Boys Next Door (3 page)

‘Touch me,’ I begged. I wasn’t sure where this new ‘me’ was coming from, but it was fine. She was okay by me.

‘I can do that,’ he echoed and his warm fingers ran down my belly, making me tremble. His hand slipped below my jeans before plunging into my panties. Deke’s hot fingers found my clit and he pressed so that all my breath slipped out of me. Warm wet circles brought me close to an orgasm right off the bat. He was good.

I arched against him and kissed him again, finding his face – a bit rough with stubble – with my hands. I sighed again, arching up to meet his touch and he lazily slipped a thick finger into my cunt.

‘You’re so fucking wet, Ms McGee,’ Deke said against my throat. His teeth grazed my pulse point and he gently sucked that fragile skin until an echoing tug sounded in my cunt. My body tightened around his finger and this time we both groaned.

‘I am. I am wet.’ My hand fumbled in the darkness for his buckle and I found it. I recalled it from when he bounded into the elevator car. A big silver buckle on a well-worn brown leather belt. I had a vivid mental image of him tying me up with his belt and my nipples spiked so hard they hurt.

‘Do you have a condom?’ I blurted, shoving my hand into his pants, into his briefs, against his skin. He was hard and surreally balmy in my hand. I squeezed, stealing his breath for an instant.

‘Cliché, but it’s in my wallet.’

Bold, sex-crazed, maybe just insane, I shoved my free hand into his back pocket and came up with a wallet. ‘Get it,’ I said, and pressed the wallet in his hand even as I thumbed the wet slit at the top of his cock.

‘If you keep doing that we won’t need the condom. You’re getting really close to just flipping my lid on the wow factor.’

Again I could almost hear him smiling. There was something heart-warming about that fact.

‘Do it,’ I whispered and buried my nose against his throat, sucking in the scent that was one Deke Wells, Satan-ishly good looking stranger. Now fellow resident of Tower Terrace.

I smelled the latex before I heard the condom being placed over Deke’s cock, but then he was gripping my waist tight and I was pushing my jeans down in a messy bunch. I slipped one leg free but left the other ankle in. I touched my clit for just a moment, just long enough to get that all-over shiver that comes with being hyperaware of your naughty bits. Need thumped in my cunt, beating heartily along with my pounding pulse.

‘Are you sure about this? I mean, I could just hold you so you’re not scared,’ he said. His voice said he meant it, but under the words I heard the hope in his voice.

It was my turn to smile.

‘I’m sure. I just hope this damn thing doesn’t start moving before everyone’s had an orgasm.’

‘They’re good for your health, I hear,’ he said, humour in his voice. But also the thick rough sound of desire.

‘Let’s see.’

I found him with my still shaking fingers – shaking now for a whole new reason – and ran the sheathed tip of his cock along my wet slit. He buried his face in my hair and wrapped an arm around my waist to steady me. When I raised my right knee up to get him in, he felt my motion and hooked his free arm under my knee to hold me open.

There was that one fumbling awkward moment of first entry and then he drove up and into me, my body so slick with want it took him greedily.

‘Welcome to town, Farrell,’ he said, thrusting deep. ‘And might I say –’ I kissed him quiet, rotating my hips just a bit. Already I was so close to coming I felt almost sad. I didn’t want it to be over
that
fast. And yet, the fear and the closeness and his kindness and – dear God, yes – the
smell
of this man had me on that razor’s edge.

‘I’m going to come, like … super fast,’ I admitted, rocking against him.

‘I’m going to be right behind you, I fear,’ he said.

Below us there was a clanking, grinding noise. ‘Uh-oh, I think we might be getting a speedier repair than expected.’

And then we were both laughing, that secretive almost hysterical laughter that comes with getting away with something. He slammed into me, high and hard and I pressed to him in small lazy rocking movements. Every thrust from Deke jarred my body with an intoxicating friction you cannot fake. It happens or it doesn’t. And God, yes, fuck, it was happening.

Finally – but somehow still too soon – my clit gave up a burst of joy and my cunt clamped down on him and I kissed him fiercely. When I bit his lower lip and gasped, ‘I’m coming,’ my new friend Deke groaned, and sighed out warm breath against my throat as he came.

The elevator rocked, dipped, growled with machinery. He dropped one more unexpected kiss on my lips and said, lips pressed to my ear, ‘I usually like to cuddle after, but unless you want to really enter town with a bang, I’d suggest we get ourselves –’

The elevator, dropped, caught, swayed and started to grind to life. The light came on and I was shoving my leg in my pants and zipping like a mad woman.

‘No cameras, right?’ I gasped.

‘Right. Cameras cost money and this building is as old as the dirt it’s built on.’

‘Thank God.’

When the doors opened wide we glanced at each other and smiled. He swept is hand forward. ‘Ladies first.’

I hurried out, happy to be on the solid ground. ‘Thanks. And hey, I don’t normally … I mean that’s the first time …’

‘I’m flattered. First time for me too.’

For a moment I thought he meant
ever
, which was laughable, but then he grinned. ‘In an
elevator.
’

‘Oh right! Right. Anyway, it was …’ I stuck my hand out feeling like an ass. ‘It was nice.’

‘Yes it was.’

‘To meet you,’ I snorted.

‘That too. Let me bring you some wine.’

‘Wine?’

‘Later.’

‘Later?’

He leaned against the railing that looked all the way down into the lobby. ‘Is there an echo in here?’

I blushed. ‘Sorry. I just … am very confused.’

‘We’ll discuss it over wine. Cool?’

‘Sure.’ I let out a long even breath to calm the flock of butterflies in my belly. ‘I’m at –’

‘213 Lady Bug Lane,’ Deke said.

‘I … how?’

‘If you stand on your front porch and look across the street …’

Uh-oh.

‘I’m the stone house to the left.’

Deke was one of the three little pigs!

‘Ah, Mrs McGee!’ Blake Andrews was a tall, handsome man with grey hair and dark-brown eyes. So dark they were almost black.

‘Ms,’ I corrected, shaking the hand he offered.

He gestured to a seat and smiled. ‘Sorry. I guess I’m old school. I “Mrs” everyone no matter how young. My wife gives me serous flak for it too.’

I laughed, my hands still trembling from being trapped in the elevator – and, oh yeah, having spontaneous stranger sex – before my arrival. ‘No worries.’

‘I just need your driver’s license so I can write down the info before I turn over the key. After you’ve taken possession, you can go visit the lawyers down the road, at your convenience, I’m sure you’re tired …’ he said, writing something down. ‘But he will give you the information about the allowance that’s attached to the property.’

Allowance. I suddenly felt ten years old. Though I was grateful beyond words that my father had thought ahead. To smooth out this part of my life for me should I come to take advantage of the opportunity.

‘Great. Do you have his –’

‘His card is attached to the paperwork I’ll give you.’ He took my offered license and started to copy the info.

More writing and I studied the realtor’s small office. Mr Andrews, one other desk with a name plaque that read Anthony Travatoni. There was a receptionist at the front of the room and a younger man who was filing and copying.

‘Do you sell a lot of houses in Tower Terrace?’ I asked, nosy as hell.

He glanced at me. ‘Not many. There aren’t many to sell. We’re a very small community in Terrace proper. But surrounding areas up to twenty miles around, we sell.’

I nodded. ‘I was just curious. It seems such a sleepy little town …’ I caught myself and tried to backpedal. ‘I mean … I
don’t
mean …’

He held up a hand. ‘Oh, I know you’re coming from the city. We probably are a Podunk town to you. But we like it here. We have the fall festival coming up. You should go. And I do know, and I might be wrong to say – you might have employment set up – but I do know that the dog salon is hiring.’

I choked on a laugh and managed to keep it down. My first reaction was
a dog salon!
But this was a new life, a new outlook. A ‘hot sex in the elevator’ kind of existence: full of risks, both large and small.

‘Really? That’s great? Where is it? I am looking for work, Mr Andrews, thanks for asking.’

He nodded once, finished filling out the last line on the paper, and handed back my license. ‘Down the road. Donna’s Dog Salon. Right past the diner, you can’t miss it. She’s a booming business, believe it or not. Everyone here seems to have a dog.’

Maybe I needed a dog, I thought.

‘Great,’ I said again. My gut was full of anticipation that bordered on anxiety. I was going to do this, this new life, little town deal. All of it.

‘And your dad mentioned you act …’

He clipped a bunch of papers together and fished a metal box out of his bottom desk drawer. Inside were stacks of keys labelled with paper tags.

Uh-oh. ‘Did he?’ I kept my voice level.

‘He did. You know we have a local community theatre. I think this winter’s performance is … I want to say
A Christmas Carol
but don’t quote me on that. The wife says I don’t pay enough attention.’

‘I’ll look into it,’ I said, though I had no intention of doing that.

‘You do that.’ Mr Andrews rose and handed me a set of keys and an envelope of papers. ‘You’re all set. My card is in there. If you need anything or have any questions, call me and I’ll try and help you as much as I can.’

Now my nerves kicked in big time. This was it. I owned a house. I was twenty-eight. I was starting a new life. It would hopefully soar and I’d find a direction and maybe eventually love and …

I swallowed hard.

‘Are you okay, Mrs – sorry,
Ms
McGee?’

I nodded. ‘Fine,’ I sighed.

‘If you need some water or –’

‘No, I’m fine. I just had a moment,’ I laughed.

I left him with a promise to check out the dog salon and the community theatre. I planned on only keeping one of those promises.

Driving only halfway down the block, the bakery started calling my name. More of a sinister sultry wooing sound, if you must know. I hadn’t eaten since getting on the road and something flaky, sugary and warm sounded perfect.

‘Post-stranger sex snack,’ I chuckled and pulled into one of the street’s angled parking spots. Right in front of the bakery. Score!

Vogel’s was small.
Really
small. Like a closet with two small tables up front and Venetian blinds in the front window.

I pushed in and a tiny bell overhead jingled merrily. The man behind the counter looked up at me. Black hair, grey eyes, lean face, lanky body. I felt a tremor in my belly and wondered if moving to a new place had set off all my sex hormones, and being attracted to almost every man I came across was a side effect.

‘Hi,’ he said.

I waved. ‘Hi, I need sugar.’ When I said it, my stomach rumbled.

He waved me up to the counter and I stepped forward as if approaching royalty. ‘Sugar as far as the eye can see,’ he said. ‘Coffee?’

Now that I was in the store, the smell of richly roasted coffee assaulted me with its heady scent. ‘Yes, please,’ I said as if in mid-orgasm. My face flushed hot and red, I was damn sure by the sunburned feel of it, but I didn’t care. Elephant ears, chocolate croissants, donuts, biscotti, shortbreads. It was all there. Waiting for me.

My stomach rumbled again and he laughed. ‘Here you go.’ The cup was warm and the brief touch of his finger to mine, a bit warmer.

‘Thanks. I’m starved.’

‘When did you eat last?’ he asked, appraising me with a faux disciplinarian air that had me feeling squirmy.

‘Um, six hours ago?’

He tsked and pulled a plain croissant from the bottom shelf. ‘Sit. I’ll make you a nice chicken salad sandwich. Once you’ve eaten
food
you can have some sugar.’

I gaped at him, mildly confused but also kind of turned on. I was losing my mind. ‘I, um … I don’t have much money on me I think. I might have to stick with the coffee and a don –’

He waved me off and pointed to a table. ‘Sit. On the house. You’re new, right, not just passing through?’

‘Right.’

‘Welcome to town, then. Lunch is on me.’ He leaned on the counter and grinned at me. The grin made him look both handsome and ethereal. I couldn’t help but stare for a beat or two before taking a step back to have a seat.

‘Well, thanks Mr …’ My ass hit the seat but my eyes never left him. I was getting a feeling. A weird déjà vu feeling.

‘Stephen. Stephen Vogel. This is my family’s joint. And you are …’

‘I’m Farrell McGee, I’ve moved into Lady Bug Lane,’ I whispered.

His eyes lit up and he shook his head, chuckling. ‘213’s missing resident.’

There it was. My toes tingled and my nose went chilly and I sighed. ‘How did you know?’

‘I live across the street. Stone house –’

‘To the right from my perspective,’ I finished.

He grinned again and I felt it in my lower half like a tingle and a flash. ‘Yep. That’s me.’

And here we had the third and final little pig.

* * *

‘Much better than just sugar, right?’ He put a plate with a biscotti and a donut on it in front of me.

The chicken salad had been impeccable, the croissant damn near orgasmic. Paired with some chips and a pickle plus water and coffee, I was ready to bust, but I picked up the biscotti and nibbled it.

‘I feel like the suckling pig at the luau,’ I laughed.

‘Nonsense. You’re darn near too thin.’ Stephen took my plate and I handed him my empty coffee cup. Our fingers touched again. An unmistakable zing that only came with attraction sizzled up my arm. I had to focus hard to keep from shaking myself to throw off the sudden charge of energy.