Chapter Four
Vince
Instead of spending my evening off brainstorming and plotting how I’m going to take down Mateo, I waste the whole goddamn night researching Carly’s stupid “Marine.” Unlike Carly, he was smart enough to use separate accounts for his sleazy bullshit. Without access to private investigators or Mateo’s many resources, unfortunately I can’t crack his actual identity. I’m suspicious of how well his tracks are covered, though. I’m suspicious that the account winked into existence not too long ago. Overall, I’m not sure if this asshat is a Marine or a criminal looking for easy marks, but I am sure either way I don’t want her talking to him.
So I make some shit up.
I don’t like lying, but I’m doing it for her own good. Someone needs to scare some sense into this chick and it seems like it’s up to me. I copy and paste some random asshole’s criminal history onto Mr. Virginia’s work-up, print out some of his actual interactions on the website she found him on (he’s still a horny asshole, I’m just beefing it up to scare her a little) and scare up some ugly-ass pictures so she doesn’t go dreaming up some fantasy for this guy. He just had to go and say he’s a fucking Marine.
I wonder if she likes that. I mean, I’m damn sure not on his side of the law if he is an actual Marine. Does she like the good guys, out to make the world a safer place?
Does she really have kinky break-in fantasies?
Nope, nope, nope. Not gonna let my mind stray there. I do not fuck where I sleep, period. She’s got the honey-haired, blue-eyed, helpless dumbass thing going on like Mia did—that’s the only reason I’m getting my signals mixed here. Last time a girl like her was trying to get herself murdered on my watch, it was my problem.
Once I have an appropriately intimidating dossier put together, I head over to her apartment and knock on her door. She doesn’t answer. I know she’s in there because the light is on. I try the door, but it’s locked. Of course it’s locked; I didn’t tell her I’d come back tonight. I didn’t plan to anyway, I figured I’d see her outside with Gus, or she’d show up on my damn doorstep needing a light bulb changed in the next couple days. But here I am, standing in the cold like an asshole.
Since it apparently doesn’t freak her out, I go back to my own apartment and retrieve my tools, then I knock one more time. When she doesn’t come to the door, I go ahead and let myself in.
I don’t know why that doesn’t freak her out. It should. She may flit over to my apartment and pester me like I’m not, but I’m a complete fucking stranger, one with knowledge of how to pick locks, and this girl is not appropriately worried about that. Just because I live in her apartment building doesn’t mean I’m not a bad guy. And not only does she pester the shit out of me, she invites herself alone into my apartment and talks about her break-in fantasies.
I mean, come on. Have a little fucking sense. Just a little.
I take a seat on her couch to wait for her. Once I’m inside I understand why she isn’t coming to the door. She’s in the shower. Singing. I can’t help smirking. Her voice isn’t bad, but she won’t be winning a Grammy anytime soon.
Of course, knowing she’s in the shower gets me thinking about her bikini picture again. Ordinarily I’m not wowed by a bikini picture, and I won’t say I’m wowed, but I’ve only seen her in big sweaters and her coat. She’s got a pretty small frame, so I didn’t expect nice, round C-cups.
Not that I’ve been thinking about her boobs. Because I didn’t have my head up my ass. But now I’m sitting here while she’s just down the hall showering and sure, I’m wondering what they look like without the bikini top.
Fuck.
I shake it off and flip open the little dossier I put together, flipping through this creep’s comments. Most of them are no creepier than the thoughts I’m currently having, but a few of them make him sound like an asshole.
She stops singing and the shower turns off. The door’s still closed so she’s probably brushing her hair or moisturizing or some shit.
It’s kind of weird, actually. I haven’t done something as casually intimate as wait for a woman to finish her shower since I lived with Mia. Mia always took forever in the shower—not even just in the shower, but before and after the shower. She was so fucking high-maintenance.
Mateo probably doesn’t even know that. He’s busy, an asshole, and he has two women, so I’m sure he doesn’t know the first thing about Mia’s ridiculous shower routine. It brings me a small measure of comfort, feeling like I know something about her he doesn’t.
The door down the hall opens, stealing my thoughts from Mia and bringing them back to the present. I suddenly want to leave—I wasn’t invited into this moment and she thinks she’s home alone; what if she walks out naked or something?
It’s too late to change my mind though. The halls are short, and before I can even push up off the couch, she emerges at the end of it. Gasping immediately upon seeing movement in the living room she left empty, her blue eyes widen and a little yelp slips out of her.
She’s not naked, but man, I wish I hadn’t come over. She’s wearing this thin blue night shirt with no bra underneath. The night shirt barely hits past her ass, and I’m wishing she would have grabbed a pair of pajama pants so I didn’t have to look at her smooth, shapely legs.
“Jesus! God.” She breathes with relief when she sees it’s just me, her shoulders dropping. “Jesus, Vince. You scared the hell out of me.”
I nod smugly, like I didn’t just have second thoughts. (Thing about showing up uninvited in a woman’s house is you’ve gotta own it. There’s really no half-assing or backing down with that kind of thing.) “This is how easy it would be to murder you,” I inform her, tapping the dossier I brought over. “Your Marine boyfriend hasn’t murdered anyone, but he’s damn sure not a Marine and he’s got a rap sheet a mile long.”
Her eyes widen and she comes over to the couch, unconcerned with what she’s wearing, and unconcerned that I literally broke into her house to warn her about some guy who might try to break into her house. “Does he really?” She pauses before she approaches the couch. “Actually, I’m gonna grab a drink, then we can go over this. You want anything?”
“I’m good.”
She nods and heads to the kitchen.
I try not to think about things I definitely shouldn’t, like the unmistakable glimpse I get of the curve of her ass when she walks toward the kitchen.
She is not wearing panties.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Fuuuuuuck.
I desperately want to leave this situation, but I can’t now without being obvious. I’m not about to give her the satisfaction of literally chasing me out of her apartment just because she’s not wearing panties under a baggy sleep shirt that has no business being sexy.
She comes back in, flashing me a friendly smile and hands me a drink even though I didn’t ask for one. Then she drops onto the couch, curling her legs up beneath her and leans over my shoulder to look through the assembled pictures.
I feel like I just got socked in the stomach.
She smells like Mia.
It’s her shampoo. The coconut.
The strangest feeling that I’m going to be sick mixes with immediate arousal and all I want to do is get the hell away from this girl.
Unaware of the Hell she just sent me to, New Girl is all light and playful.
“So, you’re a burglar and a private detective, huh?” she teases. “Do you ever stop getting cooler?”
I can’t even speak.
The scent of her shampoo hits me again and I have to look at her to remind myself it’s not Mia sitting on this couch beside me. It’s damn sure not Mia because she’s being nice to me. Her blue eyes are clear and honest, the little sparkle of amusement is there because of me. Inexplicably because I broke into her house and literally spent the whole night stalking some asshole she exchanged a few emails with, but I guess I like my girls a little cracked.
Thank fuck she brought me whiskey. I’m sure she intended on me sipping it, but I slam it back, then I take the glass she brought herself and down that, too.
“Oh. Okay. Yeah, I didn’t even want that,” she says, playfully nudging my shoulder.
Oh, my God, that smell again.
“Did you change shampoos?” I ask her.
Her eyebrows rise in surprise. She just showered so she’s not wearing any make-up, but I like her natural look. “Yeah. I can’t believe you noticed that,” she remarks, casually. “My sister and I went and got our hair done when I visited for Thanksgiving and I got this new shampoo to try. Like it?”
“Not really.”
“Oh. Sorry? Next time you’re going to break into my apartment, give me a little extra notice and I’ll make sure to use a different kind.”
“No.” It’s out before I can stop it, and I’m shaking my head, looking over at her. God, she’s close. “No, keep using this one.”
Shooting me a funny look, she asks, “The one you don’t like?”
I nod, wishing she would’ve brought more whiskey. I need more whiskey. The arousal isn’t going away. She smells like Mia, she’d definitely look enough like her from behind, and right now my cock is trying to convince me I could make an exception to my “don’t fuck the neighbors” rule.
“Okay,” she says slowly, her blue eyes narrow on me. “Are you all right?”
I hand her my glass. “More whiskey.”
My cock surges to life again when she obeys without question.
Jesus Christ, I need to leave this apartment. That is not Mia, and regardless of what my libido is trying to tell me right now, it’s not okay to use the nice neighbor girl as a surrogate just because she smells like her and obediently fetches me a drink when I tell her to.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Like an angel, she brings the whole bottle. She gives me a cute little smirk as she takes her seat beside me again. “I didn’t know how many more times you’d make me get up otherwise.”
Her goddamn wet hair is a curse. The scent hits me again. She smells fucking amazing. I want to grab her and pull her into my lap. I’m desperately trying to remember why I shouldn’t do that. I need to change the subject.
That’s what I need to do. Somehow instead I find myself looking over at her, my gaze hooded. I let my gaze linger on her plump lips then travel down to the outline of those perfect round breasts beneath her night shirt. The fabric is pooled between her legs and I’m tortured with the knowledge that if I slipped my hand underneath, there’d be no fabric to stop my fingers from exploring her pussy.
“Is this how your break-in fantasy goes?” I murmur, smirking at her.
She bites down on her lower lip, I think just to fucking torment me. Smiling, her voice soft, she says, “No. You’d have to wait until I went to bed. Lights off. Then you break in, creep through the dark living room into my bedroom….” Her words trail off and she lets her gaze move over my body with the same slow, thoroughness I just showed her. “I’m curled up on the bed with my back to you. You can see every curve of my body basked in moonlight. You know it’s crazy, reckless, but you want to touch me. Have to touch me. So you climb up on the bed. I’m startled awake. You’d have to cover my mouth to keep me from screaming, of course.”
“Of course,” I murmur in quiet agreement.
“I’d be a little scared…I’d probably squirm. I almost never wear panties to bed, so I guess I’m not all that prepared for a fight.”
“Jesus.”
She bites down on her lip to rein in her smile, but her gaze drops to my lips. “So I’m squirming against your body and my sleep shirt’s riding up around my waist. I’m no weakling, but I’m no match for your strength. You pin me down but I keep squirming against you, getting you all excited. Whoops. Guess I’m at your mercy now. Whatever will you do with me?”
My poor cock throbs. This is fucking agony.
Trailing her fingers lightly down my arm, she leans a little closer, talks a little quieter. She leans close to my ear so she can practically whisper, and also so I can feel her perfect tits on my shoulder. Christ. “Would you threaten me?” she asks, tempting me on purpose. “Tell me to keep my mouth shut? Or maybe you’d prefer my mouth open?” Her lips never touch my skin, but I can feel her breath on my neck as she continues. “Would you put your arm across my neck and look down into my eyes while you unfastened your pants? Would you guide my hand down to stroke you, to make me feel how hard you are?” Her hand skates across my thigh when she asks this, but it doesn’t move in to feel how hard I actually am, here in this real-life moment. “What do you think you’d see in my eyes? It’s dark, the only light the moonlight spilling in through the window. I bet you can still get a good look at me, though. Do you rip the sleep shirt off over my head and throw me face-down on the bed? Do you spread my legs, run your hands over my bare ass?” Now she uses her index finger to lightly trace my fingers. “Do you push one of these inside me? Am I wet for you, Vince?”
My heart beats in my fucking throat as I visualize every word she’s saying. As I imagine pushing a finger inside her hot cunt, the sounds she’d make as I did.
I want more whiskey, but it’s only going to compel me to make worse decisions. I’m so fucking aroused right now, it takes every goddamn scrap of will power I have not to yank her in my lap. I know she’s not wearing panties. I know if I unzipped my pants and yanked her in my lap, I could spread her open, plant my cock inside her, and fuck the shit out of her right here, right now.
Leaning back, she plucks the whiskey bottle from my hand, unscrews the cap, and pours some into her glass. Her voice at a completely normal decibel now, like she’s not even turned on at all, she says, “If I had a break-in fantasy, it would probably be something like that.” With a little wink, she holds out the whiskey glass.
I take it.
Then she retrieves the dossier and begins to flip through it like she didn’t just turn me on to the point of pain and leave me hanging.
I guess I should be glad she’s fucking distracted, but damn if I’m not a little insulted.
Grimacing at the bastard’s fake record, she says, “Ooh, armed robbery. No, thank you, Mr. Virginia. Not that I’m firmly against armed robbers, but a lot can go wrong in that scenario. Some poor clerk could lose his life so you can steal $40 out of a cash register? Go big or go home. This guy can just go home.”
Now she’s moved on to the printed out reddit comments. She reads them casually to herself, then sighs and runs her fingers across the paper. “Look at this. He’s clearly intelligent. Why is he wasting his time with stupid shit like this? He should be a Marine. A sexy, smart Marine. Muscles and intelligence. These comments are kind of naughty. That’s okay, I don’t want to be going to bed back-to-back six nights a week anyway; he better fuck me good and give me a cuddle at least most nights.”
I don’t know why this aggravates me, but I pluck the papers right out of her hand and toss them on the floor. “You’re not fucking the Marine.”
“You said he’s not a Marine.”
“Whatever he is,” I mutter, taking a sip of my whiskey. Clearing my throat, I shake my head. “You don’t need to fuck a criminal.”
“Well, Mr. Straight and Narrow may not want to hold me down and act out a break-in fantasy with me,” she says lightly, wiggling her eyebrows, her damn blue eyes twinkling at me. “I need a guy with a little edge.”
This woman has me so fucked up right now, I don’t know which way’s up. One minute she’s intentionally turning me on and talking about being wet for me, and literally the next minute she’s talking about what kind of guy she should fuck next like I’m her girlfriend.
I haven’t encountered a tease in a while. Teasing me doesn’t usually work. I don’t give a single fuck, so you’re not going to make me chase you with your bullshit games. If you’re not up for exactly what I’m up for, exactly when I’m up for it, I move on to a girl who is.
It doesn’t hit me the same way now. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because Carly seems to have such a pleasant nature. Maybe it’s because I’m pretty confident if I pushed her back on this couch and planted myself between her bare legs right now, she would let me fuck her. Maybe she’s teasing, but I have a strong feeling she’d back her shit up if I wanted her to.
Maybe it’s just because in this isolated moment I really want to push her back on this couch and fuck her. Because I want her breathless with pleasure, moaning my name as I shove my cock inside her over and over until she comes for me.
I don’t know.
Whatever the reason, it’s no good.
Planting the whiskey bottle on the end table beside the couch, I push forward and stand up. I’m still visibly aroused, but she’s watching my face, not my crotch. She looks a little worried, like maybe she did something wrong.
“Anyway, now you have proof the guy’s a tool. Don’t talk to the Marine anymore.”
She watches me for a moment, then nods. “All right.”
I allow myself a last once-over since so much more of her body is on display than usual. Her legs shift and I nearly catch a glimpse between her legs as the fabric moves. My gaze darts to her face, but she looks completely innocent, like she doesn’t even realize she just nearly flashed me.
Wariness moves through me. There’s so much about this girl that feels familiar, but on a whole new person. I told myself I’ve been trying to find someone like Mia to fill the hole she left, but looking at this girl with the coconut hair, chipped fingernail polish and propensity for trying to get murdered, the only thing I want to do is run away.
I’ve been here before.
I know how it ends.
With her breaking my heart.
With me in pieces.