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No, please…don’t go!"Oh, uh, yeah…that's probably a good idea." I clutch my towel to my chest and offer him a tight smile.
"Nice, uh…meeting you, Bella," he says, his arm accidentally brushing against my naked shoulder as he leaves the bathroom, sending a thrill right through me.
"Y-yeah. It was nice meeting you too…” I turn to look over my shoulder, but he’s already gone. “Hey, wait! What's your—" I hear the front door slam. “Name..." I sigh into the silence, and my hand automatically goes up to the spot where our skin brushed, the feeling of that short touch still lingering like an electrical current under my skin.Just who exactlywasthat? And why does being near him make me feel this way?
RYDER
What the hell was that, Ryder-fucking-Wilcox?
My hand falls to my bulging crotch in an attempt to adjust and hide it as I escape the Flemings' house, hoping no one is around to see the fact I have a raging boner over the neighbor’s twenty-three-year-old daughter.They’d run me out of town like the dirty old man I am. Thankfully, the street is empty save for a raccoon that is blatantly sniffing around the garbage cans across the street without a care in the world.Must be nice.
I shove my hands in my pockets and hunch against the cold as I head back toward my place, stopping suddenly when I realize I left my tools inside.
"Ah, shit," I mumble as I turn and start to go back for them. But I freeze in my tracks, my hand hovering over the doorknob, while my breath quickens at the memory of Bella standing there as the towel swung open and revealed just enough of her supple body that I can’t stop thinking about what she’d feel like,tastelike.
I wish that towel had fallen to the floor so I could take a good look at that delicious body.See those sweet curves in the flesh… Maybe do more than just look…
A groan escapes my throat as my dick stiffens, my brain running wild images of what I’d like to do to that innocent doe.What the hell is wrong with me?It takes everything I have to drop my hand from the doorknob and force myself to turn around and go back home. "Screw it, I'll pick my fucking tools up tomorrow."
Trudging next door to mine, the ache from the bump on my head starts to come back thanks to the cold of the outdoors. I reach up and press my fingers into it, welcoming the pain as it takes my mind off the girl next door. Upstairs. Naked. Wanting.I saw the look in her eyes.
My dick surges again, and I jam my fingers into the lump on my head as punishment while I feel around in my jacket for my keys. That girl does not belong to me, and I’ve got no business thinking about her like that.
With a headache now sluicing its way through my brain, I go straight to the freezer and grab a pack of peas, pressing it against the back of my head as I lean against the kitchen counter and calm down.One, two, three…I focus on the cold of the peas on my head and the picture of the dolphins on my wall, and I slowly calm down and feel the tension leave my body.What the fuck was that?It felt like a panic attack, but of the sexual kind. I’ve never experienced anything like it. My body reacted so intensely to the sight of Bella that it still aches.
I glance down at my still-stiff cock that just won’t quit and let out a sigh. I haven't reacted to a woman this way in, well…forever. But I shouldn't even be thinking of her like that. She's far too young for me. Twenty-three, if I remember correctly, which means there are fifteen years between us.Far too innocent for a guy like me… Especially after all the darkness I've seen in my thirty-eight years. Not that you can count the shit I've seen and done as living. No. She deserves someone better. Someone as pure as she is.
Plus, she's the neighbor's freaking daughter.I’d be crazy to go there.
I sigh and glance over at the oven's clock. I’m not even close to hungry, but it’s almost dinnertime, so I toss the peas back in the freezer then rummage for some food.
As I dig through random packages and containers, I hear the faint echoes of my past as my mind wanders—gunshots, grenade blasts, the screams of fallen comrades. I've been in more skirmishes than I wish to count. And I’ll never forget how the dread in my gut grew larger and larger with every deployment order I received.
Ryder? I-I'm down. I can't feel my leg. Ryder, help me!
Goddamnit, Wilcox, get your ass into gear. We need to get the fuck outta here.
But what about Jerry?
There is no damn time to get Jerry! You idiot, can't you see? He's a lost cause! Do you want to die too? Be my fucking guest!
I shake my head in an attempt to get rid of the memory. I was a green boy once, excitedly enlisting in the army fresh out of high school. But that enthusiasm quickly faded as the realities of war set in. My hand wanders over the scar along my right arm. Sometimes I wish I didn't write my damn name on that enrolment list.So much fucking pain.
Spying some leftover Bolognese, I stick the container in the microwave and stare out the kitchen window as my food reheats. Sometime within the last half hour or so, it started to snow, blanketing Christmas in a sort of peaceful quiet. This is the exact reason why I moved here in the first place—to avoid the hustle and bustle of the typical American cities and to help my mind forget the horrors of my past. But they just keep creeping back in when I least expect them.
Ding.
The microwave brings me back to the present, and I decide to sit in the living room by the big window to continue watching the snowfall while I eat. I don't own a television. What is there to watch, anyway? Newsreel after newsreel of human suffering? Movies and TV shows glorifying war or mocking the institution we fought for? Or worse, a vacuous filler that has no real content or perspective to offer this world. No fucking thank you. Stillness, nature, and a good book will do me just fine.
Plus, I might get to see what Bella is up to since the window faces the Flemings' yard and I can see right inside when they draw the curtains...
The moment the thought hits me, I stop at the entrance to the kitchen and sigh. "No brain, we'renotgoing through with this," I mutter to myself as I turn back around to eat my dinner at my kitchen table. This house is way too big for a single man, but in a town like Christmas, every house is built like it’s meant for a family. I never thought I’d even entertain the idea of filling these rooms with the laughter of children, but all of a sudden, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.Maybe it isn’t the quiet I’ve been craving after all.
BELLA
In my well-deserved hot and steamy shower, I can't keep my mind off of the man I found in my bathroom. He claimed to be Mom and Dad's neighbor, so that means I'll definitely be seeing more of him. More of that short-cropped hair I want to run my palms over. More of his marble-statue bone structure, and more of his emerald eyes that just made me melt inside like chocolate fondue.Lawd!
For a moment I contemplate turning the heat off to cool down, but then my hand wanders down to stroke the ache between my legs as my mind conjures up a litany of ideas featuring the various things he could do to me. A keen romance reader, I’ve got a ton of imaginative experience to draw from. And since no real-life man has ever made me feel this way, I'm all kinds of curious, and even more types of excited.Maybe I’ll finally get the chance to experience a man who knows what he’s doing.
