He Was Going to Kill Her
Giovanni Masiello hugged the pillow to his ears. The death metal and screaming coming from the other side of the duplex he owned vibrated the wall behind his headboard. An hour of listening to it was driving him crazy, and he needed to be awake at five a.m. to get to work. He jerked as a door slammed, and he surged from his bed. Wearing nothing but his boxers, he ran to his front door and threw it open. He didn’t give a fuck if he looked like a crazy man. He’d had enough of her shit.
Violet Canne was a pain in the ass.
The only reason he knew her name was because some of her mail was delivered to him a few days after she’d moved in a year ago. Instead of dealing with her, he’d just shoved it into her mailbox. As far as he was concerned, he’d never had to meet her. But he couldn’t do his job with no sleep.
There she was, dragging her trash can to the curb and he could hear her cursing from where he stood. For all her cute looks, she was a hateful little woman. Every date he’d had over the last year since she moved in, was ruined by death metal or loud noises through the wall. Who the hell could keep it up with the men’s guttural screams that his neighbor considered music blaring at all hours?
He stormed off the small stoop.
“Could you turn down your fucking music, woman, some people actually sleep in this neighborhood.”
She slowed and panned until she stared at him. “What you call me?”
“Woman. So turn down the music so I can work in the goddamn morning.”
His eyes widened at her sudden growl, the way her big eyes rounded even more, and he barely had time to realize what was happening before she was running at him. A tiny shoulder connected with his abdomen. In shock, he found his back hitting the dewy grass, and the air was driven out of his lungs.
“I’ll show you woman, you overgrown man-child.”
Tiny fists started to pummel him, and just as he went to grab her wrists, the beam of a flashlight blinded him.
“Freeze, police, ma’am, I suggest—”
It was like she didn’t know a cop stood behind her with his gun drawn. Hell, the crazy woman might not even care. He sat up so fast to try and calm the situation that his nose collided with her forehead, his vision danced at the pain. “Fuck,” he cursed. He raised his hand to finger the bridge of his nose.
She fought the cop as she was grabbed around the waist and pulled off him.
“I’m going to ki—”
He quickly got to his feet. “Violet!” His voice was harsher than he’d ever heard it. He was the even-tempered one of his brothers. He never got angry or frustrated. He was always the referee between his brothers, and there were seven of them, so he played the role of peacekeeper a lot.
Her gaze locked on him and he knew the moment realization dawned, her eyes widened, and her bottom lip started trembling. He felt a moment of remorse at her confusion.
“Why am I outside?”
He didn’t know how to answer that, but he didn’t have a chance when he realized she was being cuffed and read her rights. At least he recognized the cops from his job.
“Man, come on, she was just sleepwalking or something. She didn’t even know she was outside.” He didn’t know why he was trying to protect her. Maybe it was the teary eyes and the wobbly lush bottom lip. His parents drilled into him and his brothers from an early age to always be a gentleman and the lessons stuck. Even if Violet seemed impossible and a bit off in the head, he couldn’t let her get locked up.
“Sorry, we witnessed—”
“I’m not pressing charges. Just let her go, I’ll take her into her place and make sure she’s all settled.”
“You sure, Gio? She looks dangerous.”
“She’s five foot nothing, how dangerous could she be?”
He almost had the urge to laugh as she started kicking at him. But it was not the time to be amused.
“You bastard, I’ll show you—”
“Violet!” He yelled to get her attention again. The woman was going to get her curvy ass arrested.
Luckily, they removed the cuffs and stepped back as she rubbed her wrists. Gio could already tell she had no respect for authority because she glared at the cops just as much as she had done to him.
“Lady, you better be glad Gio here is understanding, or you’d spend your night in jail.”
He watched her open her mouth, and he cut her off. “I’m sure she’s very appreciative.” He reached down, and she was so short that he could only reach her ribs. He steered Violet toward her house. His fingers and thumb sunk into the soft flesh of her sides.
Once he had her inside, he kicked the door closed and went to turn the music off. He jerked as he noticed the heavy bag hanging in the middle of her empty living room. As far as he could see, she had no furniture in any of the rooms. No pictures hung on her walls or tucked into the built-in shelves of the living room.
He pressed the power button on her wireless speakers and pivoted to find her warily watching him. The house was blessedly quiet. Her fists clenched and relaxed at her sides as she seemed to take deep, even breaths then exhaled slowly.
She was cute even if a little psychotic.
That’s when he noticed the remnants of a shattered cell phone scattered across the hardwood floor.
“Bad day?”
“Every day is bad.”
“What made today bad?” He surprised himself when he asked. He had to be up in four hours. He was a firefighter, and he didn’t have the luxury of going to work exhausted. It wasn’t safe for him or the men he worked with—that he considered family.
Violet took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly. “Well, my day started with me imagining plucking the eyes out of the Bridezilla who thinks she can have every crazy idea come true.”
Wow, he hadn’t exactly seen the woman as a wedding planner. He’d always assumed someone with that kind of job would need to be positive and bubbly.
“Normally, brides want their big day to be special.”
“She wants everything in gold, everything. If I have to look at another cherub, I’m going to take a baseball bat to those chubby fuckers.”
The corners of his mouth started to twitch, and she let out another cute little growl. “What else?”
“Another bride’s mother wants me to have the bride’s wedding dress made two sizes too small to shame her size eight daughter into losing weight. Fuck, forbid someone have some hips. The bride barely has tits, and there’s not enough stuffing in the world to fill in the bust of her dress.”
“Keep going.”
“My new boyfriend said that he wouldn’t fuck me because he said my ass jiggling turned him off. Is my ass too fat?” Violet asked and spun, pulling up the back of her flowery dress.
He nearly swallowed his tongue as the cutest dimpled ass cheeks he’d ever seen were exposed by her raised dress and plain white boy shorts.
That was an ass a man spanked when he had her bent over the nearest surface. Violet had the kind of curves that only a real man could appreciate. What the fuck was he thinking?
“Well?”
He realized he’d been staring too long. “There is absolutely nothing fat about your ass.” He was shocked that came out as evenly as it had.
She grabbed her ass cheeks in her hands and gave the plump curves a little shake.
He wondered what she’d say if he asked her to bend over and spread them for him. Boxers weren’t the attire to wear for the thoughts he was having about her lush curves. His gaze moved down to rounded thighs with no gap in sight.
Less than an hour ago, he’d contemplated killing her, and now he had the uncontrollable urge to fuck her. That wasn’t happening. He was delirious from lack of sleep, or he was still in his bed having a nightmare. He hoped it was a fucking nightmare.
“I’m a size twenty, of course I’m fat.” She rolled her eyes as she glanced at him over her shoulder and then let her dress fall.
He almost ordered her to lift her skirt again so he could fall to his knees and worship her ass the way it deserved. He scrubbed his hands over his face.
“I need a drink,” she announced and rushed in the direction of the kitchen.
Violet and alcohol terrified him, so he jogged after her to talk her out of getting drunk. He’d had all he could take for one night. He froze in the doorway of her kitchen after finding her with a half-gallon of chocolate milk turned up. He had the urge to throw his hands in the air and scream why as he watched her chugging with her hand up the back of her dress working the clasp of her bra loose.
Did she not realize she had some strange man in her house? Sane women wouldn’t lift their skirts and ask him was their ass fat. They sure as hell wouldn’t be working to remove their bra.
She put the cap back on the carton and shoved it into the fridge, and as if she were performing a magic trick, she removed her bra. The sigh that passed her full lips had his—no, this wasn’t happening. The bra sailed through the air and landed on the counter next to him. It was all red silk and lace, to be honest, he hadn’t seen that much material in a bra in his life.
She kicked the fridge door shut, and he jerked his gaze back to her to find her rubbing her breasts. She let out the sexiest moan he’d heard in his life.
“I’ve gotta go. I have work in the morning.”
He turned without waiting for a goodbye, and it was only his pride that kept him from running away as if his fuzzy ass was on fire. Who the fuck had he pissed off in a past life to warrant this amount of torture? His crazy neighbor had him hard in no time from just a peek at her ass, and then she had to rub the massive curves of her breasts. The bad thing was, it was done in the most unsexy way, and that had still turned him on. He didn’t breathe easy until he was locked inside his place. He needed to get laid and soon because if his psycho neighbor got his dick hard, he needed help.