“Is it him again? Le Jerk?” Nana stage whispers back. Over my past five months here, our calls have taken on the quiet, hurried, guilt-infused feel of sessions in the confessional. It would be funny if it weren’t so annoying.
“Yep. Better face the music!” I can’t explain the hint of glee in my voice.
“Don’t hang up yet. Let me look at him. Give him a piece of my mind.”
“No, Nana, I can’t risk it. You’ll go into cardiac arrest the moment you see his ugly mug.” I don’t know why I keep down-playing the man’s looks.
“Tell him what a woman my age can do to little boys who bully and fat-shame their beautiful, smart, hard-working, gorgeous, amazingly kind and—”
“Okay, Nana.” I roll my eyes. “It’s fine. You don’t need to—”
He’s pounding at the door. The entire floor shakes with it. In all fairness, the wood floor’s such a mess it shakes if you sneeze in this place, but given that I’m paying almost no rent here, I can’t complain.
I’ll leave that to Le Grumpy Jackass. Or, in this case, Jacques-Ass.
“What the tarnation is he doing?” yells Nana, craning her neck as if she’ll see better that way. “Is he trying to break the door down? You tell him—”
“Love you, Nana. Bye!”
I end the call, take a deep breath, and stalk to the door.
Then, because he may be rude, but that doesn’t mean I have to be, I take a deep, calming breath and paste a curious and, hopefully, friendly smile on my face.
Slowly, carefully, I turn the three locks, one at a time, ease open the door, and use every bit of my willpower to stand my ground at the sight of him.
Because he’s gorgeous, yes: dark and brooding, with wide, rounded shoulders I easily picture myself digging my nails into, messy, soft-looking brown hair I can just feel between my fingers, and a constant five o’clock shadow I imagine scraping the insides of my thighs. But the man is dangerous, too, and at this moment, angry as a hornet.
Also, he’s shirtless and wearing low-slung, leave nothing to the imagination sweats. I can’t look. I won’t.
“Hey there, neighbor,” I say in the voice I used when I worked at that daycare center in Lima. It’s a calm, soothing voice. A kind voice, geared towards hyper kids and overbearing parents alike. Darn it, though. It’s awful hard to keep my eyes above that angular clavicle and the scattering of wiry-looking hair below it. “Something wrong?”
“Yes, something’s wrong.” I spend way too much running over his accent in my head. Over and over. "I can’t sleep.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I do my best to placate. I really do. I mean, he’s not scary per se, but he is big and muscular and breathing fire, so it’s definitely the smart thing to do.
Don’t look down. Don’t do it. And don’t imagine that voice calling you a dirty girl and telling you to kneel and—
Oh geez, what is it about this guy that makes me like this? Yes, I’m attracted to the occasional man, but this level of physical interest is excessive.
Though I try my hardest not to notice, my peripheral vision gives me a healthy serving of dark curls, two thick, ridiculously defined pecs and…oh, crap. The abs, the happy trail, the…
He clears his throat and I blink back to reality.
“You need to keep your voice down.”
“Myvoice?” I blink up at him, a little dizzy from my proximity to all this skin.
“On the phone. You’re too damn loud.”
“Am I? Oh, God. I’m so sorry.” Okay, he’s right. I can be loud. And the floors are paper thin. That said, “I’ve been whispering!”
“It’s your laugh.” My laugh? Oh, that lands low and hard, way below the belt. “It’s so bloody…”
“What’s wrong with the way I laugh?” Despite my effort to sound strong and self-assured, hurt seeps into my voice.
“Annoying.”
Ooof. Okay.
