AllFreeNovel
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Finding a dinosaur costume on the internet is easy, and lucky me, it’s available for rapid pick up in an hour. I book a rideshare from the supermarket to the nearest delivery locker and then back home. Camming pays well enough I can afford to avoid public transportation. Yet another benefit. I don’t drive. Couldn’t even if I owned a car. The downside to using rideshares is making small talk with the drivers, but it’s a small sacrifice.
The car pulls to a stop right in front of the entrance to the building. Mariposa’s not exactly a small town, but I live in what’s technically a business district in a four-story tall mixed purpose property. The top two floors contain a pair of condo units each, the bottom two floors are filled with a business of some sort. There’s no signage about what the business is. Judging by the speed of the internet I get for free as part of my mortgage, and the quiet hum of electricity I hear every time I use the rooftop pool, it’s gotta be something techy.
I’m pretty sure everyone who lives on the top two floors is wealthy, with the exception, maybe, of the heavily tatted up gay guy who lives in the condo opposite of mine. If possible, I think he might be even younger than I am. Like me, he lives alone. Unlike me, he’s got a gentleman caller, who I think has every intention of changing that status.
Zander and his silver fox Daddy are nowhere around as I cross the lobby to the bank of elevators. The small atrium for residents, where our mailboxes are, is beside the elevators, the understated doors to the business opposite them. Just as the elevator chimes to announce its arrival, the heavy wooden door to the business opens, and a man strides through it and directly into the elevator.
Under my lashes, I scope him out, but he keeps his face in profile the entire time I’m walking into the shiny metal box. There are no mirrors, but as I turn to face the doors and press the button for three, I feel him looking at me.
“Four, please.” His voice is gritty and low. A shiver of awareness shimmies over me, and I clutch the bags with my groceries and the dino outfit to my chest to hide the way my nipples immediately tighten into points.
I’ve never seen this man before now. I can barely see him without making a fool of myself by turning and staring. Somehow, I think it’s his intent to stay just out of view. I don’t feel unsafe, though. Not the way I normally might, alone in an elevator with a man I don’t know.
Something about his energy feels protective and secure. The elevator begins its ascent, and my body quickly slips into a languid melty state of relaxation, even with the echoes of tingles from his voice still dancing through me. That rapid release of chill vibes is the only explanation for what happens next.
“You look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?” It’s that rasp in his voice, giving me that nighttime being tucked into bed safe and sound sensation. It prompts the lamest joke in the history ofohmygosh I said that out loudmoments.
“You must watch a lotta porn.”
Ground, please open a portal to the earth’s core and swallow me now.
An internet meme quote accusing one’s neighbor of watching pornos has got to be the most mortifying thing a person can word vomit. Especially in a posh condo building where, even if I can barely see him from the periphery of my vision, I can tell said neighbor is dressed in a bespoke suit probably worth more than all my cam equipment combined.
Because the universe doesn’t totally hate me, the doors softly chime to signal my floor and I’m able to tumble out into the hallway before the sexy voiced stranger has a chance to respond. I haul ass to my door and slap my palm on the electronic pad to disengage the lock and hurl myself inside.
ChapterThree
Eco
Nearly fifteen years in the military taught me beyond any question that thirty seconds is twenty-nine seconds longer than it takes for everything to change. One thirty second elevator ride with Greer Olivia Saddler reaffirmed that certainty without doubt. The second the words fell from her luscious mouth, my moral aversion to prying into her life to discover her secrets disintegrated like a drone blasted training target.
Watching those perfect for cock-sucking lips shape the word porn was enough to have a sticky flood of seed making a mess inside my slacks. In all my months of watching her, I’d yet to hear her speak. Probably a good thing. Had I known the way the most average words sound indecently lewd when spoken in that smoky tone she’s got, I never would have been able to keep myself away from her for this long.
The moment the elevator doors close between her front door and me, I feel the punch in the gut from her word’s meaning. The girl looks so young. Like an innocent little doll, barely old enough to vote. A paternal instinct I’ve never experienced wages a battle with the lust riding me hard.
For months, my obsession has felt lecherous and shameful. I’ve told myself the little doll is too young and naïve for the carnal urges she unleashes in me. Believing her too untouched and pure to be tainted by the filth and blood on my hands has kept me behind the screens, watching over her without crossing any lines.
A chaste maiden wouldn’t have sassed me the way the little doll did. Wouldn’t have thrown around suggestions of watching porn. Much less implied she starred in it. Logically, I realize that at twenty-three, she’s probably not as innocent as her looks make her appear. Just because she doesn’t bring men, or women for that matter, to her home, doesn’t mean she’s celibate. I dislike the possessive, out-of-control feeling I get when I think about her with any lover but me.
I’m still wrangling with my conscience and the ethics of prying into her private life when there’s a knock on my front door. I barely recall the elevator rising to my floor, much less leaving it and entering my condo. I check my watch and realize I’ve wasted nearly ten minutes obsessing over Greer Saddler and fighting the losing battle of convincing myself to stay out of her life.
“Open up, fucker. It’s poker night.” Leave it to Benzo to be the one in a hurry. He’ll claim it’s because July doesn’t like it when he’s out late, but everyone knows the truth. Of all of us, Benzo’s the one living the real dream. A wife who adores him, a toddler who is terrifyingly precocious, and another one on the way. I’d be hard pressed to want to hang out with these rowdy assholes if it meant being away from my wife and kid, too. If I were him.
Which I’m not. At this rate, I’ve come to accept I’ll be the last man standing, forever. Hux and Edison’s wives are both pregnant right now, too. The women used to try setting me up with dates. I don’t think I did a great job of hiding my envy of my brothers’ lives. Never worked out, though. Either the scars on my face drove the women away or my need to control things did. Eventually, it became easier to just stop trying.
“Took you long enough. Busy yanking your crank? Please tell me you didn’t forget you’re tonight’s host. I’m starving, and it doesn’t smell like you’ve got any food ready.” Hux is the one changed the most by the things we did while we were active duty.
For a while, he retreated into himself so deeply we worried he’d drift away completely. His wife, Ramsey pulled him out of his shell and brought him back to the land of the living. Now, he’s back to being the sarcastic clown we all met in our early twenties before our service took its toll on us.
Edison heads straight to the drawer next to the fridge where the takeout menus are. Even in our off hours, he’s still the most likely to step into leadership. He tosses a handful of them onto the counter and gestures.
“Text me your orders, idiots. I’ll get the grub ordered. Radar, get the table set up. Benzo, go get the Hammond Whiskey bottle from the side drawer of my desk. Let’s not make a federal offense out of things, yeah?”
I appreciate him being the voice of reason, but I’d appreciate even more if they’d all clear the fuck out, so I can obsess over my doll in solitude.
The card game goes for hours, and I give fewer and fewer fucks each hand. Lucky for me, all three of my brothers are as obsessed with their wives as I am with my doll. It means plenty of opportunities to pay attention to the programs I have running silently on my phone, gathering all the data about her that I’ve been so diligent denying myself for all these months. If they’re gonna sneak peeks at their phones to spy on what the wives are up to during their ‘girls night shopping for Christmas presents,’ then I can be on mine, too.
Finally, fuckin’ finally, Benzo’s predictably the one to call an end to the night of bro-time bonding. All three beat feet out the door, no doubt rushing home to ravish their women and make up for the few hours they’ve been apart.
