“Ma’am? Are you okay?” A deep baritone reaches my eardrums through the door, followed by more urgent knocking. My body jolts from fright and, as though I haven’t suffered enough, my foot slips again. A-fucking-gain. I continue to scream as I descend into the fiery pits of Hell.
Luckily, my tub is there to catch my fall.
Unluckily, it catches me all wrong, my body folding like a goddamned origami hat as it wedges itself tightly in the tub. Another scream leaves my body, right there next to my fleeing soul, as my back brushes the chilly faucet on my way down. Legs akimbo, one arm trapped between my torso and legs, and my body too slippery for me to get a good grip on anything to heave myself back out of my acrylic prison, I can only pray for a quick demise.
“So this is how I die?” I ask myself with a defeated sigh and yet another pained whimper when my vagina reminds me it’s currently suffering a slow and painful death. Doing my best to look between my spread legs, I sniffle and tell my crotch, “If I survive this, I’m going to treat you right, Frosty.”
“Ma’am?” the voice from outside the door yells, gravelly and spine-shiveringly delicious and… wait… that doesn’t sound like it’s coming from outside anymore.
Oh no. Oh, please, God, no. Don’t do this to me. I have only a small bit of dignity left! Don’t take that away from me, too.
I try to keep quiet, hoping, nay, praying, that whoever has barged into my apartment decides to one-eighty and leave the way he came. Of all the bad luck in the world, I just so happened to be doused in the worst of it, because my lit-up lips below decide for me that I really am in dire need of help. She’s not wrong. After all, I’m wedged in the tub with no way out, my phone is in the kitchen, and I’m as slippery as a fish in water.
Mewling in pain, my back starting to ache from my awkward position, I drop my head to my knee. It’s a damn shame there will be witnesses to what was only supposed to be a few moments of me time but quickly turned into the morning birthed by Satan himself. I mean, it could be worse, right? There could be an entire squad of people coming to my rescue, forced to bear witness to my dastardly moment in exist—
“What the hell happened in here?” a different, smoother voice exclaims, and I suddenly find myself praying to the devil for a hole to appear so I can fall in and die.
“No idea,” another goddamned voice answers, sounding completely baffled. I would be, too, if the situation were reversed, I’m sure.
“I think I do,” a raspy voice much closer than any of the others answers.
My head snaps up from my knee, the back of my head hitting the faucet with a wince and a pitiful cry. Tears fill my vision and I raise my free hand to rub at the sore spot that has pain thrumming through my skull.
Blinking rapidly, I spy a head poking in the doorway of my bathroom, wide-eyed and utterly stunned. I can absolutely imagine. I’d feel sorry for him if I wasn’t harboring all of that pity for myself. When my vision clears a bit more, I see a body that follows the head when the stranger in my apartment moves to fill the whole doorway.
And what a damn head and body it is. If I wasn’t in so much pain, curling in on myself from mortification, and wearing only a stained and see-through white shirt, I really would have appreciated the handsome man gawking at me like I was an exhibit at the zoo.
The man is built, gloriously so, with warm-toned skin that encases defined muscle that would make me swoon any other time. Wearing only a black tank and gray sweats, I can see the full sleeves of black ink that decorate his arms, tattoos covering most of his neck and dipping below his shirt. His snapback cap sits backward on his head, revealing pretty almond eyes, sharp cheekbones, and a straight nose. I’m pretty sure he’s Korean, and God, he’s fucking beautiful. His full lips are quirked up in what can only be described as a baffled smirk, almost distracting me from the situation at hand. It’s when I reach his piercing blue eyes, however, that I feel myself flush red all over and the weight of my choices finally comes crashing down on me with all the weight of a cartoon anvil.
Of course, an Adonis of a man would be the one to break in and see me at my worst.
As quickly as that thought flutters through my mind, three additional Adonises join him, crowding into the doorwayof my bathroom to stare at me like they’ve never seen anything quite so ridiculous. I’m sure they haven’t.
I hate my life.
Crying a little when I try to move, causing more pain to my back and my battle-worn vagina, I clear my throat and hold out my free hand. Why? No idea. It’s not like any of them are going to shake it. I wouldn’t want them to, either. It’s covered in lube, strawberry juice that looks eerily like blood, a rogue noodle, and whipped cream. I don’t want to know the thoughts they must be having right now.
Growling before blowing out a shuddering breath, I decide to bite the bullet and ask them for help. These handsome bastards are my only hope at survival now.
“So, it’s nice to meet all of you. I’m sure you can imagine it would be a whole lot nicer if it were under much different circumstances, but as you can see.” I gesture with my free hand to my folded body. “I am a little indisposed right now. I have no idea who you are, where you came from, and at present, I don’t give a shit. If any of you could rescue me from the clutches of the bathtub, I would be most humbly grateful. I’ll also pay each of you five thousand dollars to never speak of this again once you pass back through my front door. Do we have an agreement?”
Silence greets me for a full minute before loud, boisterous, manly laughter fills my bathroom. If I wanted to die seconds ago, I don’t have a word for the feeling I have now. Maybe I should ask a higher power to simply zap me from existence. It’s not like anyone is currently listening to me now, so what’s the point?
“Yeah, this is super-duper funny from where I’m wedged, too,” I snap, at my wits’ end and ready to curl up in a ball with a gallon of Ben & Jerry’s and forget today ever happened. Taking another breath before sharply inhaling when my vagina smarts, I calmly say, “If it’s all the same to you, I’m in a lot of pain, mypussy is giving fire crotch a whole new definition, my apartment looks like it’s suffered a trash panda orgy, I feel like a human version of a taco, and I’m covered in lube… which is completely unrelated to the trash panda comment. What I’m saying is, can any one of you strangers help me, please?”
All four men are grinning, I’m melting in more ways than one, and I really wish I’d done some good deeds over the last couple of months. I’m sure this is all karma for something bad I’ve done in a past life, because this, ladies and gentlemen, is how I meet my neighbors.
Chapter Three
Rayne
The first crash wakes me with a sudden jolt, my body sitting up so quickly I feel light-headed. What the fuck? What was that? Just as the thoughts flit through my skull, I hear the very muffled but distinctly feminine curse being yelled from upstairs. Frowning, I grumble, “The hell?”
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I check the clock I had the good sense to plug in before passing out at four this morning and groan with annoyance. It’s only just past eight in the damn morning. I’ve had a little under four hours of sleep. What the hell is she doing up there?
“Motherfucker!” comes next, right after another thud, followed by several more muted thuds.
Throwing the comforter away, I heave myself out of bed and stab my legs into a pair of sweats, already prickly because I’m tired as hell. After driving for eight hours just to get here with a truckload of shit, only managing to get the basics out of my battered boxes before crashing, and now waking up to the upstairs neighbor rudely cussing up a storm and doing whatever the hell is causing all of the noise, I’m about ready to start throwing hands. I have to go to work in five hours, for fuck’s sake.
