FOUR
Lea
The rest of that evening was mostly painless. About an hour after I joined the “boys stink” club and answered a million little girl questions as to why I liked Shane (to which I had to come up with an inventive lie) and how I learned to put my makeup on, the rest of the family came looking for us, inviting us in for dessert where I made sure to spark up conversation with Mark, Hunter, and Fee so I could avoid the towering presence of Shane beside me.
After that, we got silently back on his bike and drove to my car. He was surprisingly staid as he handed me my two-fifty and told me with twinkling eyes that held promise that he would see me around.
“Fat chance of that,” I said with a head shake.
Because I was going to avoid his ass like the plague.
The last thing I needed in my life was more uncertainty, more complications, more things to stress myself out over. I just traded one shitty situation in; I didn’t need to test drive another.
But I couldn’t complain.
I had two-fifty from Shane and the hundred from his brothers that would make it possible to not go hungry as I waited for my first paycheck from Fiona. And it was a whopper of a paycheck too. Apparently phone sex was booming. I blamed video games. A whole generation of men used to huddling together in their parents’ basements killing fictional characters and never learning how to interact with anyone, let alone the opposite sex. But thank God for those socially awkward freaks because they allowed my cabinets to fill up, my fridge to be overflowing, and my closets to get a few more clothes on the hangers.
The night shift took some getting used to and I was running pretty fully on caffeine and slips of sleep. So when I got home after a long shift, wanting to take a shower to wash off the slimy words of my last caller who really needed to have his ass thrown in jail he was so creepy, and reached for the knob in the shower and water started spurting everywhere?
Yeah, I kind of flipped shit.
The water, like always, was frigid and had already started to completely overflow my tub, my entire body soaked from my fumbling, when I finally found the number for the company that owned the building. The robot at MBRO Corporation informed me that it was after hours (in the middle of the day) and that I could leave a message and someone would get back to me as soon as possible.
“This is 2D. My bathroom tap is broken and there is water everywhere. I swear to fuck if you don’t get your lazy, cheapskate, slumlord ass over to my apartment right about fucking now, I am going to report you to every agency I can find until they fine you so fucking much that you’ll be living in a goddamn cardboard box on the street.”
I ended the call, charging back into my bathroom, frantically looking around for the cut-off and finding it nowhere, knowing that in some apartments, for fuck knew what reason aside from maybe shitty construction, the switch wasn’t in every unit. I cursed the piece of shit building in new and inventive ways until I heard a sharp rapping at my door.
Sure it was the neighbor below who likely had water dripping through their ceiling, I was yelling as I threw a mass of soaked hair over my shoulder. “I already called the slumlord,” I called, reaching for the locks and sliding them. “It’s not my fault they run a…”
The rest of my sentence got cut off mainly by my own surprise.
Because there in my doorway in jeans and a gray tee, with a big, busted toolbox in his hand, looking way too freaking good right about then, was none other than Shane freaking Mallick.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
His lips tipped up, looking me up and down leisurely, surely seeing my nipples poking out of my shirt and bra thanks to the soaked, freezing material. When his eyes found mine again, they were a little wicked. “Lazy, cheapskate slumlord at your service,” he said, giving me an easy smile.
No.
No freaking way was Shane my freaking landlord.
Also, no way was he such a shitty landlord.
“You own this building?”
“Yep. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to stop that fucking leak before we get five different kinds of mold that will condemn this place.”
With that, he pushed in past me, brushing into my shoulder in the process and a shiver coursed through me that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was soaked to my skivvies. I stood there numbly for a long moment, taking deep breaths.
Because what the actual fuck?
In what universe could my one time fake date be my landlord? And why hadn’t Fee warned me? I’d talked to her a couple times about the building I lived in.
It better not have been some ruse on her part. She and I were going to have a chat about it the next time I saw her.
There was a loud clanging noise, drawing me back to the present, and I moved through my bedroom to the bathroom, my feet sloshing in my shoes as I went. Shane was kneeling on the side of my tub, a wrench in one hand, water cascading down on him from the shower head, making him look like he was in some kind of freaking commercial.
Yeah, I should have stayed in the kitchen.
Where it was safe.
My sex clenched hard at seeing his wet shirt sticking to the muscles underneath and his biceps contracting as his hand twisted the wrench. But right then, thankfully, the water got high enough to finally go over the lip of the bathroom doorway, puddling into my bedroom.
Glad for something to do that didn’t involve staring at Shane doing manual labor, I went to the kitchen to get a mop and bucket and set to work slowly sopping the water up as Shane banged away.
A couple long minutes later, the flow of water suddenly stopped.
Shane grabbed a bath towel, dropping it on the floor, sopping up the water then squeezing it into the tub as it drained. We worked like that for the better part of a half an hour until the floor was no longer a giant puddle and just glistening with water that would eventually air dry.
“I would thank you,” I said, propping the mop up against the wall, “but it’s your fault this happened in the first place.
“Because I’m such a slumlord,” he guessed.
“Seriously though. I mean, the elevator seems like it’s been out of order since the seventies. The place is a shithole. I can’t believe someone hasn’t called the freaking cops on you and had this place condemned yet.”
“Baby…” he said with a strange smile.
“Stop ‘babying’ me,” I snapped, not because I didn’t like it, but because I liked it too much. “And what?”
“Do you ever wonder about your neighbors?”
“Not particularly. They keep to themselves.”
“Never stopped to think why?”
“Because this is a crappy area and no one wants to get attached in case we get gunned down or mauled in the parking lot?” I asked sarcastically, lips twitching.
“No one who lives here would ever call the cops because, Lea, no one who lives here wants to draw attention to themselves.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Some of us are just low on cash at present. I mean, look at Barney and his wife…”
“Barney and Gerty are forgers.”
“Forgers?” I repeated, brows drawing together.
“Yeah, they fake IDs, passports, marriage and divorce documents, citizenship papers. They’re the last of a dying breed and the best there is. On this coast, at least.”
“But,” I said, shaking my head, not willing to accept that sweet old Barney was a criminal. “But they live in a hellhole.”
“Where no one would think to look for them,” Shane agreed. “Ever been inside their house? I swear to fuck every goddamn faucet and door handle is pure fucking gold. Gerty has expensive taste.”
I swallowed hard, deciding to save that information for a later date, knowing it was likely useful for me to know someone who could give me a new identity if it ended up looking like I had done a shitty job hiding my real one from being discovered.
“Okay then. What about the couple that…”
“Dealers. Sell pot.”
Annoyed, though not fully aware why, possibly just because he was right and I hated being wrong, I pressed. “Fine, but you can’t tell me that shut-in down in the corner…”
“Yeah, no. That weird fuck milks snakes.”
“I’m sorry. Milks snakes?”
“For the venom. To make anti-venom.”
“Wait. So you’re telling me that there is a guy two doors down from me with an apartment full of possibly deadly snakes.”
“Not possibly deadly; they’re very deadly. Also, very illegal in this area. So no one is calling the cops in here.”
I sighed, knowing I lost my argument. “If you tell me that someone in this building is like cooking meth or something like that…”
“Nah. No meth. I’m not having my property, crappy as it is, get blown to kingdom come because someone watched too much fucking Breaking Bad and decided to try their hands at street corner chemistry.”
“Well there’s that at least,” I shrugged. “So what was wrong with my shower?”
“The thing inside that stops the water was jammed.”
“The thing inside. Is that the technical term?”
“Do you get off by being a smartass?” he asked, looking amused.
“Only when it takes someone like you down a notch.”
“Someone like me, huh?” he asked, starting to move. Toward me. And that, yeah, that wasn’t a good thing. I was pressed up against the sink vanity, the linen closet to my side preventing me from scooting toward the door. Trapped. And everything about Shane seemed predatory. I had never felt so much like prey in my life. “You still in that good guy phase?” he asked, planting his hands on the vanity on either side of my hips, caging me in.
“As a matter of fact, I am.” A giant liar, I added inwardly. Bad boys always had been and always would be my thing and I knew it.
“Yeah, well, let’s see what we can do about that,” he said.
Before I could even register the giant, flashing warning sign those words created in my head, his lips crashed down on mine. He even kissed like bad guys kissed: hard, punishing, greedy, unconcerned with the concept of chaste first contact, of getting to know someone else’s preferences. His lips crushed into mine, his hand going behind me to grab the base of my skull, holding me in place while he tasted me. His teeth grabbed my lower lip, sinking in hard enough for a gasp to part my lips. He took the opportunity and slipped his tongue inside to claim mine as shocks of desire sparked over every inch of my skin, making me hyper aware of the way his firm body pressed into mine, making my ass crush into the vanity. My nipples hardened as my traitorous arms went around him, pulling him closer, flattening my breasts to his chest. He made a growling noise deep in his chest as his lips claimed mine again, not giving me a second for air, for thought, for anything other than to get completely consumed in the need.
His fingers snaked out, snagging my hair, then curling into a fist and pulling hard, making me jerk back. His head dipped and his lips found the overly sensitive skin of my neck, moving over it until I felt my hips jerk against his, begging for fulfillment, pressing against the hard outline of his cock restrained by the thick jean material. His tongue slid up my earlobe, making me shiver almost violently on a quiet moan.
And of course, of freaking course, that was the moment he decided to pull back.
Forcing my eyes open, I found his a bit heavy-lidded too, but that was completely offset by the cocky smile he had in place. “I think that phase of yours is over,” he told me, releasing my hair and moving away. Damn if I didn’t need to grab the edge of the vanity to keep myself upright, a motion I was sure he caught judging by how the smile spread. “And now I know where to find you,” he added, grabbing his tool box and moving out of the room, dripping water everywhere as he went.
“Great,” I mumbled to myself when the front door slammed.
I turned slowly, looking at myself in the mirror. I was never the type who could hide their feelings well. Vocally, because I was a loudmouth. But also because my face always betrayed me. My eyes in particular. Right then, they were heavy-lidded, bedroom needy. My face was flushed.
I brought a hand up, pressing it against my heart that was still beating way too fast, forcing myself to take deep breaths and ignore the pulsing feeling of my untouched-for-a-woefully-long-time pussy.
I exhaled hard, going into my bedroom, tossing off my sopping clothes into a pile inside my bathroom and slipping into fresh panties and a new tee. I reached for my phone and called work.
“Hey, it’s Lea. Put me into Fee.”
There was a short pause before Fiona picked up. “Lea?” she asked, sounding surprised. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that your brother-in-law owns my freaking building? I mean that couldn’t have possibly slipped your mind. Like, ‘hey, Lea, nice shoes, oh and by the way… that guy you had pay you to take you on a date, yeah, he totally owns the building you live in. Just so you know.’ Something like that.”
There was a pause and I knew her well enough at that point to know she was pressing her lips together, her eyes downright mischievous. “Oh, was it a meet-cute? Tell me it was a meet-cute.”
“Don’t be a sap,” I said, smiling despite myself. “Besides, it couldn’t be a meet-cute seeing as we already met.”
“Hunter and I have a meet-cute,” she said, then went on because I gave her the space to. “He moved in next to me and I used to be up all night so I slept in and his fucking ass kept hammering early in the morning. So I went over. Meet-cute.”
“Okay, that is pretty cute,” I admitted, having seen them together and knowing how well they turned out as a couple and a family unit making it even cuter. “But you’re forgetting one big thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You were interested in Hunter. I’m not interested in Shane.”
“Yeah, okay,” she snorted. “Please. If nothing else, you want to do him. There’s not a woman eighteen to eighty who would turn down a chance at any of the Mallick brothers. So what happened? Come on, I need a little romance in my life. Becca and Izzy have the stomach flu. And no matter how much you love your partner, there is no such thing as romance between a man and a woman who have been taking turns cleaning up puke for two days.”
“My shower broke and there was water going everywhere. You know this building; it’s a hellhole. So I called the machine and flipped shit about the owner being a slumlord.”
“Oh, this is good,” Fee said and I could mentally see her propping her stilettos up on the desk as she reached for her coffee. “Did you guys do it? No. Scratch that. You couldn’t have done it. You’re too surly.”
“Gee, thanks,” I laughed. “He fixed the thingy in the pipe…”
“Oh, I bet he did.”
“Shut up, Fee,” I laughed, shaking my head. “And then we cleaned up the water. And then we kissed. That’s it.”
“If that’s it, what are you so pissy for? A kiss can mean as little as a handshake sometimes.” Yeah, it definitely wasn’t a handshake. I was pretty sure I never creamed my panties over a nice firm handshake. “Unless it’s more than that and you just don’t want to admit it.”
“It’s not going to be more than that,” I said with as much finality as I could muster.
“Then why are you calling me bitching?”
“I didn’t want him knowing where I lived.”
“Because your pants start screaming ‘take me off!’ around him, perhaps?”
“I hate you,” I said, shaking my head at my ceiling.
“You love me and you know it.”
“I guess I am used to being the bad influence friend. It’s weird to be on the receiving end of this.”
“Get used to it. I am going to be on your case until I know you guys have bumped uglies.”
“Bumped uglies?” I repeated on a laugh. “You are a retired phone sex operator and the best you can come up with is ‘bump uglies’? I’m disappointed in you.”
“Gland to gland combat? Slytherin in the Hufflepuff? Doing the monster mash? Verbing the adjective noun?”
I was genuinely laughing then, my cheeks strained from my smile. “That’s much better.”
“Okay. Just so we’re clear. You’re fucking Shane. Case closed. Take the day to get used to that fact. Girl to girl here, you need to get laid,” she said.
“I’m having a period of celibacy.”
“You’re having a dry spell,” she corrected. “Don’t try to fancy it up like it’s some religious shit. You haven’t had a good pickle tickle in too long and if you don’t get that taken care of soon, you know what’s going to happen. You won’t be able to stop thinking about sex. You’ll have wet dreams. And don’t try to tell me girls don’t get those. We totally do,” she said dismissively. “And then all that will be in your head all the time is sex. Sex sex sex. Which is good for your job until one day one of the doms get you on the phone and get all alpha badass sexy on you and you come just from him telling you to.” She paused. “It could happen.”
She didn’t need to tell me that. Just the idea of one of those doms, and maybe one of those doms being Shane, oh yeah, there was some definite pre-orgasm tightening going on.
Damn it.
“So maybe I will pick up a guy at a bar,” I mused. That was a safer bet in the long run.
“Drop into Chaz’s any night of the week and you’re sure to run into some Henchmen. I swear to all that is holy that this town has no ugly men. Those Henchmen though…”
“Henchmen?” I repeated, guts twisting a little.
“Local bike gang. Not,” she emphasized as I stiffened, “the weekend warrior variety. They’re one-percenters. Gun runners, actually. I have a feeling you’re into the bad boy types.”
“Just not bikers,” I clarified.
“Oh, well. Better it’s not one of them anyway. You go into Chaz’s and start flirting, it will only be a matter of minutes before that gets back to Shane and he comes in and shuts that shit down.”
“Oh my God,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You’re acting like we’re a pack of dogs. He can’t claim me.”
“Sure he can. You’ve met them, right? They will all band together and make sure your muffin doesn’t get any stuffin’ until you’re eighty.”
“Your euphemisms are ridiculous.”
“I have three children. I can’t be throwing fucks and sucks and orals and anals around all the time. I have to get inventive. Now it’s just habit. But yeah,” she went on, “I can pretty much guarantee you won’t be getting laid in this town. Like it or not, your lady cave will have cobwebs unless you let Shane in there.”
“Maybe I will just invest in a really good vibrator.”
“You don’t have a really good vibrator?” she asked, sounding appalled at the idea. “What are you doing the day after tomorrow? Whatever it is, cancel it. We’re hitting the sex store. Shenanigans will be had. Be ready at three. Okay byeeeee,” she said, rushing to hang up before I could object.
I hung up feeling lighter, a smile still on my face, full of the realization that I missed that. I missed friendships. I missed having people to talk to. Coming from the environment I had been in before, the isolation was taking its tole on me. I needed connection.
But the whole point of moving and cutting ties had been to keep myself and everyone I cared about safe. I couldn’t create new circles. I couldn’t get wrapped up with people who could end up hurt or worse because of me.
And I certainly couldn’t make friends with Fiona.
She was my boss.
Worse yet, she was the sister-in-law to the guy I was trying very hard not to get involved with.
And it was her mission to get us together.
As if I needed more things pushing me toward him.
My sex drive was hard enough to overcome.
I just had to hole up and not go anywhere near the places I might run into him.
That was all.
Easy.