Page 8

“MOTHERFUCKER!” I grunt as pain explodes through my face.

I grip my nose, making sure it’s not broken, and after confirming it’s still intact, I head straight back to my apartment, knowing that it’s bound to bruise. It seems my little firecracker doesn’t just have a smart mouth and a chip on her shoulder; she also likes it rough.

Slamming the door behind me, I let out a sigh and crash onto my couch just as the sound of “Gimme More” by the Queen of Pop comes to an end. Before I can sigh in relief, “Gangnam Style” blasts through the thin walls, and she cranks it even louder.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

With my head pounding from the music, I quickly realize that the only way to survive this little firecracker and escape with my sanity is to not be here when she’s trying to make a stand. With that snippet of knowledge, I head into my bedroom and start rifling through the overflowing boxes of clothes.

Finding a pair of loose basketball shorts and my runners, I pull them on, and within seconds, I’m heading straight back out the doorfor an early morning run.

I push myself to my limit, only returning to my apartment complex an hour later once every ounce of furious energy has worked its way out of my body. I don’t do well when I don’t get at least four or five hours of sleep. But it’s not as though I didn’t ask for this. I should have done my research before picking a fight with someone just as stubborn as I am, but that doesn’t mean I regret it. It just means I’m going to have to up my game.

If anybody is going to surrender here, it’ll be her.

I don’t crack, no matter how volatile a situation might be, and I always come out on top.

Creeping back into the apartment complex, relief floods through me as I find nothing but silence filling the long corridors, and as I take the stairs back up to level three, I let out a heavy sigh. The morning aerobics class has finally come to an end, and hopefully that means she’s passed out on the floor in front of her TV.

I’ve got to give her credit where credit is due. I appreciate her commitment to the cause. She didn’t just turn on the TV and crank the music; she fully committed with the eighties-style leotard and leg warmers. If I were a smart man, I would probably take that as my clue that she’s not somebody who does something halfway. When she’s got her mind set, she fully commits. But so do I.

Reaching my apartment, I unlock the door as loudly as I can, opening and closing it with a heavy BANG before shifting moving boxes around just for the sake of it. Then, with my morning quicklyslipping away from me, I head into the shower.

As my little firecracker mentioned, I work as an International Sales Rep for IV Global—a globally recognized tech firm, and luckily for her, that means I’m generally not around. She’ll get a reprieve from me every now and then when I’m sent out to deal with clients. I can be gone for days, or sometimes weeks at a time, but then I’ll be right back. After all, I wouldn’t want her to miss me.

Shit. She’s this far under my skin, and I haven’t even figured out her name.

Perhaps it’s time to do a little research on her.

After finishing in the shower, I get dressed and start to head out. I usually don’t like to get to the office until after seven, but it seems I need to do a little recon on my new neighbor, which I’m sure is bound to take up plenty of time.

Then, after stopping by the mailboxes on my way down to the parking garage, I see a tiny piece of junk mail spilling out of her box, and after pulling it out, I finally learn her name.

Kiara St. James.

Today is going to be a fan-fucking-tastic day.

CHAPTER 4

KIARA

Ihate him. I hate him. I hate him.

There are not enough adequate words in the dictionary that describe the type of loathing I have for that man. Am I potentially getting confused between loathing and sexual attraction? Maybe. Actually, maybe a little more than just maybe. It’s a very real possibility, but it doesn’t change the facts.

Raiden Kane is an asshole.

He’s been living next door for a week now, and he is driving me crazy. I swear, just knowing he is breathing in the space near me is making me insane. I’m just about ready to blow my cover with Milan so she can have me committed to an asylum, because there’s nothing natural about the way this man has me wanting to scream.

Day one, he screwed the tall drink of water until three in themorning, and I gladly woke him up with my new aerobics routine. And sure, I felt shitty about waking the neighbors, but the majority of them are either hard of hearing or have early rising jobs. Lennon downstairs works at the fish markets and leaves at one in the morning, while Jeanie in 303 owns the sweetest little bakery and was long gone before my Britney aerobics class started.

On day two, he really knocked my socks off when he had his latest conquest scream out my name over and over again. He kept her going until just after four, when she collapsed on the bed and rattled my wall. But it’s okay, I made sure the mariachi band I’d ordered was there bright and early to sing to him all day long. It was priceless. But not as priceless as the woman he’d brought home on day three, who wanted to get some kind of commitment out of him before she’d let him touch her. She was already telling him how many children she wanted to have—how they’d be so cute with her blue eyes and his dark hair. Honestly, I don’t blame him for how quickly he ushered her out the door, but she really missed out there, because from what I can tell, that would have been the wildest night of her life.

Since there was no random woman up against our shared bedroom wall on day three, I canceled morning aerobics, and we both got our first night of sleep. I suppose even the beast next door has his limits. But on day four, the motherfucker came back with a vengeance.

All that extra sleep gave him way too much energy, and he screwed that woman from nine right through until five in the morning. So I did what any caring neighbor would do and set him up to be visited byevery Jehovah’s Witness door knocker in the state. I booked so many meetings that he has someone coming to knock on his door to talk about the good Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, every fifteen minutes. And because I couldn’t possibly give him an escape, I booked meetings at his office too.