Boys Next Door Read online

  ‘They also happen to be man-sirens to the likes of you,’ I said to myself in the safety of my car. It came out on a shaky sigh and I noticed a light tremble in my hand as I turned the key and the engine caught.

  I looked up as I started to back out of my driveway. Coop was just standing there. Waiting. Watching me. That half-smile on his face. I bet he had that half-smile after he fucked a girl, too.

  ‘Stop,’ I said to myself. But I doubted I would.

  * * *

  It was a red building. Very, very red. Like blood. I was pretty sure my blood pressure was rising as I entered. It was the tallest building on the street but having a thing about elevators I tried to find the steps. When I opened the door I was met with caution tape and orange cones.

  Great. It’s like an obstacle course. What will I have to power through to get my fucking keys?

  ‘Elevator it is,’ I whispered. ‘It’ll be fine.’

  I pushed the button and nervously tapped my foot while I waited. The lobby was pretty much deserted barring the smiling, bleached-blonde woman who’d greeted me and informed me that Pann Realty was on the fourth floor. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about getting on the elevator with a crush of other folks.

  The doors popped open and I stepped in. Just me, myself and I. I took a deep breath. It would be fine. The doors were almost shut when a man nearly dove through. All six-foot-four (at least) of lanky man. Dark hair that curled wildly around his forehead, dark-brown eyes that were the epitome of that clichéd description: piercing. He smiled at me and I saw a flash of white teeth in a dark goatee.

  He’s very Satan-ish …

  The wild thought bloomed in my head just as he pushed the button for the third floor. ‘Sorry to startle you. I’m running late … as usual.’

  The doors took their sweet time closing and when the elevator started going up it was a sluggish ascent at best. My nerves jangled.

  ‘I … it’s fine,’ I said. I could handle one more person in the carriage, right? Even if it was slow as shit. I mean it was just me and him. So why did the elevator feel so small? And cramped. And warm.

  He stuck his hand out and for the second time in thirty minutes, I grabbed a big warm man-hand. ‘Deke. Deke Wells. And you … you, I’d remember.’ His gaze swept over me and I felt a flex deep inside as if he were touching me. ‘So you must be new.’

  ‘Farrell McGee,’ I almost whispered. Where had my voice gone? ‘I just moved in … well, I’m trying to move in if I can get a key to my door.’

  He chuckled and it wormed through me, a sudden buzz of lust and attraction. ‘Well, welcome,’ he said.

  I almost asked him why he’d chuckled but then the elevators shivered, banged raucously and froze. Then the lights went out.

  ‘Shit,’ Deke said.

  ‘What? What shit?’ I gasped. Already putting a hand out to find the wall and steady myself.

  ‘It does this sometimes. It’s an old elevator. And the custodian is, well, he’s pretty slow.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ I asked, my fingers brushing something to my left.

  ‘We could be here for a while.’ When Deke grabbed my hand, I realised that what my fingers had brushed over wasn’t the wall. It was him. Big, lanky, strong and now that I was closer, smelling of wood smoke and pine and cinnamon … him.

  Damn.

  Chapter Three

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ he said, pulling me back just enough that I brushed against him which helped me get my bearings.

  He was warm against me, but I shivered.

  ‘Your hands are freezing. Are you claustrophobic?’

  ‘Not so much that,’ I whispered as if louder noise would make us plummet to our deaths. ‘I just don’t like elevators. How long? How long will we be here?’

  ‘Do you want the truth or do you want a lie?’

  I sighed. ‘The truth, though the smart money is probably on the lie.’

  ‘Probably half an hour to an hour. George has a good heart but slow hands.’

  ‘Great.’ I moved my hands around to try and find the railing that ran along the sides of the elevator. I didn’t think this poor man needed to be holding me like some damsel in distress. But what my fingers brushed was most definitely not the wall of the elevator. My hand froze.

  ‘Um …’ he said. And there was that dark and almost sinister laughter that somehow slid up my spine and under my hair and prickled my scalp like electricity.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.

  A moment ticked by and I was afraid to breathe. I felt like I might laugh or cry or scream, or possibly all three at once.

  ‘But not enough to move it, eh?’ he asked, moving his body just enough that I felt the hard push of his cock to my hand.

  My face heated with a blush. I was grateful he couldn’t see.

  ‘Shit. First I grope you and then I … just keep right on groping you. I don’t even move my hand. Have I mentioned the one thing that freaks me out is elevators? And a dark one that is being worked on by a slow man is the worst case scenario.’

  ‘Hunh,’ he said and I could hear him smile.

  ‘And my hand is still on your cock!’ I blurted, finally ripping my hand away.

  ‘Hey, whatever calms you down, Farrell McGee.’

  I couldn’t help but snort, but my hands were shaking and I felt a little light-headed.

  ‘You’re really scared,’ he said.

  ‘I’m –’

  ‘It’s coming off of you in waves. It’s palpable. That’s hard to pull off. Palpable fear.’

  ‘I am nothing if not talented.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a failed actress. You?’

  ‘Failed writer. But I am currently the butcher for our small town.’

  ‘Ah, I love meat.’

  Dead silence.

  ‘Oh my God. I swear I’m not normally this stupid.’ I put my hand up to brush my hair out of my face, in the dark it felt like a million tiny spiders tickling my cheeks. But I brushed over him instead – I was starting to wonder if it really was an accident – and he took my hand and squeezed it between his warm ones.

  ‘Breathe,’ he said. He put my hands flat on his chest and then placed his over the top of mine. I stood there, trying to calm down and feeling the steady and easy beat-beat-beat of his heart.

  I took a deep breath and held it before blowing it out. The same way I did for stage fright.

  ‘Better?’ he asked, his face close, his breath smelling of mint.

  ‘Better,’ I echoed.

  ‘You smell good,’ he said. ‘Like peaches and … I can’t quite put my finger on it.’ Deke leaned in and sniffed right at the juncture of neck and shoulder. My skin prickled almost violently. ‘Honey?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘All I can smell is you.’

  What was I doing? My God, I had just met this man, had only seen him in the light for a few moments and now – if my nether regions were to be believed – I wanted him. Badly.

  ‘And what do I smell like?’ He put his hands on my lower back, splaying his fingers, spreading their warmth. He pulled me just a touch closer and though his cock wasn’t touching me, I felt – or imagined I felt – the energy from his hard on mingling with my own lustful energy.

  ‘Pine and cinnamon and wood smoke. Like the outdoors. That’s what you smell like.’

  ‘Hunh. Good nose. I spent all day at a client’s fishing cabin, dressing a deer.’

  For some odd reason, I imagined a deer in a skiing ensemble and snorted. But even as the laughter burst out of me, I pushed my pelvis to his. Brazen, but it was what I felt the urge to do. So I did it.

  New life. New way of doing things.

  ‘Dressing?’ I rotated my hips just a bit and his fingers brushed over my skin sliding lower to slip beneath the waistband of my jeans.

  ‘It means butchering. But don’t worry,’ he said, when I went a bit stiff. ‘I cleaned up real good and even had some coffee by the fire before
I left.’

  His mouth came down on mine then and I figured, fuck it. I was scared and horny and he was handsome and Satan-ish and felt damn good pressed against me.

  I let his tongue bully mine before I put my hands in that dark mussed hair I remembered and hauled him to me. Deeper went the kiss and when he bumped his erection against me so I could feel how turned on he was, I nipped his lip.

  ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘Welcome to town.’

  ‘Shh. Kiss me,’ I said, rubbing my hand over his cock, squeezing his length through his jeans until he groaned. ‘I need to be distracted.’

  ‘I can do that,’ he said against my lips. Then he was turning me. A flipping, flying, falling sensation because of the darkness. My back ended up pressed to the wall of the elevator, my ass riding that metal bar I’d been searching out.

  ‘Touch me,’ I begged. I wasn’t sure where this new ‘me’ was coming from, but it was fine. She was okay by me.

  ‘I can do that,’ he echoed and his warm fingers ran down my belly, making me tremble. His hand slipped below my jeans before plunging into my panties. Deke’s hot fingers found my clit and he pressed so that all my breath slipped out of me. Warm wet circles brought me close to an orgasm right off the bat. He was good.

  I arched against him and kissed him again, finding his face – a bit rough with stubble – with my hands. I sighed again, arching up to meet his touch and he lazily slipped a thick finger into my cunt.

  ‘You’re so fucking wet, Ms McGee,’ Deke said against my throat. His teeth grazed my pulse point and he gently sucked that fragile skin until an echoing tug sounded in my cunt. My body tightened around his finger and this time we both groaned.

  ‘I am. I am wet.’ My hand fumbled in the darkness for his buckle and I found it. I recalled it from when he bounded into the elevator car. A big silver buckle on a well-worn brown leather belt. I had a vivid mental image of him tying me up with his belt and my nipples spiked so hard they hurt.

  ‘Do you have a condom?’ I blurted, shoving my hand into his pants, into his briefs, against his skin. He was hard and surreally balmy in my hand. I squeezed, stealing his breath for an instant.

  ‘Cliché, but it’s in my wallet.’

  Bold, sex-crazed, maybe just insane, I shoved my free hand into his back pocket and came up with a wallet. ‘Get it,’ I said, and pressed the wallet in his hand even as I thumbed the wet slit at the top of his cock.

  ‘If you keep doing that we won’t need the condom. You’re getting really close to just flipping my lid on the wow factor.’

  Again I could almost hear him smiling. There was something heart-warming about that fact.

  ‘Do it,’ I whispered and buried my nose against his throat, sucking in the scent that was one Deke Wells, Satan-ishly good looking stranger. Now fellow resident of Tower Terrace.

  I smelled the latex before I heard the condom being placed over Deke’s cock, but then he was gripping my waist tight and I was pushing my jeans down in a messy bunch. I slipped one leg free but left the other ankle in. I touched my clit for just a moment, just long enough to get that all-over shiver that comes with being hyperaware of your naughty bits. Need thumped in my cunt, beating heartily along with my pounding pulse.

  ‘Are you sure about this? I mean, I could just hold you so you’re not scared,’ he said. His voice said he meant it, but under the words I heard the hope in his voice.

  It was my turn to smile.

  ‘I’m sure. I just hope this damn thing doesn’t start moving before everyone’s had an orgasm.’

  ‘They’re good for your health, I hear,’ he said, humour in his voice. But also the thick rough sound of desire.

  ‘Let’s see.’

  I found him with my still shaking fingers – shaking now for a whole new reason – and ran the sheathed tip of his cock along my wet slit. He buried his face in my hair and wrapped an arm around my waist to steady me. When I raised my right knee up to get him in, he felt my motion and hooked his free arm under my knee to hold me open.

  There was that one fumbling awkward moment of first entry and then he drove up and into me, my body so slick with want it took him greedily.

  ‘Welcome to town, Farrell,’ he said, thrusting deep. ‘And might I say –’ I kissed him quiet, rotating my hips just a bit. Already I was so close to coming I felt almost sad. I didn’t want it to be over that fast. And yet, the fear and the closeness and his kindness and – dear God, yes – the smell of this man had me on that razor’s edge.

  ‘I’m going to come, like … super fast,’ I admitted, rocking against him.

  ‘I’m going to be right behind you, I fear,’ he said.

  Below us there was a clanking, grinding noise. ‘Uh-oh, I think we might be getting a speedier repair than expected.’

  And then we were both laughing, that secretive almost hysterical laughter that comes with getting away with something. He slammed into me, high and hard and I pressed to him in small lazy rocking movements. Every thrust from Deke jarred my body with an intoxicating friction you cannot fake. It happens or it doesn’t. And God, yes, fuck, it was happening.

  Finally – but somehow still too soon – my clit gave up a burst of joy and my cunt clamped down on him and I kissed him fiercely. When I bit his lower lip and gasped, ‘I’m coming,’ my new friend Deke groaned, and sighed out warm breath against my throat as he came.

  The elevator rocked, dipped, growled with machinery. He dropped one more unexpected kiss on my lips and said, lips pressed to my ear, ‘I usually like to cuddle after, but unless you want to really enter town with a bang, I’d suggest we get ourselves –’

  The elevator, dropped, caught, swayed and started to grind to life. The light came on and I was shoving my leg in my pants and zipping like a mad woman.

  ‘No cameras, right?’ I gasped.

  ‘Right. Cameras cost money and this building is as old as the dirt it’s built on.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  When the doors opened wide we glanced at each other and smiled. He swept is hand forward. ‘Ladies first.’

  I hurried out, happy to be on the solid ground. ‘Thanks. And hey, I don’t normally … I mean that’s the first time …’

  ‘I’m flattered. First time for me too.’

  For a moment I thought he meant ever, which was laughable, but then he grinned. ‘In an elevator.’

  ‘Oh right! Right. Anyway, it was …’ I stuck my hand out feeling like an ass. ‘It was nice.’

  ‘Yes it was.’

  ‘To meet you,’ I snorted.

  ‘That too. Let me bring you some wine.’

  ‘Wine?’

  ‘Later.’

  ‘Later?’

  He leaned against the railing that looked all the way down into the lobby. ‘Is there an echo in here?’

  I blushed. ‘Sorry. I just … am very confused.’

  ‘We’ll discuss it over wine. Cool?’

  ‘Sure.’ I let out a long even breath to calm the flock of butterflies in my belly. ‘I’m at –’

  ‘213 Lady Bug Lane,’ Deke said.

  ‘I … how?’

  ‘If you stand on your front porch and look across the street …’

  Uh-oh.

  ‘I’m the stone house to the left.’

  Deke was one of the three little pigs!

  Chapter Four

  ‘Ah, Mrs McGee!’ Blake Andrews was a tall, handsome man with grey hair and dark-brown eyes. So dark they were almost black.

  ‘Ms,’ I corrected, shaking the hand he offered.

  He gestured to a seat and smiled. ‘Sorry. I guess I’m old school. I “Mrs” everyone no matter how young. My wife gives me serous flak for it too.’

  I laughed, my hands still trembling from being trapped in the elevator – and, oh yeah, having spontaneous stranger sex – before my arrival. ‘No worries.’

  ‘I just need your driver’s license so I can write down the info before I turn over the key. After you’ve taken possession, you ca
n go visit the lawyers down the road, at your convenience, I’m sure you’re tired …’ he said, writing something down. ‘But he will give you the information about the allowance that’s attached to the property.’

  Allowance. I suddenly felt ten years old. Though I was grateful beyond words that my father had thought ahead. To smooth out this part of my life for me should I come to take advantage of the opportunity.

  ‘Great. Do you have his –’

  ‘His card is attached to the paperwork I’ll give you.’ He took my offered license and started to copy the info.

  More writing and I studied the realtor’s small office. Mr Andrews, one other desk with a name plaque that read Anthony Travatoni. There was a receptionist at the front of the room and a younger man who was filing and copying.

  ‘Do you sell a lot of houses in Tower Terrace?’ I asked, nosy as hell.

  He glanced at me. ‘Not many. There aren’t many to sell. We’re a very small community in Terrace proper. But surrounding areas up to twenty miles around, we sell.’

  I nodded. ‘I was just curious. It seems such a sleepy little town …’ I caught myself and tried to backpedal. ‘I mean … I don’t mean …’

  He held up a hand. ‘Oh, I know you’re coming from the city. We probably are a Podunk town to you. But we like it here. We have the fall festival coming up. You should go. And I do know, and I might be wrong to say – you might have employment set up – but I do know that the dog salon is hiring.’

  I choked on a laugh and managed to keep it down. My first reaction was a dog salon! But this was a new life, a new outlook. A ‘hot sex in the elevator’ kind of existence: full of risks, both large and small.

  ‘Really? That’s great? Where is it? I am looking for work, Mr Andrews, thanks for asking.’

  He nodded once, finished filling out the last line on the paper, and handed back my license. ‘Down the road. Donna’s Dog Salon. Right past the diner, you can’t miss it. She’s a booming business, believe it or not. Everyone here seems to have a dog.’

  Maybe I needed a dog, I thought.