Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
I didn’t understand that sensation and was in no mood to try.
The other thing that threw me was, off to the side, there was an attractive area with a built-in grill, handsome seating made of logs, a table and chairs for eating outside, and not far from that was a fire pit with logs around it to sit or lounge against, covered in heavy, colorful wool blankets that were so big, they also draped across the ground.
This wasn’t what threw me.
What threw me was the sheer number of spent cans and bottles everywhere. Three opened coolers that still had drinks floating in the now melted ice. Ashtrays here and there filled with cigarette butts and the blunt ends of spent joints. There was a lone football resting in the dirt not far from the area, and I noted two Frisbees also left where they’d fallen when the people using them lost interest.
Several massive Bluetooth speakers were scattered around, and it didn’t take a techie to know they were synced. My sleepless night told me that.
And there were three bras drunkenly hanging from a pine tree, and what looked like a pair of panties tangled with a pair of boxers sat on one of the wool blankets by the firepit.
At least the massive garbage bin that had been rolled out had its lid firmly in place, or every critter near would be running amok. In fact, I didn’t know how the lingering scent of hops and cooked meat didn’t call to them.
I didn’t need this visual representation of what had gone down at my neighbor’s place, I’d heard it, but it looked worse than what I’d heard.
By far.
Distractedly noting the massive, shiny, black truck parked off to the side, I marched up to the small square deck that butted the front door. The deck had no railing and was not meant to hang out on. Partly because it wasn’t big enough, mostly because the attractive outdoor area had been built, maybe ten feet away, so you wouldn’t sit on a front porch when you could sit in that side area and see the lake through the trees.
The front door was open, the storm door had its screens in, and it was closed.
But through it, I could see into a sunken living room.
Precisely, I could see Doc, flat on his back, no shirt, jeans covering his lower half, bare feet, one leg on the couch, one foot on the floor, passed out.
And on top of him, in nothing but a bra, straddling him, also passed out, was a brunette.
I’d never met her and still, I felt I knew her intimately.
Gross.
I hammered on the door.
Both of them jumped immediately, and I couldn’t stop my lips curving up.
Yes.
It was cold in Russia, and that chill ran through my veins.
I kept hammering on the door.
She lilted to sitting astride him, her neck bent like she didn’t have the strength to raise her head, hair covering her face.
He put his hands to her hips, his long fingers curling into her flesh, (this causing me to feel something I resolutely ignored) and turned his head to me.
When he saw me, his handsome, sleepy face morphed to granite.
I thinned my lips on principle.
He lifted the woman off him as he curled up, then set her on the couch as he got out of it.
He then prowled to me, crafting a new miracle, considering his ultra-faded jeans had a button fly, and as far as I could tell, only one button was done up, so how they remained on his slim (but powerful) hips was unfathomable.
They also provided the solution to the mystery of what that dart of thick hair down the center of his abs pointed to, and it was a bigger patch of dark hair. Not to mention, I had an inkling whose boxers and panties were left on that wool blanket. Either that, or the man preferred commando.
He got to the door, and I had to jump back when he pushed it open hostilely.
“What the fuck time is it?” he asked me, also hostile (obviously), one arm held out to keep the door open.
Perfect introduction.
I engaged my camera, pulled up the picture I’d taken earlier and shoved it in his face.
“That was the time your party ended,” I declared.
His eyes, which, this close, I could see were a silvery gray, and I could also see they were ringed with a very thick fringe of dark lashes, glanced at my phone before they came back to me.
“Get your fuckin’ phone out of my face.”
I dropped my phone and kept at him.
“Please allow me to explain what it appears you do not know, that being what appropriate neighborly conduct is.”
“I’m not sure you know a lot about that,” he retorted.
“Oh really?” I asked fake-sweetly. “Well, I know you don’t run through your neighbors’ yards.”