“What the fuck.”

I muttered after I turned down my street and headed to my house.

It was just ticking over to six a.m., the light only just starting to tease the dark sky with a new day.

I was now looking at my neighbor and the creator of my Sunday morning cakes standing by her mailbox, dressed in a bright pink, fluffy dressing gown, with her hair in curlers. Gigi McMahon was closing in on seventy but still acted like she was thirty. I met her for the first time the day after I moved in, and she became a constant part of my life. She hadn’t given me a choice. That first day I opened the front door to a short, petite, woman with a bunch of dark curls that had slithers of grey, a face full of make-up, and a cake dripping in chocolate in her hands. She walked straight into my house, cut up the cake, and that was the first time we shared cake on a Sunday. She slapped me when I called her Mrs. McMahon, and her and my mother, and now Sasha, were the only people who got away with calling me Benjamin.

“Gigi, what the hell are you doing out here?” I said after parking my car and climbing out. She watched me as I prowled toward her. I swear this woman had no fucking fear. “Gigi, start talking.”

“Don’t get in a hissy fit.”

Oh yeah, she possessed a no bullshit attitude and said whatever the hell she wanted. She didn’t put up with my shit.

“Gigi,” I warned.

She sighed dramatically. “I was up feeding Dolly and heard something out here, so I thought I’d do neighborhood watch and check things out,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I can report I saw nothing.”

Christ. “Gigi, you have my number, so use it. Don’t come out if you hear something. How many fuc—”

“You were at work.”

“Leave a message.”

“What about when you are out running? Speaking of that, a man like you doesn’t need to be running so much. You’ve got muscles on muscles, how many more do you want? Not that me or any of the other women on the street are complaining.” She winked and looked me up and down.

Were we really having this conversation on the sidewalk? Not only was I dealing with a dead body and Sasha Hamilton getting my attention, but now I was dealing with a neighbor who thought she was the Queen of neighborhood watch even though she had a cop living next door?

“Get inside, Gigi. I’ll have a look around.”

“Why do you run so much?” she fired back.

My response was instant. “Because I have to work off the cakes you make me. If I don’t, I’ll get a belly. Do you really want to be the cause of that?”

She hooted. “Lord no. I wouldn’t enjoy watching you mow my lawn as much as I do if you lost your six-pack, although if you ask me it’s more like an eight-pack.”

Fuck me.

I was desperate to get inside to shower, have something to eat, and try to attempt to get some shuteye, but now Gigi was looking at me like she had something life altering to discuss, so I waited for impact. What I learned early on was that anything and everything could fire out of her mouth, so I never tried to work out what it could be. I just had to brace.

“I worry about you in that big house on your own,” she said softly, her hand dropping to my arm.

Shit, here it comes.

I swear one of her favorite pastimes was focusing her attention on me living alone and not having a woman in my life. She loved pressing the point. Fuck, she was worse than my mother when it came to me settling down. She didn’t hold back her opinion, and she’d even researched dating websites and proudly told me about a site where people could go if they wanted to find someone to fuck, or as she put it, wanted to have intercourse. It had been at least two weeks since we’d had a find Mrs. Ben Hunt discussion, so she obviously realized that we were long overdue. I fucked when I wanted to fuck, I just didn’t bring women back to my house.

“A man like you needs a good woman to come home to. A man of the law, I might add. You are out there protecting the community, putting your life on the line, being a good citizen, and you work too much. You need to stop with the random intercourse and get some stability in your bed. Imagine coming home to a woman after those long hours. A warm womanly body in that big bed of yours.”

I gave her what I knew would work because I really was not in the mood to start having a talk about my sex life. “Who needs a woman when I’ve got you living next door? You look after me and bake me cakes every week. Who could possibly live up to that? You’ve ruined me for all women, Gigi.”

She started fanning her face dramatically. “Benjamin, shush, you’ll make a lady blush.”

“I’m going to try and get some sleep. Stop doing neighborhood watch and call me instead.” I kissed her cheek and started heading up the path.

She followed my lead and made her way to her house. Clearly, neighborhood watch was over for the day. I pushed the key in the door, and before I entered my house, I made sure she did the same thing. Before she disappeared, I called her name and she looked over. “The double chocolate cake you made last week,” I said with a smirk. “It was fucking delicious.”

The last thing I heard her say as I stepped through the door was “That mouth of yours will get you in trouble, Benjamin.”

I walked through my house chuckling.

* * *

I woke up with a start and groaned as my neck throbbed in pain after sleeping awkwardly on my couch. Stretching, I turned and looked out front, and through the floor-to-ceiling windows that covered the front of my house, I saw and heard evidence that the day had started for some of my neighbors. The clock on the microwave told me I’d been asleep for barely an hour.

Fuck.

I woke up with only one thing on my mind.

Sasha Hamilton.

Fuck me, she was something else.

Intriguing, frustrating, and enthralling, all rolled into one. I knew Sasha Hamilton on paper, but I had no clue about the woman who chewed her lip, whose green eyes twinkled when she received a compliment, and who could spit enough sass to destroy the strongest man. That woman was a mystery, and the more I experienced her, the more my determination grew to be the man to unravel it.

While my body and head screamed at me for more sleep, I knew it was a lost cause. I rose from the couch, strolled through my house and headed to the kitchen. Opening the fridge, I tagged a bottle of juice, unscrewed it, and drank straight from the bottle. Fuck, it was going to be a long day. I put the bottle back in the fridge, then patted my back pocket, looking for my cell.

I pulled it out, went into my messages, pulled up Carson Reeve’s details, and tapped out a quick text.

BEN: She good?

CARSON: She’s good. Locked up tight.

BEN: Thanks.

REEVES: You buy the beers next time.

I threw my phone on the couch, stood with my arms folded across my bare chest, and looked absentmindedly outside. My mind jumped between the case I’d been working on for six months, and Sasha. It had the ability to turn into a clusterfuck if I wasn’t careful. There was no need for me to take her to the break in. I already had enough on my desk to work on, but there I was offering to take her and getting involved.

Those green fucking eyes.

Kryptonite.

Fuck it.

I grabbed my phone and jammed it in my pocket, then threw on a shirt and headed for the door.

It was closing in on eight a.m.

She’d be asleep.

But, I needed to see she was good for myself.

What the fuck was I doing?