The muscles in his back shift as my mysterious neighbor digs.
“It would be good to know if I’m living next to a serial killer,” I joke.
Or … Itryto joke. But then he spears the shovel into the dirt and leaps out of the hole. Which is substantially bigger than whenhe started. He walks toward the back porch, shadow swallowing me.
“What did you say?” he grunts.
“It was … a joke,” I tell him. Shifting on my glutes, or more accurately squirming my ass into the chair as he approaches.
“Why are you so interested in who I am?”
I stand. Sick of this. I’m not going to let this misplaced and crazy desire make me meek. “Why are you so opposed to telling me?”
“Maybe it’s none of your business.”
A step forward, and he’s so close I could reach out and touch him. A bead of sweat slides down his firm chest between his pecs. I wonder if they’re as hard as they look. If I bit down on them, would my teeth shatter on impact? He looks like he’s carved from marble.
“Those tattoos look Russian,” I murmur.
Another step. I can smell him now, thick and manly. No cologne, just a primal hum that surges around me. Through me.
“Why would that mean anything?” He stares like he’s debating throwing me, smacking me or fucking me.
“I read an article the other week. About Russians and their presence in the city.”
“Theirpresence,” he growls.
The article was about the increase in organized crime. But I don’t dare say that.
He reaches with his big tatted paws and grabs my shoulders, pulls me closer. My sensitive peaks brush against his chest and a shiver of longing spikes through me. My nub scorches against my underwear. My head swims.
“Fuck,” he moans. “Touching you was a mistake.”
“Why?”
“I thought I was stronger than this.”
He slides his arms from my shoulders and around my body. Pulls me right up against him so there’s no confusion now. His rock-solid pole presses urgently against my belly through his jeans.
His lips find mine. Rough and hungry. I’ve never felt anything like this. I’m drunk on him the moment our mouths collide. He growls like he’s letting out the beast inside of him. Greedy hands glide to my ass and squeeze, his hips twitch as though he wants to slip into me already.
I sink my fingernails into his arms. One almost snaps against his firmness.
I was right. Heislike marble.
He stops kissing. Pushes me back. Stares at me like I’m his ruin.
“I’m not good for you, Rose,” he snarls. “A man like me—you should slap me. You should push me in that ditch and pile dirt on me. Pile it thick until I’m buried. Because that’s the only thing that will stop me from indulging right now in your curvy young perfect body.”
Next door, a window closes. His head turns violently. Tilted like a predator waiting for sounds of prey.
He steps me backward. Reaches behind me and punches my door open. Drags me into his arms and lifts me off my feet.
Instinct makes me wrap my legs around him. He lays me on the kitchen counter. Kisses me again so that I don’t even have time to process his words.
His hips grind against me, shaft grinding against my sex through the prison of our clothes. I tear my nails down the back of his neck.
Then he leans away slightly. Still kissing. Like he can’t stop.
