Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 102942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
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 quickly slipping 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 the morning, 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.