Josie burst into laughter. “Heavens no. Hunter is family. I’m staying with him for a few weeks while my place is renovated.” She looked around at the piles of stuff. “I hate to leave you with all this, but I’ve gotta go.”
“Of course. Thanks for all you did.”
“No problem,” she said on her way to the door. “I’m manning my booth at a street fair this weekend, but I’ll check back on Monday and see how I can help. I moved from New York this time last year and know firsthand that moving is a bitch.” With a wave, she rushed out.
HE DIDN’T STORM INSIDE, but he may as well have the way the door slammed with a bang. It was unintentional, but the long, narrow courtyard acted like a breezeway, and the windwhipped it shut if he wasn’t careful. And Tristan wasn’t careful. His mind was too focused on the blonde moving in next door.
No surprise, he’d been rude to her. Having just come off a mission with Rossi, he hadn’t slept for thirty-two hours, only to come home to find someone parked in his spot. And to make matters worse, he had to trek through the scorching parking lot in ninety-plus degree heat. He was ready to chew the owner a new asshole.
Discovering it was his new neighbor, a gorgeous woman with plump, cotton-candy pink lips, a dimple in one cheek when she smiled, and a round ass atop long shapely legs, fueled his fury more. She was just his type, except for one glaring flaw: She was too damn sweet. The swishing of her ponytail as she walked, her gushing apologies, the flash of that infuriating dimple when she beamed up at him, her cutesy yellow car, and, most notably, her feeble curse word—who the fuck said “fiddlesticks” in this century?—were all dead giveaways.
Being around her for barely a half hour, he could tell Piper Emory was sunshine and rainbows. In contrast, he was a perpetually cloudy day, with an ever-present threat of thunderstorms, considering the foul mood he’d been in lately. Another thing he was—hard as fuck after seeing her in those ass-hugging shorts as she struggled to haul her crap up the stairs, bent at the waist to get something out of a box, and climbing the stepladder in the kitchen to put something away on the top shelf. His cock didn’t seem to care they were as different as daylight and darkness, but his brain shoutedback off.
As tempting as it was, Tristan didn’t do sweet. And he didn’t do long-term, which sweet usually demanded. During his fourteen-year tenure with the Army, twelve of that in the special forces, deployed to the Middle East more often than not, he’d seen too much messed-up shit to do sweet. The war, pain, andloss, not to mention the havoc wreaked on the innocents who were too often impacted, hardened him.
Collateral damage, SOCOM called it.
“I call it bullshit,” he declared to his four walls.
That “damage” was somebody’s parent, sibling, or child. More times than he wanted to think about, it was a teammate and friend that had to be medevacked out. Once, it was him. At least he made it out alive. Not everyone did. Maybe if he had done things differently...
He shook his head to break free of the memories taking hold and the regrets. Survivor’s guilt, they called it. The military seemed to have a name or acronym for all the bad shit that went down.
With a grunt of disgust, he threw more than tossed his keys onto the kitchen counter. They skidded along the surface and dropped somewhere out of sight. He didn’t care where at the moment. He had enough energy to shower and collapse into bed—nothing more.
Five minutes later, as long as a shower took since he’d given up on his inherited receding hairline and started shaving his head years ago, he collapsed into bed. With a sigh heavy from fatigue, Tristan closed his eyes.
Instead of sleep, images of a swaying ponytail above the sweetest ass he’d ever seen filled his head. She was tall, around 5’9”. The top of her head reached his chin, which he liked. There were benefits to a petite woman, but reaching her lips or hearing what she said on the noisy main floor of the club without getting a crick in his neck was more appealing. At 6’4”, he was tired of twisting himself into knots to look a woman in the eye.
He wouldn’t have to do any of that with Piper.
In a burst of energy, he rolled onto his side and punched his pillow. “Her name is Piper. Hell. Can you get any sweeter than that?”
He refused to dim her sunshine with his storm clouds. She’d run screaming for safety if he even hinted at the dark and twisted ideas his brain could conjure. One lewd thought led to another, of Piper naked and bound in his ropes. In a side suspension with her legs spread and a wand buzzing away at her clit while he sank into the sweetness of her mouth. Or, in a cocoon tie, knees to chest, wrists crossed behind her back, in a cozy little ball dangling at waist height with that glorious ass exposed for him to squeeze and hang onto as he fucked her.
With a frustrated growl, he flopped onto his back and stared at the ceiling. He would keep his distance. Living side by side with an adjacent upper balcony and a shared courtyard, it would be hard to avoid her entirely. He’d continue as he started—rude and antisocial. They were both better off with her thinking him a dick.
Chapter 3
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By midafternoon the following day, Piper had unpacked almost all her boxes. She had them broken down flat and ready to be hauled to the recycling bins. There were three suitcases and an overnight bag to sort, including arranging everything she’d just dumped on the counter in her bathroom, but her progress stopped at the distracting growling of her stomach. She’d DoorDashed her last two meals with protein bars to snack on in between, but she couldn’t stand the thought of more takeout or another less-than-satisfying chemical-infused, weird-tasting bar. Neither could Jaxx, considering how he sniffed it then meowed and slinked away. Since, like Old Mother Hubbard, her cupboards were completely bare, she grabbed her purse and headed to the nearest grocery store.
Piper picked up essential items like butter, ketchup, salt and pepper, and ice cream, which she firmly believed should be a food group unto itself. She also bought enough salad fixings and grilled chicken to last a few days and two cans of Fancy Feast for her finicky roommate. She didn’t always give him wet food, which was his preference, only as a treat. But after moving twice in less than a year, she felt she needed to make it up to him. These few items added up quickly, as did the fill-up on her car, leaving her bank account much lighter when she arrived home.