it hurt, right? There was the convenience of living next door to her. He'd never seen a man spend the night at her place in the two years he'd lived here, and he knew for a fact that she wasn't a prude.
Steve chuckled to himself as he took another long swallow from the bottle. Oh, no, not little schoolteacher Gracie. She was no prude. Just the memory of that day last August had his cock stiffening in his jeans.
To this day, the memory of that afternoon aroused him. He'd been deep inside Erin when he'd glanced up and saw his cute neighbor staring at him through her kitchen window. He was taken aback for a moment, wondered whether he should grab Erin and haul her ass inside, but then sweet little Gracie had yanked down her jeans and touched herself. At that point, there was nothing to do but to hang on for the ride. And a sweet ride it was.
It was one of the last days he'd enjoyed fucking Erin, he realized. Perhaps that was when things started to go bad between them. Maybe that was why he felt relief rather than despair that she'd called off the wedding.
Even so, the reason she left still hurt. She'd said that no matter how great the sex was, she couldn't commit herself to a man who might be killed or worse, maimed, on the job.
Hell, it would have been kinder if she'd just told him the sex sucked. His job was his life. Nothing he could do about that. He loved being a firefighter, and risking his life was just part and parcel of the job.
So, that was it for him and long-term women. From now on he was going it single. But that didn't mean celibate. No reason he couldn't get his rocks off with his ultra-sexy redheaded neighbor.
Even looking at her was a treat, which was why he was freezing his ass off on his front porch waiting for her to come home. But what the hell was she doing? She'd been sitting in the car for a good ten minutes. She was probably pissed about the guys again and trying to decide how hard to blast him. Her temper went well with the red hair and flashing green eyes.
Just a few weeks ago she'd come barging into his house after midnight, curly hair a wild mass around her head, bitching him out for the loud music when she had to get up early the next morning.
Piss ass drunk at the time—Erin had dumped him that day and the guys were commiserating with him—he'd been a total ass. Right there in front of his men he'd grabbed her butt and told her to chill out, have a drink.
She'd slugged him in the gut. And damned if that woman didn't have one hell of a right uppercut.
She hadn't so much as bid him a “fuck you asshole” since then, which is what she'd said after she punched him. The guys still hadn't let him live that one down.
He took another gulp of his beer and shivered. It was past time he apologized for his behavior, but if she didn't get her hot little ass up here soon, he was going to freeze to the chair.
Chapter Two
Gracie picked up her bag and purse off the passenger side floor, threw her door open then balanced the pizza box precariously on her forearm. He was still there, as if he was waiting for her. She made her way up the walk toward her front door, casting a quick look back at her car, wondering if he'd seen what she'd done. No, the car remained out of the porch light's reach, hidden in shadowy darkness of the driveway. There's no way he could have seen into the car.
"Evenin',” he said in that deep, I-know-all-your-dirty-little-secrets voice.
"Yeah, hi,” she said, barely glancing at him. She didn't need to look at him to know how damn hot he was. With his sun bleached blonde hair and dark blue eyes, he was a dangerous combination of little boy charm and fuck me now male energy.
Trying to keep a grip on her bags and the pizza, she dropped her keys. “Shit."
Steve was there instantly, grabbing her keys before she dropped anything else. “Got it.” He stuck the key in the lock and sent her a wicked grin.
Her scalp tightened and her pussy throbbed. The man was lethal.
"Thanks,” she said coolly. If he'd just stay away from her, she'd be fine. She could deal with him from a distance, as long as she never had to speak to him. She was a damn English teacher, but she went completely tongue-tied when he was within touching space.
"Good day at work?” he asked as he pushed the door open and stepped to the side to let her pass.
"Fine."
"Want a beer to go with your pizza?"
She'd just stepped into the cozy warmth of her house when she stopped and turned wide eyes on him. “What?"
Steve leaned down and picked up a six-pack of Corona from the porch floor, lifting it toward her. “A beer. Want one?"
"I ... uh...” What the hell is he up to? After two years of living next door to him, only once had he offered her a drink, and that had been just weeks ago while he was drunk and being obnoxious.
"Pizza smells good,” he said as he stepped inside and shut the door behind him, leaving them in the dim light streaming through the front window.
Her stomach fluttered and her nipples pulled tight inside her lace bra. He'd never stepped foot in her house before. Never.
His arm lifted from his side, and then she blinked as light flooded the room. When the glare subsided, she took a step back. He watched her with predatory eyes, the same eyes he'd watched her with as Erin had sucked his cock.
"I'm hungry."
Had he really said that? Did he recognize the hunger in her eyes? She wanted to suck him off, lick his balls, taste his cum. Her hands shook and she nearly dropped the pizza.
The corner of his lips kicked up and it transformed into his charming little boyish grin. Just like that. “How ‘bout I swap you a beer for a slice of that pizza?"
She spun away, praying he hadn't seen the need in her eyes, urging her own crazed thoughts under control. So what if he was the hottest bod to ever step foot into her house? So what if she wanted to throw him onto the couch and kiss every inch of that body? He was engaged. Taken. Gracie didn't go there. Not even with Steve.
"I think you have some guests,” she said, keeping her voice from rising even though inside she was panicking. “And I have work to do.” If he didn't leave soon, she would not—could not—be held responsible for anything she might do. She was human after all.
"They're all drunk.” Steve took the box from her hand before she even reached the kitchen. He set it on the counter along with the beer.
“And I have an apology to make."
She dropped her purse and schoolbag to the floor, then shed her down jacket and tossed it on the couch. “An apology?"
That adorable grin remained on his lips, and all she could think about was what was under his denim jacket. What was beneath the fly of his jeans. With a will of their own, her gaze flicked down there and—Oh shit, he had a hard-on. She could see the long ridge of it, the outline of the tip.
She squeezed her thighs together and prayed he'd leave soon. Hadn't her trip down memory lane in the car been enough? Not hardly, she thought. As soon as he was out the door, she'd grab her vibrator and really take care of herself. Hard and deep. Just like he'd do her.
Steve cleared his throat, and she ripped her gaze away from his crotch. Oh damn, he'd caught her looking. Not just looking, staring. And already starting the fantasy that would get her through the next few hours. Her cheeks flamed, but she met his gaze boldly.
"Apologize then, and be done with it."
He took a step toward her, until she could smell the beer on his breath, the spicy cologne he wore, the musky scent of his skin.
She swallowed, her throat dry. Maybe a beer would hit the spot.
"I'm sorry for grabbing your ass and being rude in front of the guys. That was uncalled for.” His baby blues darkened to something menacing. Something thrilling. “I apologize for grabbing your ass now, but it's something I've got to do."
Before his words registered, she was in his arms. His big, warm hands cupped her butt. His rock-hard chest pressed against her breasts, the solid length of his cock nudging her abdomen. And then his mouth claimed hers, fulfilling half of every fantasy she'd ever had of him.
Oh, God. Yes! His lips were firm, commanding. His tongue tasted of beer and lust. Primal. He took possession and thrust into her mouth again and again. More! she wanted to scream but was too busy trying to breathe, trying to maintain some sense of sanity.
He growled into her mouth and turned with her, pressing her back into the counter as he thrust his hips against her.
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