by Cathryn Fox
I smile at my new sister. “I can’t wait.”
Afterword
Thank You!
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Thank you so much for reading, The Puck Charmer, book 7 in my Players on Ice. I hope you loved this story as much as I loved writing it. Keep reading for an excerpt of Single Dad Next Door, book one in my Single Dad Series.
* * *
Interested in leaving a review? Please do! Reviews help readers connect with books that work for them. I appreciate all reviews, whether positive or negative.
Happy Reading,
Cathryn
Single Dad Next Door
Rachel
When my bedroom door flies open and crashes hard against the paint-chipped wall, I groan. “Go away,” I say, my voice muffled by my pillow. Not that my roommates will listen, even if they can hear me. Heck, I could scream at the top of my lungs and it wouldn’t faze them, much less send them running back to their rooms—not when the view outside my window is that hot.
Seriously though, sharing a house with four college freshmen is not my idea of a good time, not when I’m a senior and working my ass off to get into law school. But when I left NYU two months before the start of my fourth year and transferred to Penn State at the last minute, this place was all I could find—and afford. Ultimately, Penn State is where I want to do my law degree after undergrad. I just ended up here sooner, rather than later.
Someone tugs at my pillow and I open one eye to see Becca hovering over me. “Come on, Rach, he just took his shirt off,” she says. “You’re going to want to see this.”
Why oh why did my room have to come with the best view of the hot neighbor’s driveway?
“Thank God for this heat wave.” Sylvie, roommate number two, fans her face with her hand.
I groan and curl up into the fetal position. I just want one more minute in bed without every member of the house in my room. “I. Don’t. Care.” Well, that might be a lie. I like looking at the eye candy next door as well as they do, but after putting in a late night at Pizza Villa—I seriously have to find a new job—I need all the sleep I can get before class.
“Jesus, would you look at him,” Becca says, her voice a breathy whisper as she peers out the window. “Talk about slurpalicious. I could seriously lick that from head to toe, and back up again.”
“Leave,” I say on a yawn.
Ignoring me, Sylvie squeals. “He’s going back into his garage. Damned if he doesn’t look as good going as he does coming.”
“But I’d rather see him…coming,” Becca says, and they start giggling.
“Seriously. Are you both twelve?”
“Shh, he’s back,” Becca says and swats her hand at me, like I’m an annoying fly that needs to be shooed away.
I shift on my bed, not to get a better look outside my window. No, moving has absolutely nothing at all to do with the shirtless mechanic turning my roommates into dim-witted moths. The only reason I’m getting up is to herd these girls from my room, and if I happen to get a glimpse of the hot, tattooed, badass daddy next door, well…then so be it.
I rub the blur from my eyes and toss my pillow at them. “Get away from my window, before he thinks it’s me.” They don’t need to know that the hottie’s bedroom window is also across from mine, and that late one night, he caught me staring into his room as he walked around in nothing but boxer shorts. Heck, if they knew that, they’d camp out for the rest of the school year, and that was so not happening.
“Ohmigod!” Sylvie leaps back. “I think he just saw me.” She puts her hand over her mouth and starts to giggle. Footsteps pound down the hall, announcing the arrival of my other two roommates. I shake my head as they come bursting in.
Kill. Me. Now.
“Is he out there?” Val asks, her big blue eyes wide and hopeful.
“Yeah, but he saw me looking,” Sylvie says. Despite that, she edges back around to sneak another look. Megan hurries across the room, and goes up on her toes to peer over Sylvie’s shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse without getting caught.
“Do you really think he killed someone?” Megan asks.
“That’s the rumor,” Val protests, though her tone holds uncertain convictions.
“Then why isn’t he in jail?”
“Maybe it was self-defense.”
“He’s such a badass.”
“He’s good with his little girl, though.”
“Bad Boy Daddy, now that’s hot.”
“Do you think he’d spank me if I was bad?”
Unable to put up with their incessant chatter and giggles any longer, I point my finger toward the door. “Out. Now.”
A chorus of grumbles ensues as they all sullenly walk to my door. Christ, I’m getting that lock fixed, even if I have to eat ramen noodles for the next month.
“God, you’re such a grouch in the morning.” Becca shoots me a wounded look over her shoulder.
“Doesn’t even have to be the morning,” Val adds with a hair toss.
“You need to get your nose out of a book once in a while,” Megan says.
“What she needs is to get laid,” Sylvie informs them all, but her solution to pretty much everything is sex. Problem is, this time Megan is nodding her head in sad agreement as she follows Sylvie out the door.
“I can hear you,” I shout after them. I shake my head and my mussed hair falls over my shoulders. “I’m still right here.” As I stand there, dressed only in my tank top and underwear, a warm breeze blows in and slides over my skin, a late reminder that I’d opened my window last night before crawling into bed exhausted. Great. Not only could the hot guy working on his car see my roommates drooling over him, he could hear them as well. And they just announced that I needed to get laid. How freaking mortifying. I stomp across the room and yell down the hall, “And don’t bother to close my door on your way out.” As usual my sarcasm is ignored.
I give the door a good slam, which helps improve my mood a little. With a deep breath, I turn around, not to see my hot neighbor, but to close my window. No way do I want him hearing anything else that goes on inside this place, or get the wrong idea that I might want him. I don’t. Not in a million years.
I’m completely off guys, trying to keep a low profile. After my ex-boyfriend turned violent and abusive, threatening to kill me if I went to the police, I snuck away under the cover of darkness and put several states between us. He was big and hard like my neighbor, his muscles born from rough carpentry work. Last year, when he came to do repairs on the house I was sharing with friends, I was flattered that I was the object of his attention. At first he was doting and attentive, but as time went by, he became possessive and controlling. I came to find out later, he’d had other charges against him from numerous other women.
Jesus, why am I such a bad judge of character when it comes to men. Oh, probably because my only role model had been a mean-assed, alcoholic father who drove my beautiful, caring mom to an early grave and me out of the house the second I turned eighteen.
If I try hard enough I can still smell the cheap perfume on his shirt when he stumbled in after a weekend-long drinking binge. God, how I hated those women he slept around with almost as much as I hated my Dad. Mom used to try to protect me from his disgusting behavior, but what hurt the most was how he dragged Mom down, aging her pretty face far too early.
My heart squeezes as I think about her. She was a good woman, but was too afraid to leave. Running is hard. I get that now. Not that she really had anywhere to run. Our only other relative was my father’s mother. She’s still alive, living in upstate Pennsylvania where my Dad was born. While she liked me well enough, when it came to Mom and Dad, she always took Dad’s side. That’s how it is with parents, I guess.
I lift my arms, place my hands on the frame, and lean in to give it a tug when the hottie slowly lifts his head. Our eyes meet, hold a moment too long, and I suck in a quick breath as heat zings through me—and dammit, it’s not the autumn sun that has warmth pooling betw
een my legs.
OMFG.
With a wrench clasped tightly in his right hand he stares at me, like we’re in a goddamn Mexican standoff. I swallow hard, and will myself to move, but can’t seem to tear my gaze away. Ah, what was that I said about dim-witted moths?
Close the window, Rachel.
While my brain struggles to call the shots, my body has other ideas. Ideas that involve staying exactly where I am and ogling the hottest guy I’d ever seen. Blue eyes, square jaw, a body I could play Plinko on, and low riding, well-worn jeans that accentuate bulges in all the right places, and holy hell, the man has a lot of right places. Want prowls through me, hitting every erogenous spot along the way.
Just shut the window already.
He shifts his stance and taps the wrench against his leg as he looks up at me. A small grin touches his mouth, and that’s when I realize I’m half naked. Please, ground, open up and swallow me. After hearing the girls, he probably thinks I’m trying to lure him to my room, fix that dry spell I’ve been going through. I grip the window ledge tighter and slam it down, putting the brakes on my body’s reaction, and shutting out six delicious feet of hard muscle and pure testosterone. This is so not what I need right now. Coffee. Yeah, that’s what I need. Lots and lots of coffee.
I hurry to the kitchen and shove a pod into the Keurig. I pour milk into a cup and set it on the spill tray. As I wait for the coffee to percolate, I wander into the main level bathroom and glance in the mirror. I look at myself and try to imagine how I appeared through the blue-eyed mechanic’s eyes. I see black smudges under tired eyes, boobs that only look big because I’m slender from work, school and lack of proper nutrition and rest. My hair is…wait… I grab a fistful of my curls and examine them closer. Oh, God, pizza sauce.
Could this day get any worse?
Christ, even if he did hear my roommates, I’m sure he’d never look twice at a girl like me—especially the way I look now. A guy like him probably goes out with women who are a little more put together, sexier. Although I have to say in the two months I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen a woman come or go from his place. Still, I’m certain a girl next door who always smells like marinara sauce and pepperoni isn’t even on his radar.
Good, because I don’t want to be.
The coffee machine beeps and I hurry back to the kitchen. I grab the mug to take a big sip. Heavenly. Desperate for a shower, to wash last night’s work from my hair, I hurry back upstairs to my room, hot mug of coffee in hand. I check the time and grab my clothes. Giggles come from Sylvie’s room across the hall as I dash into the bathroom. I turn the shower to cool, partly because it’s just so hot in the house, and partly because I need to calm my overheated body down. I might be off men, especially big, scary ones like my neighbor, but my body and brain aren’t working in sync this morning. Clearly my libido didn’t get the memo when I left New York.
I stay under the needle-like spray longer than normal, needing an extra minute to clear my head. When the water turns cooler, I jump out, dry off, and pull on a pair of shorts and T-shirt. I towel dry my hair, then tie it back into a ponytail. I forgo makeup. Not only will it melt off my face, I’m not trying to impress anyone or draw any kind of attention to myself. Once done, I grab my purse, shove my textbooks into my backpack, and head for the front door, feeling a little more alive after the coffee.
The hot morning air hits like a slap in the face and I groan. It’s October for God’s sake. It’s supposed to be time for pumpkin spiced lattes. This is more like beach weather. Mother nature needs to get her shit together. I glance at my watch, and judging by the time—thanks to an extra-long shower—I need to get my shit together, too. This morning I’ll have to take my car to school, or risk being late for class. The walk to campus is long, around forty-five minutes, but I prefer it on days like today. I need to save my gas money for the colder winter months.
Since my driveway runs parallel to my neighbor’s, I keep my head down, toss my backpack into the back seat and climb into the driver’s side. Thank God the hottie is out of sight and I don’t have to go through the embarrassment of facing him.
I roll my window down and shove the key into the ignition. I turn it, only for the engine to make some god-awful sound and stall out. My heart races quicker. Shit. Shit. Shit. Frustrated, I give the steering wheel a thump with my fist. This can’t be happening. I need this car. Need to be able to depend on it if I have to run again. It might be an old junker, but it’s all I have. I can’t afford a new one. Heck, I’m on such a tight budget, I can’t even afford to have this one fixed.
I take a deep breath, throw up a silent prayer, and twist the key again, only for it to cough and gasp, like it’s dying a slow and painful death.
No. No. No
A tap comes on the roof, and I turn to see my hot—shirtless—neighbor with his arms braced over the door of my car. He leans down, his beautiful face close to mine. “Need a hand?”
“I…uh...it’s not working.”
Jeez, way to state the obvious.
He grins, and when I see a cute dimple that contrasts sharply with his chiseled face, I nearly swallow my tongue.
“Yeah, I kind of got that, you know, being a mechanic and all.” As he gives off a bad-boy vibe that messes with my common sense, he grabs a cloth from his back pocket, and wipes his hands before leaning into the car, his head practically in my lap.
Holy fuck!
It takes everything, and I mean everything, in me not to grab the back of his head and shove it between my legs. My sex practically quivers at the visual. The girls were right. I do need to get laid. I bite the inside of my cheek to stifle the moan rising in my throat.
“What…what are you doing?” I finally manage to ask, and will myself not to writhe restlessly, and show him what a needy girl I really am.
He pulls the hood release, and the front end of my car jumps. His head lifts and once again his face is close to mine. “Popping the hood.” He angles his head, and his eyes narrow. “What did you think I was doing?”
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you were taking this opportunity to go down on me.
“Popping the hood,” I say quickly, and try not to think of sex. Dirty sex. Take-me-up-against-the-wall kind of sex. Not that I know anything about that. Sadly.
His laugh is rough and deep as he walks around to the front of the car, and I unbuckle quickly. My legs wobble as I climb out of the driver’s seat and follow him. He’s grinning when I reach him.
“What?” I ask, my voice raspy.
He touches my cracked windshield washer cap, which I happened to repair all by myself. “Duct tape?” he asks, his voice amused.
“Tools of the trade, right,” I say and try not to sound as breathless as I feel. A difficult task considering I’m standing next to a half-naked man that I want to run my hands all over. I mean I’ve seen shirtless guys before, but come on. This guy is like a freaking viking. He leans forward to fiddle with something, and the movement shows off impressive bicep muscles. I break a sweat as his closeness sends shudders of need between my thighs. Honest to God, the man is a work of art, and all I can think of is no-strings sex—something I’ve never done before. But that’s crazy and reckless and so not me. Truthfully, if I knew what was good for me, I’d slam the hood shut and run in the opposite direction.
I’m about to do just that when he says, “Uh, huh.”
“Is…is there something wrong?” Is that my voice? Christ, I sound like I’m whacked out on painkillers.
For God’s sake, get it together, girl.
He rubs the scruff on his chin, and I step back, needing a measure of distance before I actually reach out and run my hands over all his hard grooves and deep valleys.
“Plenty,” he says again and checks something else. I have no clue what he’s doing. I only know that he looks as hot as hell doing it. As he leans over my car, my gaze slides to his ass, committing the way his pants cup his cheeks to memory. The guy could be in a jeans commercial, or bett
er yet, a Calvin Klein underwear ad. I’m a girl, but advertising like that would have me one-clicking the buy button.
My heart hammers as he stands again. He turns toward me, but I’m far too slow to react. His eyes are piercing, almost a deeper shade of blue when my gaze jerks to his, and I can’t tell whether he’s thrilled or pissed to find me checking him out.
I step closer and look over the engine. “So, what is it?” I ask, disgusted with myself. I should not be fantasizing over this man.
He clears his throat. “I think the first thing we need to do is replace the spark plugs,” he answers, his voice a little hoarse.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” I say, my head bobbing in agreement.
That grin is back when I look at him. “You know something about cars?”
I shrug. “Sure…and duck tape.”
He laughs and says, “It’s not…” he shakes his head. “Never mind. So, you agree then, that something’s not firing right?”
Firing? Oh, things were firing all right, and lighting up my body like a goddamn Fourth of July celebration.
Damn him.
Damn Mother Nature.
Damn dim-witted moths.
Also by Cathryn Fox
Single Dad
Single Dad Next Door
Single Dad on Tap
* * *
Players on Ice
The Playmaker
The Stick Handler
The Body Checker
The Hard Hitter
The Risk Taker
The Wing Man
The Puck Charmer
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In the Line of Duty
His Obsession Next Door
His Strings to Pull
His Trouble in Talulah