Noise: A Forbidden Flowers Story

by Lynne, Donya

  “What did you just say?” she snapped at him, wrangling her traitorous libido into submission. It was better to assume he was being a prick than to consider the possibility that he was saying something nice.

  More laughter as he pulled his shirt over his head and tugged it down. “I was thanking God for giving me such a fun neighbor.”

  “Fun? Honey, I don’t think you’ve been paying attention.” She started back down the steps toward the pond.

  Ry jogged after her. “Come on, have dinner with me.” His accent wasn’t overpowering, but there was just enough of one that she knew he or his family had moved here from another country where they spoke that sexy language he’d thrown at her a moment ago.

  “No.” Talented tongue or not, there was no way she was going out with her neighbor. That was almost as bad as dating one of her employees and reeked of a bad idea.

  “I promise to be a perfect gentleman.”

  At least he hadn’t said he could commit. That would have been a major disappointment. And, no, she didn’t want to stop to examine her reasons for feeling that way.

  “Not interested,” she called over her shoulder.

  Although . . . it was flattering that such a fine man was chasing her. It wasn’t every day that hot jocks threw themselves at her and begged her to go out with them. It made for a nice stroke to her ego.

  She heard his footsteps stop. “Tulouna lo’u loto! You’re breaking my heart, fafine!”

  She didn’t know what fafine meant, but considering how he’d used it, it must have been a term of endearment.

  “That’s better than breaking your balls,” she yelled back with a flippant wave over her shoulder. “Which is what will happen if you turn your damn music up again, Noise, so keep it the hell down!”

  His resulting laughter was so full and joyous that she knew if she turned around, she would find that he’d thrown back his head and was laughing up to the heavens.

  Looked like he really did think she was fun.

  Grinning to herself, she put an extra twitch in her hips, letting those skeleton hands on her ass sway side to side with a bit more zeal, feeling his eyes on her.

  She walked the rest of the way home under a sun that felt a little bit brighter and a sky that was a clearer shade of blue.

  Why didn’t she think she’d heard the last from her new neighbor? And why was she already looking forward to their next encounter?

  Chapter Three

  A few evenings later, Taylor was sitting on her patio, sipping a glass of juiced apple and cucumber, watching the ducks with their ducklings paddle around in the pond, bobbing their heads under the water every now and then, when who should come jogging along the path?

  Noise.

  He was wearing bright-blue running shorts, a white cotton tank top, and shoes the size of cinder blocks. The muscles in his body rippled with every long stride of his powerful legs. His full chest was covered in so much sweat that the fabric of this shirt stuck to it like a second skin. And he had his long, gorgeous hair pulled back in yet another man bun, showing off his chiseled jaw, sinewy neck, and striated shoulders.

  The man was a visual feast.

  As he rounded the bend, he looked up and caught her staring. She quickly looked away, but it was too late. They’d made eye contact, and that was as good as an invitation.

  Stopping, he flashed a smile that was way too sexy for an already unseasonably hot and humid day and gazed up the shallow incline of her yard to where she was seated. He plucked a pair of earbuds from his ears and held them up. “I took your advice.”

  “How thrilling for you,” she said cattily, making his smile grow wider.

  He hesitated for only a moment, then said, “So, how about that dinner?”

  “I already told you. I’m not having dinner with you.”

  “Come on, it’ll be fun.” That smile could melt panties.

  She crossed her legs to quiet down her girl parts. “You never quit, do you?”

  “Nope.”

  She resisted the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth and looked away as nonchalantly as she could. “Then you’d better get used to rejection, Noise, because this”—she pointed back and forth between them—“is never going to happen.”

  “Never say never.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “Hope is all I am . . . Taylor.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Am I supposed to be impressed that you asked around to find out my name?”

  “No.”

  “Good, because I’m not.” She was. She so was. “Stalking is illegal, you know.”

  He chuckled in a way that said he was having way more fun than he had thought he would when he moved into this neighborhood. Then he glanced down the path that led away from her house before looking back up at her. “Later tonight, I’m going to this pizza place one of my teammates recommended. He lives up here and says it’s the best. Do you like pizza?”

  “No.” Yes, she did.

  She didn’t eat pizza often, but when she did, she ate the best, so she was pretty sure she knew what pizza joint he was talking about. A place called Zazzy’s.

  “How about pasta?”

  She struggled not to smile. “Nope.”

  “Salad?”

  She almost laughed but choked it down. “Give it up, Noise. This”—she waved up and down in front of her body—“is like a locked vault. You’re never going to get inside it.”

  Why had that come out sounding more like she was flirting than laying down the law?

  “Hey, I’m just talking about dinner here,” he said casually, squinting toward the western sky as he twirled his earbuds between his thumbs and forefingers.

  “I’m not hungry.” Her stomach growled as she said it. Good thing he wasn’t close enough to hear.

  “Then you can come along and watch me eat.”

  “Oh, now that sounds like fun. I’m sure that would be the highlight of my week.”

  He rolled his lips together, eyeing her like he still had a chance. “Or you could just keep me entertained with your witty banter.” He revealed perfect white teeth as he grinned.

  Smart-ass. Witty banter, her ass. He was just trying to bait her. It wasn’t going to work.

  “I’m good. You go on without me.” She waved her hand in a shooing motion.

  To be honest, she was impressed he hadn’t given up on her. Hell, she was surprised he’d asked her to go out with him in the first place. Her tattoos and multihued hair kept most men at bay from the get-go. But of those courageous enough to ask her out, she scared away all but a small percentage with one lethal rejection. The only reason Nate from work hadn’t given up was because he knew she was actually a really nice person with a huge heart. Ryker? He didn’t know her from the next girl, and yet, here he was, not backing down an inch.

  “You sure?” he asked, raising his eyebrows in a way that said he was just toying with her now.

  Sighing, she drummed her fingers in the condensation on the side of her glass. “You might as well stop asking me to dinner, Noise. Like I already said, it’s never going to happen.”

  Wearing a self-confident grin laced with amusement, he winked at her—actually winked—and stuffed his earbuds back in his ears. “We’ll see.”

  With that, he jogged away, continuing his workout.

  Her gaze followed him until he was so far down the path that he was nothing but a bouncing white tank top and blue shorts.

  What an infuriating man.

  And yet . . . she was smiling like she’d just signed the contract for another billion-dollar payday from Amazon.

  Chapter Four

  Three days later, Taylor went for a power walk around the pond before heading into the office. She usually walked in the afternoons or evenings, but the days were getting hotter, which meant mornings were a better time to get her walks in if she didn’t want to melt from the humidity.

  She was on her second lap when steady, heavy footfalls approached
from behind.

  “Good morning,” Noise said, jogging up beside her before slowing to match her pace.

  “What are you doing up this early?” Of all the people she had expected to see during her walk, Noise hadn’t been one of them.

  “I’m always up this early.”

  She frowned at him. “Then why do you always jog in the afternoon?”

  He squinted against the rising sun as it hovered just above the eastern horizon. “You’ve been watching me, haven’t you?” He glanced down at her, out of breath from running. “Looking for me, maybe?”

  She rolled her eyes, picking up her pace. “Oh, look, Ryker Ruta has an ego. Shocker.”

  He laughed. “You know my full name and my workout schedule. I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “You’ve been researching me on the internet, haven’t you?”

  Could he be any more self-centered? “You really are full of yourself.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She stopped abruptly. He jogged a couple more steps before pulling up and turning around, plopping his meaty fists on his hips as he caught his breath and rivulets of sweat poured down the center of his neck to the hollow dip between his collarbones.

  “Let’s get a couple of things straight,” she said. “First of all, I don’t have to look you up on the internet to know who you are. All I have to do is turn on the news, and—ta-da!—there you are. You’ve been all that the local sportscasters have been able to talk about for days. The only way I wouldn’t know your full name by now is if I lived under a rock or had the memory recall of a gnat. Secondly, I don’t know your workout schedule. I don’t sit at my window like a lovesick adolescent waiting for you to grace my lucky vision with your presence and then, like a stalker, run off to log on a spreadsheet when and where I saw you. I only know when you go for a jog because I’m usually sitting outside in the evenings, and I usually see you jog by. And no, I’m not looking for you. You’re just really hard to miss with that heavy clomping and”—she gave him an exaggerated up and down glance, as if to say he should know his towering height was the other reason why he stood out like a boil on a baby’s ass—“because only a blind man wouldn’t see you coming.”

  “You’re not a blind man,” he said, giving her an appreciative once-over of his own. “So, you can watch me coming all you want.”

  She crossed her arms. “Is that supposed to be clever? A witty attempt at a double entendre?”

  But for all her false bravado, she couldn’t stop her imagination from picturing him on top of her doing just that: coming. What did Ryker Ruta’s O-face look like?

  He stared at her for a long moment, his brow knitting with confusion. Then what appeared to be realization lit up his face as he threw back his head and laughed.

  Flustered by his undeniably attractive masculinity and surprisingly buoyant laughter, she started walking again.

  “Wait . . . hey, wait!” He caught up to her again. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  “Oh, really?” She tried to pretend she didn’t believe him, but he sounded far too sincere to be lying.

  “Honest.” He crossed his finger over his chest like he was taking a vow. “I was just throwing your words back at you. I didn’t mean . . . I wasn’t trying to imply anything inappropriate. I wasn’t being lewd.”

  Okay, so Noise could be charming. And he was exceptionally easy on the eyes. And he probably knew how to work that big bull of a body in bed well enough to at least make her moan.

  “Although . . .” he said a moment later, drawing the word out.

  She gasped, feigning being appalled, and punched him on his meaty biceps. Hard.

  “Ow!” He laughed, cringing, and cradled his arm, angling his body away from her to shield himself.

  She lifted her chin and walked faster. “You’re an animal.”

  He kept up. “And you’re the snare who’s trapped me.”

  “Oh, now there’s a line if I’ve ever heard one.”

  He leaned in and nudged her arm with his elbow. “Admit it, you like me, even if only a little bit.”

  “Wrong.” Right! “Try again.”

  Unfazed, as if he knew he’d hit the mark, he sidled up even closer and lowered his voice as if they were in a room full of people and he didn’t want anyone else to hear what he was about to say. “I think you do look for me. Maybe that’s not the reason why you sit outside every night. I believe you genuinely enjoy sitting outside in the evenings and would still do so even if I did only jog in the mornings. But I think you keep an eye out for me, hoping I’ll come by.”

  Maybe he was right, maybe he wasn’t. But if she were forced to wager a bet on herself, she’d go with the former.

  “You wish that were true,” she said, scoffing, “because you want me looking for you, don’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  God, this man was an island of himself. “Don’t you need to get back to your run, Noise?”

  “Have dinner with me.”

  “Are you ever going to give it a rest?” She hoped not, because she was starting to have too much fun with this man to want it all to end.

  “Nope.” He marched alongside her, taking one stride for every two of hers. “So why put it off any longer? End the agony for both of us. Let me take you to dinner, and I’ll never ask you out again.”

  She didn’t answer him, mostly because she no longer wanted to tell him no. But she was still having too much fun playing hard to get.

  “Come on, I’m not such a bad guy once you get to know me.” He broke into a jog without waiting for an answer. “Who knows, you might actually like me,” he called over his shoulder as the distance grew between them.

  She held back the smile trying to pull at the corners of her mouth. “Don’t hold our breath,” she yelled at his very fine, very ripped backside.

  But she already knew the truth. Maybe not tonight, and maybe not tomorrow—maybe not even in the next week—but at some point, she was going to go out with that man.

  She and Noise were on a collision course, and there was no avoiding it.

  Chapter Five

  That night, after a long day battling shipping delays and production problems that kept her at the office until after seven o’clock, Taylor relaxed on her patio in front of the firepit, nursing a very expensive beer.

  It had been that kind of day. One that required something a little more barbaric than wine, but not as destructive as hard liquor.

  Her feet were propped up and her head tipped back so she could gaze up at the first stars shimmering in the night sky as the orange ribbon of sunlight on the horizon grew smaller.

  A familiar voice broke through the chorus of frogs singing their nightly mating call from the pond. “You hungry?”

  She brought her gaze down from the sky as Noise approached from the shadows, carrying a large takeout bag from the barbecue joint down the street in one hand and choking the necks of two Heinekens between the fingers of the other.

  Barbecue. She hadn’t eaten barbecue in months.

  “Starving,” she said, sitting up and reaching for the bag.

  She hadn’t eaten dinner and had been considering just having a bowl of cereal, but the scent of smoked pork and baked beans lanced her straight through the stomach, reminding her of weekends when she was a kid. Weekend barbecues were some of the few good memories she had of her childhood.

  He looked at her like she’d morphed into a serpent. “What? No snarky retort? You’re not going to tell me to get lost or—?”

  “I’m too tired and hungry for snark tonight.” She took the bag and set it on the small concrete ledge surrounding the firepit, then gestured toward the empty chair beside her. “Have a seat.”

  He stepped slowly around her chair while watching her out of the corner of his eye. As he lowered his mammoth figure into the cushioned chair, he said, “Okay, where’s Taylor and what have you done with her?”

  “Taylor’s right her
e, and she had a long day, so let’s call a truce for the night and break bread before she changes her mind, okay?” She broke a small piece of corn bread in half and handed him half before shoving hers into her mouth. While she chewed, she pulled bundles of warm, wrapped food from the bag and set them on the ledge.

  He held one of the Heinekens toward her, but she raised the bottle she was still nursing and chucked her chin down at the ice bucket sitting between their chairs as she swallowed. “You can put mine in there.”

  They divvied up the rest of the food, plastic utensils, napkins, and wet wipes in silence, mostly because Taylor was too worn out to talk and didn’t know quite what to say to him with the veil of animosity temporarily in time-out.

  To her surprise, he stopped to say a quick prayer before digging in. After growing up in a house where you couldn’t even take a dump without someone praying over you, Taylor couldn’t bring herself to join him.

  “Let the feast begin,” he said, rubbing his hands together after murmuring a quiet “Amen.”

  “Amen,” she said more sacrilegiously, lifting a piled-high shredded pork sandwich oozing with thick, tangy sauce to her mouth.

  Other than a quartet of sandwiches, there were two grease-dappled paper bags stuffed with sweet potato fries, two small buckets of slaw, two containers of baked beans, and what was left of a basket of corn bread squares.

  It was enough to feed an army . . . or just Ryker . . . with a little left over for her.

  He took a long draw from his Heineken, then set the bottle on the ledge as he studied his sandwich for his next bite. “So, tell me about this day you had that took away your will to verbally spank my ass.” Sauce dripped down his fingers as he chomped off almost a quarter of the sandwich in one go.

  “Work just kicked my butt today, that’s all.”

  “I know the feeling,” he said around a cheek full of barbecued pork sandwich while using his wrist to push back his hair so he could show her a trio of clear Band-Aids covering a laceration just above his temple, right at the hairline.