Sexy Bad Neighbor (Sexy Bad #1)

by Misti Murphy

  PAYNTER

  For the life of me, I can’t concentrate on these damn updates I promised my brother I’d finish for the program I created for his office. They’re not exactly difficult changes to make. A few lines of code here and there will make the processes they use run smoother, but I can’t wrench my mind away from my neighbor. I don’t know her last name or her phone number, though she lives right next to me. I have no idea what she does to have to dress the way she does, but obviously she works in an office.

  I pull in a deep breath and expel it while I remove my glasses and drop them on my desk. I’m working through small chat with her in my head because I don’t want to focus on the fact that I should have gone after her when she raced from my house the other night.

  Getting up, I stretch the kinks from my back and rub roughly at the taut muscles in my neck. The doctor diagnosed my acute pain and headaches as stress related. But they’d gone away months ago. I shouldn’t be getting stressed out about my cute neighbor and whether my brother offended her. It shouldn’t even matter that she noted the underlying similarities he spoke of and applied them to herself. But clearly Garret’s rant upset her.

  Trying to get him to shut up, watching her face as she got the gist of what he was saying, made me hotheaded. It was one of those moments where being drunk only helped to clarify and solidify the differences. She stood in my kitchen and not once did she look down her nose at my family. Instead, she bantered with Ronnie and made fun of that god-awful chandelier. All while rocking sweats and this ponytail that made me want to pull the band out and run my hands through her hair.

  I should have at least made sure she was okay, but Garrett was still shooting his mouth and Ronnie had dragged him out right behind Chloe. By the time she’d gotten him in the car, my neighbor had disappeared into her dark house.

  Ronnie had simply clicked her tongue when she caught me staring at Chloe’s house and told me to give the girl time before I harassed her any more.

  Striding to the window, I stare across the way. She’s kept a low profile all week. There’s been no friendly bickering, no practical jokes, no getting my arms around her. Clearly she took Garrett’s idiotic rambling to heart. I don’t even know why I’m letting it bother me, except it was my brother who put his foot in his mouth.

  I need to fix it. Or at least I need to make sure she didn’t take it as a personal affront. Garrett’s only seen her in sweats, so he wouldn’t pin her as that type out of nowhere.

  Her car comes into view at the end of the street, and I watch it until it rolls to a stop outside her house. There’s really nothing else I can do but go see her and apologize for Garrett’s lack of manners. Stalking out of the house, I cut across my lawn and hers. I’ll just have a quick word and then get back to the coding.

  She’s half in the car, half out of it, her ass and those shapely legs the only part of her visible as I come up behind her. I get a kick of anticipation as I wait for her to exit the vehicle. She may want to believe I’m a thorn in her side, but boy, does that make the challenge of breaking her down until she gives in enjoyable. Especially when each time we clash it ends up with my arms around her waist and her mouth locked to mine.

  I spike my fingers through my messy, overworked hair—a bad habit I have when I’m concentrating on script. It gives my hand something to do that won’t involve getting yelled at, slapped, or sending her scurrying to disappear into her house. Her ass wiggles as she slowly backs out of the car, and my dick twitches. It can’t be helped; I’m hardwired to be affected by her. The view is far too sweet. I could stare at it for the rest of my life.

  She emerges with a bag filled with plastic takeaway containers. Must be more of that stuff she keeps in her freezer. “Oh. Paynter. You scared me. Don’t you have anything better to do than loiter outside my house?”

  When she turns around, I forget about staring at her ass. She’s flawlessly made up. Her hair is swept up in a neat ’do. Even after what I presume is an entire day at the office, there’s not a strand out of place. Oh, how I want to ruffle her, drag the pins or whatever from her hair and push my fingers through it until the tresses tumble loose. I want to kiss those perfectly stained lips, too, and then I want to step back and admire her pretty eyes and the way she looks when she’s not made up to be Corporate Barbie.

  But I don’t do any of it. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t offended by what Garrett said the other night. I figured since I hadn’t seen you all week, you must have taken it personally.” I cover the distance between us as she shuts the car door. “I don’t want you thinking he was in any way directing those comments at you.”

  “I know he wasn’t.” She presses the lock on her key fob and then again as though she’s not certain she did so the first time. She busies herself with the bag in her hand and her briefcase, all the while leaning away from me. “That doesn’t change the fact that he’s right.”

  “He’s not right.” I have this deep down need to set her straight on what she believes of herself. For all her trying to be this uptight, image-perfect, world-conquering, man-hating—I could come up with a lot of words for the kind of woman my ex was, the kind of woman Chloe likes to imagine she is —I don’t believe her. Grasping her wrist, I catch her as she tries to hurry away.

  “There’s more to you, isn’t there, Chloe? Women like that don’t kiss guys like me, they don’t make out with them in public or laugh with my family.”

  “She kissed you, didn’t she? A woman like that?” Her gaze flashes with heat, and she juts out her chin. “She probably made out with you in public, too. Which, by the way, wasn’t meant to happen. You kissed me.”

  “You sound a little jealous.”

  “Do I?” She says it as though she can’t quite believe that she does. “There’s nothing to be jealous about. That woman and I aren’t different. Your brother might not have been talking about me, but it’s plain she and I are alike and that you and I should steer clear of each other.”

  To hell with steering clear of her. I want to get a lot closer. She thinks she and Queen B are similar, but there’s a girl who rocks pajamas and ratty old college sweatshirts inside her that I need to know more about. That’s the woman I want to hang out with. I can’t stop thinking about getting her into my bed and tasting more than the sweet kisses we’ve shared. Hearing her laugh and the way she becomes breathless when we’re so close I can feel her body heat sucks the air right out of me and makes my pulse beat harder.

  “I disagree,” I say softly.

  With a grimace, she pulls her hand out of mine and tries to look down her nose at me. “But that’s exactly who I am, Paynter. I am the woman with the plan.”

  I can’t bring myself to tell her she didn’t hide the slight disappointment that steals across her face, that she’s not as convincing as she’d like to be. “So what’s your plan?”

  “Right now?” She glances at the bag clutched in her hand. “I plan to have dinner.”

  “That’s not a plan,” I say, because it isn’t at all what I expected her to say. It’s not even color coded, and there’s nothing about her career. “And that’s not dinner.”

  “Yes, it is. It’s healthy and it goes well with my wine.”

  “So you’re going to go into your empty house and eat a quiet, lonely dinner? And you’re calling it a plan?”

  “I have wine.”

  I bite my lip and grin at her. The affronted look she gives me shouldn’t be as cute as it is. “So do I. Come have dinner with me.”

  A quick glance at my house and she jingles the keys in her fingers. Her tongue peeks between her lips and her eyelids flutter. When she brings her gaze back to me, she shakes her head and the tiny diamonds in her ears sparkle. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

  “Live a little.” I step in closer, my hand on her wrist again. She wants something from me, but I don’t know what. It isn’t dinner, it might just be my mouth on hers, but I’ll give her both if she lets me.

  �
��I do live.” She says it quietly, unconvincingly.

  “Again, eating dinner that comes from takeaway containers by yourself is neither a plan nor living.”

  “And I told you I have wine waiting for me.”

  “You’re talking about wine like it’s your boyfriend.”

  “So?”

  “You’re going to eat dinner with me.” I take the plastic bag from her hand so that I can capture it in my own. “I promise it won’t be as painful as it sounds.”

  We stand there, staring at each other until she attempts a half-hearted shrug and gives in. “Just dinner.”

  “Whatever you want,” I say. Her palm is warm against mine, her skin satiny smooth where I rub my thumb over it. Is it wrong that I hope she wants me to kiss her again, to take it further? Would she whisper my name and hold on tight if I pushed her up against my door, yanked her panties aside, and plunged my cock inside her? Would she ride me like a cowgirl on the stairs to the second floor? Would she suck me off for the pleasure of it? Yeah, I would do all of it, if that’s what she wanted.

  She places her case next to the door as I close it then follows me into the kitchen where I stow her supply of deli meals in the fridge and crack open a bottle of wine. Pouring some into a glass, I hand it to her then get myself one. Does she drink beer? Does she have an opinion on IPA or dark? Or is she strictly a wine girl? I have no issues with either, depending on the circumstance. Right now there’s a sort of odd peace between us, and I figure I’ll roll with it and go with her obvious love for Malbec.

  She rolls the wine around the glass before taking a sip. “How do you know about wine? Is it because of her? Your ex?”

  “Of course. How else would a guy like me know anything about the complexities of a good wine?” I pull a tray of chicken breasts out of the fridge and set them down individually on a wooden board before going back for Camembert, bacon, green beans, and baby potatoes. “That’s what you’re expecting me to say, isn’t it?”

  She studies the nail polish on one hand for a moment. “But that’s not the case?”

  “No.” I butterfly the breasts and flatten them with my palms. She watches me as though she’s never touched raw meat before.

  “What then?” Leaning forward, she places her glass on the counter, her fingers still on the stem.

  “There’s a couple punnets of strawberries in the fridge. Do you mind getting them?”

  “You’re going to make me work for the answer?”

  “Now that’s an idea.” I grin at her. Those fingers keep turning the glass. Does she want to put them on something else? Me, perhaps? I have half a mind to tell her to come here and kiss me for every answer she wants. “But no. You ask, and I’ll answer.”

  Her heels click as she goes to the fridge for the strawberries. “Anything else you need?”

  I need to touch you, but that’s more of a want. Except I can feel it under my skin, this creeping kind of energy that makes me want to pull her to me so I can bury my nose in her hair and be intoxicated by her scent, or nibble on her bottom lip just for a taste, or undo those buttons on her blouse so I can see more of her satiny skin.

  “There’s a bowl under there.” I point at the door she’ll need to open. “And why don’t you kick off those shoes while you’re at it. You don’t have to maintain your rigid professionalism with me. Remember, I’ve seen you in your pajamas.”

  “How could I forget?” She sets the bowl and the strawberries down between us while I pack the breasts with Camembert and tie them up with thin slices of bacon.

  Once they’re laid out on a tray, I wash my hands and pass her a knife. “You’re doing that.”

  The look on her face is priceless. She takes a full step away from the counter, her gaze locked on the knife in my hand. A soft shake of her head that makes the light glisten on her dark hair does nothing to cover the jerky movement of her throat as she swallows. “I don’t cook.”

  “I can tell. You have a lot of frozen deli meals.” I pop the knife down beside the strawberries with a chuckle. “But trust me, you can’t mess this up. Just start with cutting off the tops and slicing them in half.”

  “Okay.” One tentative half step forward and then resolve takes her all the way to the counter where she opens the punnet of strawberries. She picks up one of the juicy red fruits and scowls at it. “All right, but I’m telling you right now if there is a way to mess this up, I will find it.”

  I want to laugh at her because I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look at a piece of fruit like they wish it would die. But I hold back the chuckle that catches in my throat and the sudden urge to circumvent the counter, take her face between my palms, and wrap my lips around hers. To hell with it, I will anyway. Just not right now. A little later when she’s not wielding a knife.

  “So your knowledge of wine?” She slowly gets into the methodical swing of cutting.

  “One of my uncles owned a vineyard. We used to spend summers there when I was younger. We worked hard, learned a lot about the process and the different wines.”

  “Really?”

  “Not what you were expecting, huh?” I dice up some potatoes, drizzle them with olive oil, garlic, thyme. I’m not exactly showing off in the cooking department, though she probably thinks so.

  “What do you do now? Is it something to do with cooking? I know you said you weren’t a chef, but…” She points the tip of her knife at the food in front of me.

  “No one made it to their teenage years in our house without knowing how to cook at least three meals. Even if one of those meals was toast. But, no I’m definitely not a chef, and I don’t make porn. Though for you, I could probably strip down while I cook.”

  “T-that’s not really necessary.” Her fingers are covered in the juice from the strawberries, her skin slightly shiny and pink as her face heats, but it’s her eyes as they rove my chest down to the point where the counter cuts off visibility that tell me she’s imagining me doing just that. “Please don’t.”

  Her gaze is almost like a caress, creating that same antsy prickling under my skin as every other time. And I’m fucking hard behind the counter, my dick straining at the fly of my jeans. I’m tempted to discard my shirt and shuck out of my jeans anyway. It’s a completely immature reaction, but then so are all the pranks we’ve played on each other.

  “I’m kidding.” I pass her the sugar canister and a bottle of balsamic vinegar. “You’d really have to ask me nicely.”

  “I’m not going to.” She gives me a withering look. One designed to make me feel little better than the chopped fruit. Except her voice has that breathless quality I like so much, and she rubs her lips together to wet them as though she’d like nothing more than for me to kiss that look off her face.

  I shrug it off, like I don’t have a second thought to give her and her lips and her sky- high fucking legs and the way I first met her panties and that soft sliver of skin where her pulse fluttered under my lips. “Your prerogative. Let me know if you change your mind.”

  “What’s the vinegar for?” She picks up the bottle and studies the label a little too closely.

  “Slop in about ten spoons of that and five of the sugar.”

  “Sounds appetizing.” With her nose scrunched, she starts spooning the measures I told her. “Maybe I can’t ruin it after all. It doesn’t sound like it would be much to start with.”

  “Don’t worry, the sugar and acid will balance each other out.” Sort of like it is now, between us. I take a moment to slide the pans into the oven. No, we don’t balance each other out. This is just a temporary truce. Hell, I don’t even know her. She sure as shit doesn’t know me, but she’s here, in my house, asking questions and holding back on her judgments. That’s something, isn’t it?

  “I’m a coder.”

  “Okay. So you’re a coder. As in computer tech?”

  “Yes, I can fix computers, build them from scratch, but no, I write programs, some apps.”

  “Apps? Would I know of any of
the ones you’ve created?”

  “Possibly. I’ve done quite well from a couple of them.” Well enough that I could look after my parents financially so they can enjoy their retirement, and afford this house.

  “You’re intelligent then. You have a good career.” She holds up the bowl of strawberries for me to check. “What do I do with these now?”

  Shit. Does being intelligent and having a decent career make me a check in some of those boxes I’m sure she has? Do I want her to be ticking me off? Do I want another woman in my life who thinks she can control me? Hell no. No fucking way.

  “They go back in the fridge.”

  I pour another glass of wine, consider knocking it back. I could practically see it in her eyes while she checked boxes on me. Next thing she’ll be asking if I plan to still be coding in five years’ time. Then exactly how much money I make. I grit my teeth and pour a measure for her too. I don’t want her drunk, don’t want to be drunk. Not when the last time is still a little too clear for my liking.

  Coming up beside me, she picks up her glass. I glance at her, waiting for her to ask one of those questions that will encourage her to check off another box. Maybe I should have listened when she said she was one of those women. I mean, I know she is, but she’s different, too. I’m sure of it. Isn’t she?

  “Paynt?” She touches my shoulder. It sears me through my shirt. I’ve been waiting since we walked in the front door for her to let her guard down enough to do so, but not if it’s going to come with one of those damn questions that turns a man into an asset or liability. Still, I wait for it. Wait for her to speak, and pray it’s something entirely different from what I’m expecting.

  “Could I borrow a sweatshirt?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PAYNTER

  Did she really just ask that?

  “You want a sweatshirt?”

  “Or one of your flannels, I guess. I, uh, don’t usually stay in these clothes once I get home. I can just nip home and get one.” She frowns at her wine before setting it back on the counter. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll just go home and change.”