Liv

“Mama.” The sound of my daughter’s voice and the slight pressure of her hand on my back bring me out of the dream I was having of my sexy-as-fuck asshole neighbor.

I groan and roll over to look at the blinking red lights of my alarm clock.

“Mama, you need to get up. We’re going to be late,” Hannah insists, this time plopping down onto my bed next to me.

8:42 A.M. blinks brightly at me, and I jump out of bed, looking around me. Why didn’t my alarm go off? I remember setting it last night. I study the contraption and notice the button to turn the alarm on is not in the on position.

Double fuck!

I make a mad dash from my bed to the bathroom and grab my toothbrush. Hannah follows right behind me. She’s still in her pajamas and her hair is a complete mess.

“Hannah, honey, go get dressed and brush your hair. We’ll have to get breakfast on the way to school today.” I turn on the faucet, waiting for the hot water to kick in.

“But, Mom, you promised me French toast,” she whines, sticking out her bottom lip.

“That was before my alarm didn’t go off and we overslept.” She doesn’t move from her spot next to me. I take a deep breath, trying to keep calm. “Baby, I promise I will make you French toast every morning for the rest of the week if you will please get ready for school.”

“Fine,” she sighs before stomping off to her room across the hall. I roll my eyes, already worried about the approaching teenage years. Hannah is seven, but she acts like she’s going on sixteen most days, and with the amount of attitude she’s been throwing at me lately, I’m not sure how I’m going to survive her actual teenage years.

It’s more than that, though, I surmise, thinking about how hard life has been for both of us, and how much it’s changed in such a short amount of time.

But that’s what divorce does.

Parker, Hannah’s father, and I were married for almost eight years, but everything about our marriage was a sham. It all came crashing down around us four months ago when I caught him with his pants down.

Literally.

Only it was Parker’s assistant on his knees.

The biggest sham of our marriage was Parker’s sexuality.

Admittedly, sex with Parker was never anything to ring home about, but he was the perfect boyfriend turned husband, and he gave me the perfect little girl. Life was good. We never argued, we always found compromise and supported each other. It never once occurred to me that my husband was living a lie.

Thinking on it now, there were signs something was amiss between us, but I was too happy in the bubble we’d created to question them.

A month after the divorce was final, I decided a fresh start for Hannah and me was a promising idea. I quickly found a job in the area and fell in love with the little blue house through the pictures on the Internet. It was the easiest decision I’ve made in eight years, but now I was beginning to worry if it was the right choice for my daughter.

Hannah is particularly close to her father. She’s the epitome of a daddy’s girl. And while Parker and I have remained close friends, our friendship being one of the best things about our marriage, the news of our move didn’t go over well with either one of them.

Hannah’s attitude has ramped up a notch or two since, and I’ve been trying to find a way to reach her ever since.

Fast forward to yesterday. The move and the hot asshole living next door to me.

Christ, I have never met a man I despised and wanted all at the same time. It didn’t help that he looked at me like he wanted to gobble me up. The entire time he stood there scowling at me, I could see it in his eyes. He tried to hide it, but there were moments when he let his guard down, especially when it came to my boobs. Even when he attempted a jab at me over proper neighborhood etiquette, he looked like he wanted to rip my clothes off.

He was rude and insufferable but, fuck, the mere sight of him had my panties soaked in seconds.

No one has ever made me feel that way.

Why did it have to be the asshole next door?

I walk from the bathroom back into my room, needing to multi-task and hurry, but something catches my eye as I pass one of the windows in my sunshine-filled room. It just happens to be one the windows that overlooks his house and, unbeknownst to me, looks right into his bedroom.

I stop in my tracks and turn back toward the window. My feet carry me to it, and I nearly drop my toothbrush at the sight my eyes feast on; and I say feast because that’s literally what they do.

He is there, half-naked, sweaty, and hanging from a bar in the doorway, doing what I assume is a million pull-ups all from the comfort of his bedroom.

I can’t move. I can’t think. The sight of him has me entranced, and I begin to count the number of times he pulls himself up and over the bar.

Fourteen… Fifteen…

The muscles on his arms pull and constrict with each up and down motion, demonstrating the obvious strength in his upper body.

Twenty-one… Twenty-two…

I find myself thinking about the dream Hannah woke me from minutes ago. It was about him, and he was doing something similar, only he was hovering over my body while it happened.

I squeeze my legs together as my center begins to pulse, demanding attention. My heart pounds recklessly against my breastbone, but I know it’s only because of the lack of orgasms I’ve been experiencing. This man makes me want to change that fact.

Twenty-nine… Thirty…

“Mooooooom!” Hannah wails from her room. “Where are my shoes?”

“Check by the front door, where I told you to put them last night.” I tear my eyes from him and take a breath. I can’t have this reaction to him, not the asshole next door. I received his message loud and clear yesterday, but that doesn’t mean I can’t use this to think about later after Han’s gone to bed and I’ve had a couple glasses of wine.

I look back, wanting to commit more detail to memory, but he isn’t doing pull-ups anymore. Nope, now he’s standing in the window, directly across from me, staring at me with annoyance flaring in his dark chocolate eyes.

The toothbrush falls from my hand and I feel my skin flush with embarrassment.

Busted. He lifts an eyebrow before reaching for his blinds and closing them, preventing me from gawking at him any further.

I swallow hard, instantly gagging at the contents of saliva and toothpaste running down my throat, and move quickly back into the bathroom to rinse and spit the remaining contents from my mouth. Catching sight of myself in the mirror, I cringe because I look like a character from the show The Walking Dead.

I was too tired to wash the makeup off my face last night, so my mascara has given me racoon eyes, my hair is a ratted mess, and I’m wearing the same clothing I wore when he saw me yesterday.

Shit, shit, shit. I groan, but it’s too late to do anything about it now.

Not that I want to.

No, because he’s an asshole.

***

As if this day can’t get any worse, my car won’t start.

I turn the key in the ignition once again, this time praying for a bloody miracle. Nothing happens.

My head falls onto the steering wheel with a thud.

Shit, shit, shit!

This can’t be happening.

“Mom, we’re already so late,” Hannah complains for the hundredth time since waking me up this morning. As if I didn’t know how late we are already running.

I reach under the steering wheel and search for the latch to pop the hood. I get out of the car and lift the hood, realizing pretty quickly how pointless that act was. I know nothing about what happens under the hood of my car.

Son of a bitch!