Apologizing, I dug the devious out of my pocket and answered it right there at the table, which in my mother’s world, was a big no-no.
“Hello?”
“Gabriel! Not at the table!” Mom hissed.
I ignored her. I had been waiting all weekend for the construction crew to get back to me and hadn’t. I wasn’t going to miss them because Jonas thought technology was the devil’s tool and Mom went along with it.
“Hey, we still on for later?” Lloyd’s voice filled my ear and deflated my shoulders.
“Yeah, I’ll see you at your place,” I muttered.
Lloyd snorted. “Don’t sound so excited. See you then.”
He hung up, so I hung up and stuffed the phone back into my pocket.
Damn it!
“Gabriel, you know the rules,” Mom started in on me. “No phones at the table.”
“Sorry,” was the best I could manage.
“Were you hoping it was Ali?” Tammy coaxed.
“No, you little demon,” I snapped without heat. “It was Lloyd. We’re going to watch the game later at his place.”
Tammy perked. “Lloyd?”
I scowled at her enthusiasm. “He’s too old for you.”
Tammy frowned. “By like…” Her eyes rolled upwards as she did the math in her head.
“Nineteen years,” I mumbled. “That’s two decades.”
“One decade and nine years,” she corrected smartly. “See? I can do fancy math, too.”
“You’re only sixteen,” I pointed out. “Lloyd isn’t into babies.”
Tammy gasped. “I am a very mature sixteen year old. Besides, I don’t want to get married to the guy. I just want to get him naked and—”
“Tamara Nicole Pierce!” Mom exploded, face as red as the pretty silk scarf around her throat.
“What?” Tamara cried. “I was going to say draw him. Geez! Someone’s a pervert.”
But I knew that wasn’t what she was going to say. I could see it in the sideways smirk she sent me across the table.
“You’re sick,” was all I said.
Tammy shrugged, still grinning. “Yeah, but my imagination is fucking amazing.”
Mac was already at Lloyd’s when I got there straight from Mom’s place. The apartment was dark with only the pale light from the TV to guide me around the bulky furniture. I could just make out Mac’s head poking up from the back of the sofa as I made my way forward.
“Shit that was a long week,” Lloyd said in the way of a greeting as he handed me a cold beer.
I twisted off the top and took a swig before dumping myself into the lumpy armchair.
“What are we watching?”
“Figure skating,” Mac answered from the sofa.
Sure enough, a skinny blonde in a glittery, white get up twirled and swished across the ice.
We weren’t picky when it came to the type of sports we watched. I was almost certain it didn’t even matter. Sundays were our unwind days and we spent it vegging at Lloyd’s and staring blankly at the screen while we finished off a case of beer. There were seldom any words exchanged. But that was what our friendship had become, sports and silence. There were days I wondered why we bothered. What we once had would never return. It was too ruined to be repaired. But we always tried.
“So, that Ali chick’s interesting.” Lloyd took himself and his beer to the armchair opposite mine. The cap hit the coffee table between us with barely audible ping. “Surprised you hired her.”
It seemed to be that the universe wasn’t going to let me get away from that woman. She was on everyone’s mind and everyone felt obliged to bring her up to me, like I was somehow responsible for her. It irritated me because only a week ago, I hadn’t known she existed. Now I couldn’t get away from her.
“I didn’t,” I muttered, watching the figure skater do a flawless twirl in midair. “Earl did.”
“She’s weird,” Mac said without taking his eyes off the screen. “Kind of creeps me out.”
Ali twisted a lot of feelings out of me, none of which I appreciated. But I never thought she was creepy. Odd, yes. Eccentric, yes. Infuriating, fucking right. But not creepy.
I turned towards Mac, the lip of the bottle hovering inches from my bottom lip.
“Why?”
I took a swig.
He shrugged a thin shoulder beneath his ratty, green t-shirt. “Because she’s always watching.” It was said in a low, almost conspiratorial whisper, like Ali might hear him if he wasn’t quiet. “She reminds me of this movie I saw once about this girl who was cornered by these five guys and they raped and murdered her. She came back to seek revenge and for the first half of the movie, she’d just sit in a corner and watch her victims before killing them in some seriously fucked up ways.”
“Dude,” Lloyd mumbled around a mouthful of beer.
“Exactly,” Mac agreed. “Every time I go into the office, she’s just sitting there behind those fucked up glasses … watching. It wigs me out.”
Lloyd burst out laughing, which made me chuckle.
“Maybe she secretly likes you.”
The swig I’d taken went down like a lump of rock, making my throat burn and my eyes water. I coughed, thumping one fist against my chest to loosen the knot blocking my airway.
“Maybe,” Mac agreed with a lazy shrug. “Maybe if she got rid of those glasses…”
“I bet she has a smoking hot bod beneath those ugly dresses,” Lloyd surmised. “She’s younger than us, isn’t she?”
They were both looking to me for the answer while I struggled not to die.
“I guess,” I forced out. “She graduated university a year ago, or something.”
Lloyd whistled through his teeth. “Someone that young shouldn’t be dressed like they’re on their way to a bridge club.”
“How the hell do you know what people wear in a bridge club?” Mac shot back.
Lloyd shrugged. “She dresses like my grandmother and my grandmother lives at those places.”
“But you know what?” Mac put up the hand not holding his beer. “I would still fuck her, doggy style with the lights off.”
Lloyd flicked a bottle cap at him that Mac deflected with the forearm he threw up to shield his face.
“I bet she’s insane in bed,” Lloyd chimed in. “The quiet ones usually are.”
Mac laughed. “I’ll let you know.”
“That’s enough!”
My own voice made me jump. But it was nothing like the wide-eyed surprise on my friend’s faces as they gawked back at me. I shifted in the worn leather, my anger an uncomfortable heat coming off my skin.
“You calling dibs, Gabe?” Mac asked tentatively.
No, I wasn’t fucking calling dibs, I wanted to snarl at him. Dibs meant I wanted her and I didn’t. The girl infuriated me and drove me to commit unspeakable crimes, like breaking a guy’s nose because … I had no idea why, but he deserved it. Nevertheless, lines always seemed a bit blurred where Ali was concerned.
“Knock it off!” I snapped, more to the tug o’ war going on in my head than the two watching me.
“Gabe?” Lloyd hedged quietly. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I shot back. “You guys should just know better than to talk like that.”
It was a low blow. I knew it the moment it left my mouth and my friends stiffened. A fine chill crystallized around the warmth that had filled the room only moments ago and settled like a fine dusting of frost. I felt it cut into my skin and nearly hissed at the pain. But it was too late to take it back.
“Do you guys ever think about her?” Mac was barely audible over the cheer of the crowd on TV.
I didn’t answer. Neither did Lloyd.
“I do,” Mac went on, a bit numbly while staring at the bottle in his hand. “We really fucked up with her.”
“Mac…”
Mac sucked in a shaky breath and straightened his shoulders. He heaved his pipe cleaner frame out of the sofa.
“Gonna grab
another drink.”
We watched him shuffle into the kitchen. Then my gaze caught Lloyd’s and I knew we were both thinking the same thing: yeah, we thought about her every damn day, too.
Her terrace doors were closed and the blinds were drawn when I dared a peek through my curtains. I couldn’t tell if anyone was home, but there was a faint shimmer of light turning the sheer fabric a pale gold against the light blue and pink darkening the sky around it. It made me wonder what she was doing. It made me want to throw something at the glass to get her attention. I wanted her to call and I had no explanation for it, except that I missed her voice. The predicament of my situation fanned the flames of frustration raging through me. It had been too long since I had allowed myself to miss another person, to miss the warmth and desires of a woman, that I could no longer trust my own wants. I couldn’t distinguish between loneliness and lust, and that was dangerous. I had to remain in control. I had to remember what happened when I let myself go. People got hurt and I couldn’t allow that to happen again.
Lloyd opened the shop the next morning. There was a Taurus parked in bay one. The hood was up and Lloyd was checking the spark plugs when I got to work, an hour before Mac would. None of us were morning people, but Lloyd and I were reasonably better at getting up than Mac, who couldn’t even function without six cups of coffee.
“Morning,” I called in passing.
Lloyd barely shot me a glance. “Morning. Ali’s up in the office.”
The first thing I noticed when I stepped through the office doors was that Ali was indeed there. The second thing was that she wasn’t kneeling, nor were her lips that sexy pink they had been the last time. Both were a relief. My sanity had barely survived the up rise of hunger. Between them being parted and tipped up to me in offering and her kneeling before me with a blush on her cheeks, it had been hard to remember why I shouldn’t undo my pants, close a hand in her hair, and guide her forward. The fact that I had jerked off to that very image just the other night hadn’t helped stave off the blinding need.
She sat in the chair, neatly tucked beneath a desk I hadn’t seen in years. There were small stacks of paper still placed in neat piles on the scarred surface, but the rest was gone and I couldn’t fathom what she’d done with them. From some unknown place, she had unearthed three metal filing cabinets and each one was tucked in a neat row against one wall. I assumed the papers had gone in there.
“Wow,” I said, seriously impressed. “This looks amazing.”
She swiveled around in her chair, not exactly surprised to see me, but maybe mildly startled. She recovered quickly.
“There were a couple of phone calls last night,” she said. “They left messages on the machine. I took notes.”
She passed me a slip of paper with neat scribble across it. Both were for appointments.
“Just write them in the book,” I told her, passing the paper back.
One slim finger poked her glasses higher on her face and then moved up to sweep back a coil of hair that had escaped the bun.
“What book?”
I tore my gaze away from her and scanned the desk, then the top of the filing cabinets. I was about to call Lloyd when I remembered.
“I took it upstairs the other day.” I muttered to myself. To her, I said, “Hold on.”
Leaving her there, I hurried up the stairs to the loft. My feet carried me quickly to the bed and the leather bound book resting on the edge of the night table. I snatched it up and jogged back down.
Ali hadn’t moved. She stood waiting for me. I handed her the calendar.
“This is where we keep all appointments,” I said. “If there’s already a car booked for a specific time, call the person back and see if they won’t take a different time, or date.”
She nodded, studying my practically illegible chicken scratches. I waited for her to make a comment about it. I know I would have. But she said nothing. That, oddly enough, concerned me.
“Everything okay?”
Her head came up and I saw it on her face before she spoke.
“No.”
“What is it?” I asked, ignoring the little voice telling me it was none of my business.
She shook her head. “Just personal stuff. Nothing you’d be interested in.” She closed the book and turned towards the desk. “I’ll get these appointments down and then finish filing.”
I wanted to push. I started to. But the voice in my head was right. It wasn’t my business. I had already become more invested in the woman than I liked.
I walked out.
By lunch, Ali’s problems were all I could think about. Every time I saw her, the nagging questions would resurface, stronger than before. I was beginning to think my brain couldn’t make up its own damn mind. Yet I refrained. She seemed preoccupied, whether it was by the filing, or her thoughts, it was impossible to tell.
“It’s lunch,” I told her as Mac and Lloyd stomped up the loft steps ahead of me.
Ali looked up from the papers in her hands. She gave a nod of comprehension.
“Thanks.”
It struck me that, aside from that very first day, I hadn’t seen her go up there since. Part of me wondered if maybe she thought it was someone’s apartment. Another part wondered if maybe she was just uncomfortable being alone with people she didn’t know. Whatever the reason, I felt responsible. Truthfully, I felt like an outright bastard. It was my job to make my employees feel comfortable and welcome. It was my job to make sure they felt secure. But from the moment Ali had waltzed into my life, I had been treating her the way a little punk on the playground would. She kept herself locked up in the office, because I had done nothing to make the situation easier for her.
“Why don’t you come up?” I suggested gently. “I’ll introduce you to Lloyd and Mac.”
She seemed to still at the request. Her chin tipped up in my direction and I found myself captivated by those lips again. The hand at my side physically twitched with an impulse I had to spear down with all my strength.
I wanted to touch her. I wanted to take her chin in my hand, tip it further up, and run my thumb over my obsession. I wanted to part them and watch passion flare across her eyes before I claimed that mouth.
Fuck!
“Thank you,” she whispered, oblivious to the torment she was causing. “I want to finish these files before I leave.”
The well of anger had nothing to do with her and everything to do with my own weakness. Yet when I spoke, it radiated in my voice and shimmied down the length of my spine.
“You get an hour for lunch,” I snapped. “You don’t get paid for that hour.”
Her shoulders tightened. “I’m aware of that.”
“Then have lunch!”
“I’ll eat when I’m hungry.” she shot back, some of her old spark returning.
“When is that exactly?” I demanded. “I never see you eat.”
Her lips slammed together, forming a thin, white line. Her cheeks however blazed a radiating crimson that reminded me of a traffic light.
“That isn’t your concern.” Her lips barely moved around the words.
She was right. It wasn’t my concern. She wasn’t my concern, so why the fuck did I want to throw her over my shoulder and find the nearest restaurant?
“You are the most stubborn, pigheaded woman I have ever met,” I hissed finally.
She shot out of her seat in a blur of rage. “And you are the most insufferable, egotistical—”
“Egotistical?” I cut in, dumbfounded by that deduction.
“Asshole!” she snarled.
My hands were on her then. I had no control over them. All I saw was a burst of red and then I had her face between my palms. I had my thumbs wedged beneath her chin like brackets, forbidding her from looking anywhere but at me. I drove her back into the desk and nearly broke when she gasped.
“That is the third time you’ve called me an asshole, Ms. Eckrich.” I tightened my hold just enough to drive my warning home. “Next time,
I will put you over my knee.”
I expected her to be horrified, furious even. But she stood trapped between me and the desk with her lips parted and her chest rising and falling with such force, I half feared she was having some kind of panic attack. Beneath my touch, her skin blazed hot. Her scent rose around us, a rich swirl of woman, arousal and soap. My cock hardened against the soft flesh of her abdomen and I knew she could feel it. There was no way she couldn’t. But I couldn’t bring myself to give a shit.
“Hey, you coming up?”
Mac’s voice shattered the shimmering web of desire knitting thickly throughout the room. Beneath my hold, Ali stiffened. I felt it as surely as though she had shoved a brick wall between us. I released her and took several quick steps back, never once taking my eyes off her. She straightened, dragging unsteady hands down her blouse and over her skirt. She was still panting, but I was no longer sure from what.
A pink tongue swept over her bottom lip before it was drawn in between her teeth. She kept her head turned away and it only fueled the urgency writhing through me.
God, I shouldn’t have put my hands on her. I shouldn’t have threatened her. Damn it!
“Ali…”
“I … I need to finish,” she whispered, already turning away.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to fix what I’d done. All I could do was stand there and stare uselessly at the curve of her back.
I walked out. Not to join my friends, but to leave the shop entirely.
I spent the remainder of the day lost in a thick cloud of my own self-loathing. Not even throwing myself headlong into work kept the snapping guilt nipping at my heels at bay. It got to the point where I couldn’t stand it any longer.
Ali was just throwing her purse strap on over her shoulder when I ducked into the office at six and shut the door. Her head came up fast, surprise widening her eyes.
“I want to talk about earlier,” I said. “About the things I said—”
“It’s fine,” she said cutting me off. “Really.”
“It was wrong,” I corrected. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper with you.”
The Voyeur Next Door Page 12