Chapter One

Glory

 

I can’t wait to get home and curl up with my book. I miss my book boyfriend, Stone Hawke. He’s a dream. That Gwyn McNamee knows how to write a panty-melting alpha. He’s everything a girl could want and then some. I lock the door to my bookstore, Just One More Chapter, and begin the short walk back to my home, my sanctuary. When I turn the corner, a moving truck parked outside my apartment immediately catches my eye. Mrs. Gilliam, bless her sweet soul, passed away a few months ago, and her family placed her home on the market. I hope my new neighbors are as nice. Mrs. Gilliam was like a grandmother to me. She baked me pies and always sent me leftovers. She was the perfect neighbor. Such a kind woman. I’ll miss her deeply.

When I reach my building, I hold the door to the lobby open so the movers can maneuver up the outside stairs and inside with a large dining table. “Thank you!” I give them a nod in reply, and they head toward the freight elevator. I press the button on the outside of the regular elevator and step inside when the doors open.  

“Hold the elevator!” I press the button to hold the doors open, throwing my arm out to keep them from closing for good measure.

“Thank you.” The sound of that deep voice has me smiling as I look up, and my reply catches in my throat. 

“Unh ughh…you’re welcome.” My Lord, this man is hot. I’m sure my eyes look as wide as they feel as I take in his appearance. The most beautiful, jewel-toned green eyes examine me—the green even more vibrant paired with his smooth caramel complexion. His dark brown hair, rumpled to perfection, gives him that just out of bed, sexy look. Creases form at the corners of his eyes created by his genuine smile. Lips made to be kissed and bitten showcase his perfect white teeth. And a few days of stubble does nothing to hide his chiseled jaw line. 

Even in my six-inch heels, he still towers over me. A white t-shirt stretches across his broad chest, and the rest of my view is slightly obstructed by a hoodie. But the long sleeves do nothing to hide the definition of what I can only assume are well-muscled arms. My eyes track down the length of his lean form, enjoying everything in their path. They don’t care how inappropriate or unwanted my lustful gaze may be. Frankly, neither do I at this moment. You do not see men who look like this every day, or hell, any day, for that matter. This man is in a whole other league. My eyes stop on his very obvious, very large dick print trapped behind gray sweatpants. For the love of all things good and holy. Gray sweatpants. God bless the inventor of those dick-hugging things.  

Am I right, ladies?

“I’m Beckett Jameson.” He extends his hand toward me, placing his large mitt in my line of sight, which is still locked onto his crotch for far longer than appropriate. I’m hypnotized. I can’t stop gawking at it. Seriously Glory, stop staring at the stranger’s dick print. Finally, I listen to myself and force my eyes to focus on his hand waiting for mine. For a minute, I think about shoving my boob into his waiting palm, but I think better of it. Probably not the appropriate protocol for just meeting someone. 

“Glory Greystone.” I breathlessly manage as my eyes finally find his face again. His knowing smirk at my reaction to him only serves to make me find him that much hotter.

His giant hand wraps around mine, dwarfing it, and cradling it in his warm, calloused grip. Jesus, I want his hands all over my body. I want to know what those callouses feel like sliding along my skin. “Nice to meet you, Glory. You live in the building?” Damn, there’s that smirk again. He asked me something, didn’t he? 

“I’m sorry. Would you repeat that, please?” I can’t do anything but stare at him, dumfounded by his sexiness.

“You live in this building, Glory?” His eyes are so pretty. He’s still talking. Still smiling. Still looking at me with those eyes in that face. Shit. Snap out of it, Glory. 

“Um, yeah. I live here.” God, he smells delicious. I wonder if he tastes as good as he smells? I’m immediately hit with a visual of me licking all over his nude form like a lollipop, a Beckett Jameson lollipop. My mouth waters. My taste buds are totally on board with this idea. 

“Glory?” His voice makes love to my name with his tongue. My name has never sounded better. 

“Yes?” Whatever he wants, my answer is most definitely yes. Yes, yes, yes, hell yes. All the yeses.

“Can I have my hand back now?” There’s that smile that melts my panties.

My brain finally processes what he just said and utter humiliation seizes me. I’ve held his hand, gently shaking it, for four floors in the elevator. I didn’t even realize the elevator had moved. I pull my hand free from his and manage a nervous laugh. 

“Um, sorry about that. This is my floor.” I crook my thumb toward the hallway now visible through the open doors of the elevator.

“Yeah? I live on this floor, too. I’m moving in today.” He has the prettiest teeth surrounded by those lips that beg me to nibble them and…what?

Oh fuck. What’d he just say?

“I’m moving into 4C.” 

This cannot be happening. Holy shit.

“Which one is yours?” 

“4B.” Heat rises to my cheeks with my answer. This man, nay, this god, is my new neighbor. Sweet baby Jesus.  

Apartments don’t come up for sale very often in this building. I inherited mine when my grandmother decided to retire to Florida to one of those lively older folk’s communities. You know, the ones where the geriatrics are partying it up like they’re on spring break? I went down to surprise her for a visit not long after she moved. The surprise was on me. Some strange man, way too young for my Nana, answered the door in his boxers. He had abs, y’all. Abs. 

My Nana, now turned cougar, sat at her breakfast bar in lace lingerie. She was born anew, no longer baking me treats or sewing with her quilting circle. Nana had gone wild. I cringed every time my soon-to-be step-grandfather, Kai—that’s his name, I shit you not—came up behind my Nana and dry-humped her while she giggled. Some things a granddaughter should never have to see. This was one of them. I digress, my point is that this building is full of little old ladies and older couples. It’s in a nice, high-end neighborhood. I wouldn’t stand a chance of being able to afford living here if Nana hadn’t signed the apartment over to me. Mr. Peenprint must be making some serious dough to be able to buy an apartment here. 

“You’re my neighbor?” A slow, easy grin splits that pretty face. 

“It appears so. Um, welcome to the building?” How the hell am I supposed to live my life with him as my neighbor? I’ll have to get made up just to go to the mailbox in the event I run into him. My normal attire of pajamas, bed head, and morning breath will no longer be acceptable. Crap. 

“You don’t seem so happy about that, Glory.” He tilts his head to the side, a small crease forming between his brows. I want to smooth it out with my thumbs or my tongue. Definitely my tongue. There’s that damn smirk again. I want to kiss it off his beautiful mouth.   

“Oh I…” My words stop in my throat as his hand brushes my lower back, and I go stiff. He’s gently applying pressure, trying to direct me out of the elevator.  

His hand, still on me, guides me down the hall toward my apartment. I can feel that touch all over my body. I’d like to feel that touch all over my body. Chills break out, and my nips harden. Traitorous bastards have a mind of their own. I pull my cardigan tighter around me as he ushers me through the hall. 

“This is me.” Of course it’s me. We are the only two apartments on this side of the floor.  

“I hope to see you around, Glory.” There’s that smile again. He’s so hot, it’s making me dumb. 

“Yeah, see you around, Mr. Jameson.” 

“Beck. Call me Beck, Glory.” I love hearing him say my name. Now if I could get it coming out of his mouth while he’s plowing me from behind, that’d be ideal.

I might need to get laid. It’s been a while. 

“Okay. Beck.” Oh, my God. I just giggled. I actually freaking giggled. See…dumb. 

He strolls down to his door, and I watch his tight ass in those gray sweatpants until he gets there. He turns just in time to catch me gawking and gifts me with his smirk, yet again, before he goes inside. I shake the Beck-induced fuzz from my brain and step into my apartment. Once safely inside, I lean against the door. The cool, smooth wood sends chills across my overheated skin as I try to gain control of my hormones. I’ve never been so turned on just by looking at someone. 

Wookie, my little mixed-breed sweet boy, scampers to greet me, spinning in a few circles before he stops at my feet. We found each other outside my bookstore. It was raining, and I was trying to get the door unlocked while I balanced two coffees and bagels on a tray from Everything’s Better with Cream, the coffee shop two of my best friends, Evelyn Salinas and Jen Haner own.

A small, shaggy orange and white missile in the shape of a dog came barreling down the sidewalk chasing another dog and managed to knock me off my feet with all of his fifteen pounds. I went flying. The coffees and bagels sailed through the air about the same time Christina Elliot, another of my best friends and co-owner of Just One More Chapter, showed up for work. Wookie stopped to munch on the scattered bagels after I landed, and the rest is history. He had no collar, and after a few months of no one responding to the posters Christina and I put out, he just stayed with me. He’s my fur baby, and I’m one happy fur momma. He fills a spot in my life that I didn’t know even existed.  

“How ya doin’, my lil Wookster? Did you have a long day, too?” His big, hairy ears perk up, and he gives me a little bark before heading toward the kitchen, ready for his dinner. I lay my things down on the entry table and follow him to get us some food. 

 

After I eat my dinner and then take Wookie outside to handle his business, I head to my reading nook and settle into my favorite chair. With a glass of my favorite wine, a fire roaring in the fireplace, and the lamp on my side table shining, I’m so ready to get back to my book. It’s amazing how you can miss fictional characters.  

Just as I’m getting to an intense, panty-melting scene, a loud bang sounds against my wall, which shakes my table. I manage to grab my lamp but some of my books fall from the table to the floor. 

“What the hell?”

Wookie and I look at each other, but he doesn’t know either. With a very loud, annoyed huff, I bend down to pick up my scattered books from the floor. That’s when I notice the plaster on my wall has chipped off, and a few pieces of my damn wall are laying on my hardwood floors.  

“That’s fantastic! Can you not tear my house down while you’re moving in? Yeah, I’m talking to you, pretty boy. Jesus. How the hell do I fix this, Wookie?” He just barks.  

“No help at all, boy. None.” 

I try to place the chunks of my wall back into the hole, like a weird puzzle with irregular pieces. Maybe I can fix this and not have to try to find a handy man to do the repairs. While pressing the pieces into the gaps, trying to make them stick, a large hunk of the wall falls out. 

“Oh hell!”

Wookie barks. 

“Still not helping, Wook.” 

Light shines through the small hole, but then something passes in front of it.  

I bend down and peer through it.

“What the…HOLY FUCK!” I whisper shout then slap my hand over my mouth and fall backward on my ass away from the hole. 

And then, I die.  

Beckett Jameson was right before my eye, with a towel slung low around his hips, and it was glorious. “I shouldn’t look again, should I, Wookie? I should do the right thing and let him know I can see into his bedroom?” Wookie tilts his head from side to side. I take that as no and lean back toward the hole.  

“Maybe one more little look-see. I need to check out the damage again, right? Right.“ 

I move in closer, and just as I press my eye to the magical portal to Beck’s bedroom, he drops the towel.  

“Oh, sweet baby Jesus.”  

I watch like a deranged peeping Tom, pressing my eye socket to the wall like a suction cup, trying to get closer and wishing by sheer mental fortitude I could turn this wall into a transporter from Star Trek and magically shimmer to the other side. Beck stretches and turns from side to side in all his naked perfection, muscle and sinew stretching and pulling in the most delicious ways. His abs are a thing of wonder, and they stack on top of those damn veiny lines that run down to his…

“Coooock,” I whisper in my quiet worship at the Temple of Beck. 

Holy hell, it’s a beauty. Master artisans should erect memorials to it. It is magnificent. I’ve never seen such a nice one. In real life or in photos. I’m trying not to squeal with glee over this magnificent discovery. It’s as if Beckett Jameson is a new world, and I am the intrepid explorer sent by the entire female population on a mission of penial discovery.  

I have to keep watching for all of woman kind.  

He runs his hands across his abs before he sits down on the edge of his bed. Damn lucky hands. He reaches into the drawer of his nightstand and pulls something out. I can’t tell what it is, but it’s a bottle of some sort. He flips the cap and squeezes some of the contents into his hand and tosses the bottle onto the nightstand. He rubs his palms together and then… 

OH, MY GOD! HE’S MASTURBATING!  

His large, calloused hand massages the behemoth, and it begins to swell. The crowned jewel glistens from the lube. His breathing becomes labored with his ministrations. I watch in rapt fascination. All my perverted shame is an afterthought. I really should feel ashamed of this…shouldn’t I? How do you not watch, though? My own breath quickens. My pulse accelerates as I slide my hand down the skirt of my dress and pull it up my body. His head falls back. His Adam’s apple bobs in the column of his throat, and a low, sexy groan escapes his perfect lips.  

This is the moment. A defining moment. I can get up and walk away now. I’ll be a voyeur with a little bit of kink. If I keep watching, I’ll be a full-blown pervert. I’ll be invading Beck’s privacy, full stop. 

I can live with being a pervert. No one will know but Wookie and me. Who is Wookie going to tell? I’m sure as shit not telling anyone. I press my eye closer as I watch him hammer away at himself. Jesus, he’s into it. I’m into it, too. It’s been a long while since I last saw a man masturbating. Gifs don’t count, right?  

His moans increase, and the knuckles of his fist turn white. My hand has a mind of its own as it traverses the expanse of my body, honing in on the spot that needs to be touched. Chills scatter across my skin at my own needy behavior. I told you I need to get laid. 

My fingers find their target, and I rub fast, pressing hard on my magic button. I’m pretty sure I’m going to get carpet burn from my panties. It’s a risk I’m willing to take. My orgasm is just on the edge of the horizon. Almost within reach. The sensation builds into a crescendo that's sure to shatter me. If I time it just right, we can get off together. Rubbing, faster, faster, faster, Oh yeah, faster, faster, right there, oh, hell yeah… 

“Glory! You dirty whore!”

I fly back from the hole like it’s electrocuted me and land legs sprawled, with my panties stuck to my cooch.  

“Open the door!”  

I search around my apartment, in a frenzied, frantic state. My eyes dart all around the room. My heart pounds out of my chest, and my clit keeps its beat. It takes a minute for me to realize it’s Evelyn on the other side of the door. I hop up flustered. My heart feels like it’s going to explode. 

“Fuck, I forgot it’s book club tonight.”