Page 19 of Sexy Bad Neighbor

CHAPTER SIX

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?”

---