North woke up sweating with a curse on his lips. Sitting up, he swallowed his gasps and ran a hand through the loose strands of his hair.

He dragged his hand down his face to his chest, stopping directly over his heart. He pressed his palm there, where it pounded with frenzy beneath his perspiring skin. Moments like this reminded him of before. Of all those nights in his cell. Sometimes he’d wake to the sounds of men crying, being beaten or assaulted. His cellmate was neither friend nor enemy, but the same couldn’t be said for everyone else. For other inmates, nights were the worst. The longest. When the strong preyed on the weak.

He lifted his hand from his pounding chest and dragged it over his face. He should be over this shit by now. He wasn’t locked up inside there anymore. He didn’t have to look over his shoulder. He didn’t have to stand silent witness as others were broken.

His breathing gradually slowed and evened. He shifted on his bed, the mattress creaking slightly. The sheet slid low on his hips, rasping against his skin.

He slept naked. That was the luxury of being a free man. He could sleep naked. Walk around naked. Eat leftovers in front of his fridge buck-ass naked. Walk in his backyard and stare at the moon without a stitch on if he wanted. He had the freedom and privacy to do whatever he desired in the confines of his own property. So why the fuck did he still have nightmares?

Suddenly his bedroom felt claustrophobic. After flinging the covers back, he rose from the bed and walked downstairs. The nightmares were the same in that they always varied.

Sometimes it was Katie, sobbing, wild-eyed and shell-shocked in her ripped-up dress. Sometimes he was with Knox and they were beating on Mason Leary, North’s knuckles stinging and covered in blood. That was a common-enough nightmare. Leary under him, taking his punches and blows, but then the bastard would transform into someone else. Often it was Katie. Sometimes it was his brother. Sometimes North himself.

Other times he dreamed of the riot at the prison—the one that nearly killed him and left his face cut up. At the time, he’d thought he would die in that riot. The swell of writhing bodies had been like a storm around him and he thought surely it was the end. But it hadn’t been. He’d survived.

Scarred, but not dead.

The worst days actually came after the riot. Knox was gone; paroled. Reid, the leader of their crew, escaped Devil’s Rock, abandoning North, too.

The crew he ran with was weaker, more vulnerable to the other gangs in the prison. It was a testing period, to see how North and the remnants of Reid’s crew could stand up to attacks without Reid or Knox. North had survived. At a price. There was always a price.

He pulled open his fridge and grabbed a beer. Shutting the door, he turned and headed out back. After opening the back door, he stepped outside into the night. Dry air crackled around him as he walked through the yard, indifferent to the sensation of his bare feet crunching over dry grass. A slight wind stirred his hair and rolled over his exposed skin. He took a long pull on his beer. With a sigh, he stretched his neck muscles and looked up at the night, at the blanket of darkness studded with stars. He’d never seen a view like this from his prison cell. He was always shut in before dark fell.

He stood there, slowly nursing his beer, enjoying the sensation of air moving over his body. Freedom. As close as he could get anyway.

Gradually a prickly sensation worked up his spine. He knew better than to ignore it. Paying attention to that sensation had kept him from getting shanked in prison. He wouldn’t ignore it now even situated in the seeming safety of Small Town, USA.

He turned slowly on his bare heels, his sweating beer clutched in one hand as he surveyed his yard. He missed nothing in the flat expanse of grass—he probably needed to mow again—or in the quiet slats of fence boards staring back at him. His gaze drifted upward, scanning his house and then drifting over to his neighbor’s house.

That’s when he saw it. Not it. Her. Faith.

He watched her outline standing in the upstairs bedroom window. The blinds were open and she was backlit from a source of light somewhere in her house. Again, he couldn’t make out her features, just the long shape of her.

But he felt her stare on him. On all of him . . . naked as a jaybird.

He had no idea what she wore. If she wore anything at all. There was the chance that she was as naked as he was. The idea aroused him. There was no denying it.

He took another long pull from his beer, his gaze never leaving her window. Never leaving her shadow. He couldn’t imagine her face. But he heard her voice in his head. He saw her shape. He imagined those endless legs.

He felt her eyes on him. He knew she was watching him. She probably thought she was invisible to him up there. He smiled slightly, his free fingers resting on his abdomen, sliding down incrementally. He wanted to shock her. Maybe somewhere deep inside she was getting excited, too . . . watching him. Watching him touch himself in front of her. For her.

His cock jutted out at full mast. His hand slid lower, closing around himself. Hell, this was for himself, too.

He knew what he was doing was messed up. She could call the cops and lodge a complaint. They could be knocking on his door in under twenty minutes. That was the last thing he wanted, but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop. He couldn’t go inside. He couldn’t stop tormenting her. Tormenting himself.

He gripped hard. Felt his balls pull up tight, begging for his hand to move up and down, fast and rough. But even that wouldn’t be enough. It wasn’t what he wanted.

He didn’t want to simply jack off. He wanted to sink deep into a woman’s softness. He wanted long legs wrapped around his hips. He wanted the mystery of her face resolved.

Christ. He was about to lose his load like some teenage boy with his first girl. This was insane but he couldn’t stop himself. Not as long as she was watching. His fingers tightened around himself, squeezing until his dick throbbed harder.

He registered that. Processed it. She had not moved away from her window. She was still standing there. She couldn’t be too repulsed. Could she? Maybe she was touching herself, too. From this distance, with the obstruction of her blinds, it was impossible to know. But God, that thought got him more aroused.

He was close just like this with one hand squeezing his cock. The only thing more appealing to him than getting himself off was the thought of jumping her fence, yanking open her back door and marching inside her house. Finding her. Claiming her. Riding out his climax inside the woman watching him.

Christ. He didn’t even know her. Not her face. Not anything about her. He dropped his hand, that glaring truth scalding him.

He still felt her stare. It practically peeled the flesh from his bones.

It was the nightmare. That was the only explanation for this sudden dive into insanity. The nightmares always put him on edge. Made him as anxious as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.

With a curse burning on his lips, he strode back inside his house, letting the back door slam shut behind him. He was done with this crazy fixation on his neighbor. She was just a woman with all the usual parts. Same as any other.

He was going to bed. Tomorrow he would get laid. Find some willing woman to slide inside and take off the edge.

One thing was for certain: after what had just happened, he doubted he would ever have to face her. She would be giving him a wide berth from now on. He snorted. Hell, she would probably be calling her Realtor to move first thing in the morning.

And that, for some reason, rubbed him in all the wrong ways.