Pretty Daring Read online

  That made me laugh. “You let me knee you in the balls? Kinky,” I said with a wink.

  “I didn’t expect you to go for the money shot, so you caught me off guard, but only because I was intentionally trying not to hurt you. If you’d been a man, that would have gone a lot differently.”

  I mock glared. “That’s sexist of you.” Like I cared. Five seconds ago I was having all sorts of sexist thoughts about his apartment. Still, riling him up was fun, so I ignored the hypocrisy.

  “Trust me, precious, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  He smirked but it wasn’t a charming one. It was more along the lines of an evil smirk, but all it did was make me laugh.

  “Are you going to kiss your biceps now? Maybe flex a little to show off those big muscles, prove how macho you are?”

  His smirk fell and a feral-sounding groan tore from his throat. It sounded dangerous in all the wrong ways. Like, I think it was meant to sound menacing and instill fear. All it did was conjure up images of him tying me to his bed and showing me exactly how powerful those muscles were. My eyes even flitted in the direction of the bedroom. His layout was exactly the same as mine, so I knew where it was. His smirk reappeared, like he knew what I was thinking. It sent another wave of heat through my veins, similar to the one in the hallway though not nearly as intense. Thank God.

  Inwardly, I chastised my vagina for being such a hussy. Me? I was totally calm and together and handling all the sex appeal he was exuding like a pro. But the girl downstairs? She was a hot mess.

  “So what do you have to drink?” I asked while helping myself to the fridge. Personal boundaries were a blurry line for me to begin with, but my unexplainable urge to be near… “Hey! What’s your name?” I would have been happy to just refer to him as Hot Guy, but if he wound up being some sort of rapist or something, I probably needed more information for the police. Hard to imagine him needing to force himself on any woman though. I practically started panting every time I looked at him.

  Not that I’d let him see how much he affected me. He already struck me as a fairly cocky guy, and I didn’t want to contribute to an inflated ego.

  I popped the top on two beer bottles and handed him one. He looked at it for a second before accepting. We clinked the bottom of our bottles together in cheers. Or I clinked his and he looked at me like I was nuts, same diff.

  “Chris,” he finally answered. “But my friends call me CJ.”

  “Awww, we’re friends?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. Not a fan of sarcasm… noted.

  “Well, friend CJ, my name is Blake. Friends call me Hotness.”

  His lips twitched, like he was fighting a smile. Or it could have been a figment of my imagination born out of wishful thinking. Whatever. Still counted as a win.

  A knock sounded at the door, and even though it wasn’t my apartment, I bounded over to answer it anyway.

  “Mmmmm, smells yummy,” I said as way of greeting the pizza guy. Then I aimed a serious look at him before saying, “You didn’t eat any of his sausage, did you? It will come out of your tip if you did. Big guy back here loves his sausage, could eat sausage all day if I let him.”

  Pizza guy gulped loudly. I envisioned CJ rolling his eyes behind me, though I doubted CJ was the type to pull out an eye roll. It was more plausible that he was standing being me all boring and serious and irritable.

  “You use plates or just eat out of the box?” I asked after closing the door behind pizza dude. “I prefer eating out of the box because I loathe washing dishes, but if you’re too classy for that, we can grab some plates. From your kitchen,” I clarified. “Because again, I don’t wash dishes.”

  CJ’s didn’t respond. He just looked at me like I was an escaped animal from the zoo. I shook my head. So rude. I’m a person.

  I honestly expected to wind up eating alone while he stood there glowering at me with his arms crossed so it surprised me when after a few seconds he tentatively moved to join me on his couch. I had to bite my lip to keep from making a comment on how he’d put as much distance as possible between us when he pushed himself up against the arm of the couch as tightly as possible. But his joining me was progress, and I wasn’t about to undo it by teasing him.

  Yet.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CJ

  “No doubt exists that all women are crazy; it’s only a question of degree.”

  - WC Fields

  I had a new neighbor.

  I’d known that already, but with the crazy hours I’d been logging at the office, I had yet to run into them.

  Now I wished I hadn’t.

  Lots of crazy shit goes down in the city. Seeing someone in a clown wig, wearing nothing but a banana hammock and pasties over their nipples wouldn’t even be enough to make me do a double take most days.

  Though to be fair, people dressed up in freaky shit every day of the week here, but it wasn't every day that a woman attacked me, unprovoked, and took a shot to my testicles hard enough that I worried they’d reascended. Even now, as the crazy woman who’d barged into my apartment helped herself to every nook and cranny of my privacy, my balls still ached.

  If any of the guys had been witness to the last twenty minutes, I’d never live it down. My job might be dangerous at times, but I'd never frozen up. Never wavered or hesitated. My years serving in the military had taught me how precious a few seconds were during a crisis. But this tiny woman shoveling pizza in her mouth while flipping through the channels on my TV wasn’t a scenario I was equipped to handle.

  For the first time in my adult life, I had no idea what the hell I should do.

  “Listen, Blanch.”

  “Blake.”

  “Sure,” I waved her off. She didn’t act put out that I’d gotten her name wrong (on purpose) or brushed off her correction. “Tell me the name of your doctor, and I’ll have him come get you.”

  It was a dick thing to say, but I'd hoped insulting her would motivate her to get the hell out. Of course, I'd need to elaborate for her to understand the veiled insult. She was supposed to be confused and ask what I was talking about. Then I would explain that I assumed she'd escaped from the mental ward of a nearby hospital and all her crazy ass friends were probably missing her.

  Instead, she reacted like we were having a normal conversation.

  “Oh, they gave up trying to keep me restrained a long time ago. I’m practically a Houdini with a straight jacket. Pretty sure if you call my doctor, he won’t answer. I think he moved to a remote island and assumed a new identity after the last time I escaped.”

  I blinked. Then blinked again.

  “It was a joke,” she said slowly. Like I was a dumbass. I knew she was joking. Sort of. Okay, mostly I hoped she was joking.

  Her eyes narrowed on my lap. My dick twitched in my pants.

  “You always carry a gun around with you?”

  The question sounded like an innuendo and my dick twitched in response. But then her gaze slowly traveled down my leg, stopping at my ankle where my actual gun was holstered. Except it was hidden, so I wasn’t sure how she knew it was there.

  She must have seen the confusion on my face, because she nodded and explained. “I felt it when I was kicking your ass out in the hallway."

  "You were not kicking my ass."

  "I so was. But anyway, I was looking to see if you had another on you somewhere. You a cop or something?”

  “Or something,” I answered vaguely.

  “Do you only carry a gun on your ankle? Is that common? Only having an ankle gun? I didn’t think regular people did that, only like, cops or assassins or something.”

  "You see a lot of assassins walking around?"

  She shrugged.

  "How do you know they're assassins? Do they wear name badges with their job title on them?"

  Her eyes narrowed. "No, smartass. They have sniper rifles or automatic machine guns strapped to their back. Duh."

  My lips twitched with the unfamiliar desire to smile
. The last thing I needed was for this crazy woman to find out I found her mildly amusing. I'd never get rid of her.

  “Lots of people with a concealed carry wear them on their ankles," I answered seriously. "Easier to hide without having to wear a jacket.”

  She bobbed her head like she was mulling it over. “Do a lot of people walk around with guns strapped to them somewhere on their body? That’s kinda scary.”

  I shrugged. “In my experience, the people who use guns for crime generally don’t have a license or a registered weapon. The ones who take the time to get their information in the system so they can legally carry a weapon aren’t the ones you should be afraid of.”

  Shut the hell up, CJ. Quit adding to the conversation and making her feel welcome. The point is to get her out of the apartment, not sit around and shoot the shit.

  “Do you have one of those shoulder holsters?”

  I almost laughed. Almost. “No. I have no immediate plans of whipping out my pistol in a Mexican standoff.”

  She narrowed her eyes again. “That’s not the only time people wear those. You’re making fun of me.”

  For a second I thought she might actually be offended, but then she smiled widely. Her cheeks puffed out and she had sauce on her teeth as she chewed a giant bite of pizza. She even had a bit of sauce on the right corner of her mouth. It should have been repulsive. Yet all I wanted was to kiss her. Despite being ten shades of crazy, a barrel full of overbearing and a hot mess in her wrinkled tank top and worn out jeans, she was easily the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on.

  Her bright red hair would have looked ridiculous on most people, but it worked for her. Pulled back into a high ponytail, it showed off the creamy skin of her slender neck and shoulders. Her shirt practically molded to her body, hugging a set of perky breasts that would fit in my hands perfectly. While was distracted with her food and some infomercial on the television, I took in her pert little nose, pouty lips and big, round eyes. Her features were delicate, and with her finally sitting still, I noticed just how tiny she was.

  If her personality hadn’t been so damn infuriating, I might have kissed her right then, even with her mouth full of food.

  My severe and sudden desire to put my hands on her snapped me back to reality. I shook my head, mentally giving myself a bitchslap for letting myself consider for even a second what it would be like to have Blake underneath me.

  Not only was she freaking insane, but she lived next door. We’d inevitably run into each other, and that wouldn’t work for me. I didn’t bring women back to my place, I didn’t sleep with anyone who lived within a five mile radius of my apartment, and I didn’t exchange numbers. Ever. I had zero desire to run into one of my hookups. Other than a few semi-serious girlfriends in high school, I’d never had a repeat performance with the same woman.

  Even if Blake was down for one hot, sweaty night of explosive orgasms, it'd be impossible to avoid her afterward. I had a real concern that she might end up going Fatal Attraction on me. Not because I'm a cocky prick, but because she'd already showed signs of insanity. With most women, you didn’t know if they were batshit crazy until it was too late. Blake made that part glaringly obvious. Hell, she wore her crazy openly like a badge of honor. So as fun as it would be to taste her orgasm against my tongue, it wasn’t worth the consequences. Plus, I’d rather gouge my eyes out with a melon baller than have to look for a new place to live just to avoid her.

  A melon baller? What I meant to say was, I’d gouge my eyes out with my seven-inch serrated utility knife. Seriously need to quit spending so much time with my damn sisters.

  “Okay, time for you to go, lady.”

  Blake’s mouth fell open, but she didn’t fight me when I grabbed her by the elbow and firmly guided her towards the door. I knew it was rude, but I shut the door in her face anyway. Since the second I spotted her trying to unlock my door, she’d railroaded me to the point I couldn’t think straight. Her presence was discombobulating, and it was putting me on edge. I just needed her to be… not in my apartment.

  I waited to hear her enter her own apartment. After several long seconds, I wondered if she was still standing there right outside my door.

  “So, we’ll talk later, then?” She called out from the hallway.

  I groaned and looked through the peephole to find her staring right at me with a giant grin taking up half her face. She waved happily, then finally - finally - disappeared inside her apartment.

  My relief was short-lived. Knocking. She was knocking on the wall our apartments shared.

  “Hey, you know what would be cool?”

  I didn’t respond, but Blake carried on anyway.

  “We should learn Morse Code so we can talk to each other like this. I bet there’s a class we could take. I’ll check it out and let you know. Night!”

  For way longer than should have been necessary, I stood frozen in place. Like moving or breathing would provoke her into reappearing. Once I felt confident she would leave me to finish my evening in peace, I made my way to the bathroom to shower and get ready for bed. My day had been exhausting even before the insane little spitfire inserted herself into the mix.

  Jade Securities, the private security firm I owned, was growing in success so quickly I could barely keep up so I shouldn’t complain. I was grateful, truly, but business being steady didn’t make the days any less stressful. And though we’d gotten to the point where we could be choosier about which cases we took on, it was still difficult to turn away the bigger jobs. Case in point, the current client I was dealing with. Her father was a powerful businessman turned politician and when she came to me wanting to hire personal security for a surprise anniversary party for her parents, the pay was good and the job was easy. That turned into a million other jobs for the family, including big events for her father. It had been a solid business decision, but I was regretting it personally. Every time I saw her, which was more frequent than would ever be necessary, she would blatantly hit on me. I was running out of ways to politely decline her highly inappropriate advances.

  On top of dealing with her and her wandering hands, I also had an interview to conduct first thing in the morning. I was looking for a personal assistant who would also serve as an office manager of sorts. The problem with working only with men was having no one keeping shit organized, despite our military backgrounds. We weren’t paper pushers and like typical men, we didn’t clean up after ourselves. In our defense, we were much too busy to take the time to clean our dishes. We also may have gotten a little spoiled from my mom having worked in that position for so long. She’d been more than happy to mother us, and we’d taken full advantage and focused solely on work and not the back-end side of the job.

  Unfortunately, those were not common qualities in an assistant. Since my mom started staying home with my dad full-time after his stroke, I’d gone through six assistants. All had made a scene when they quit, yelling that they weren’t paid enough to put up with a bunch of big-ass man children - their words, not mine. So I’d decided to up the pay and coached the guys to be more appreciative and respectful when I hired someone new. If I were lucky, maybe the next one would stick around longer than the six-week mark.

  -

  By the time I was walking into work at the ass crack of dawn the next morning, I was still reeling from the random experience with my neighbor and dreading the day ahead of me.

  “Hey, boss,” Malcom, my best friend since childhood and one of my newest recruits greeted me with a mocking grin when I walked towards my office. We’d joined the military at the same time, though he chose Marines where I went Navy. Even still, we’d kept in touch over the years. When he’d decided not to reenlist this year, I’d immediately offered him a job which he’d quickly accepted. The years had changed us, but we fell back into our friendship easily and it was nice having him around again.

  My so-called best friend looked like the cat that ate the fucking canary, though. Bad sign. It meant my guys were already u
p to no good, and I hadn’t even had my coffee yet.

  When I passed by Liam, a former Ranger who joined us about a year ago, he didn’t do as well biting his tongue like Malcolm had. Apparently he had a death wish.

  “How did it go with Clarissa yesterday? Hear you get to see her again today.”

  Snickering sounded from all over the office, but most of the guys who were in must have been hiding. Smart.

  It had become a daily contest of sorts between all my employees to see who could get me to lose my shit. They even had a pool going, though if asked, they would always deny it. Funny, since riling me up was the point, yet they hid something that they felt could potentially make me mad. Or maybe it was just more fun for them if it were a secret.

  Either way, they were never going to see me lose my cool. Even as a kid I was fairly even-tempered, and whatever part of me wasn’t had been drilled out of me by the military. Honestly? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt anger. Frustration? Yes. Annoyance? Daily. Stress? That shit never left.

  But anger? Never. It served no purpose. It was counterproductive; instead of solving problems, it created more.

  “You better watch it, or I’ll tell Reed it was you that switched out his toothpaste for Bengay.”

  Liam’s eyes went so big it was comical. Not because he was worried I’d make good on my threat. The guys did that shit to each other all the time. His eyes were wide from shock, because I’d made a joke. Ridiculous, if you ask me. Sure, joking around was fairly rare for me, but it wasn’t like I had no sense of humor at all…right? Fuck. Okay, if I really thought about it, maybe I didn’t joke around very often, but it wasn’t intentional. There just wasn’t much that made me want to laugh lately.

  A vision of Blake popped into my head. I couldn’t make heads or tails of her last night, but there was no denying how many times I’d had to bite back a laugh or fight not to smile. This morning, after a few hours of sleep and time to run back through the events of our evening, I was able to cut her some slack. I had startled her, and maybe that was enough to justify her odd behavior. There was no denying she was charming, crazy and all. She’d been my first thought when I woke up; despite my best efforts to keep her out, she still kept popping into my head every few minutes.