That’s probably why I never really saw her as my partner, and why even when the checkbook made it clear something needed to change, I just kept digging. Right up until we were barely keeping up with payments on a maxed-out credit card and treading water on the mortgage. After that, everything between us became an exhausting battle of wills.
Part of the divorce settlement was an agreement we’d sell the big house we bought and that Nic would receive any profits from the sale. It’s been on the market since the divorce was finalized, but Nic also has final say over what offer to accept and has turned down every one we’ve gotten so far. I’m on the hook for the mortgage and everything else until we sell the place, so the sooner we get an offer she’s okay with, the sooner I can move out of my parents’ basement. When that finally happens, I’m going to get a dumpy little house somewhere downtown and then spend every weekend mowing the damn lawn, just because I can.
Today, though, all I have is someone else’s yard.
After dragging the Greenes’ mower back into their garage, I brush the stray grass clippings off my shoes, and try to decide if I should walk straight back to my parents’ house for a post-mowing beer or if I need to let Anya know I’m finished. I stand there for a second and debate it, going back and forth on what I know is just a bullshit excuse to talk to her again. Just like everything else I’ve done since I pulled up this afternoon and saw her standing there in the yard wearing a pair of denim cutoffs and a flimsy little tank top that showed off a few inches of her bare belly.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one who liked what I saw. Call it my training as a Marshal—or the alpha instincts of a guy who doesn’t want another man’s eyes roaming those legs of hers—but even being a few houses away is too close for Tyler and his dirtball friends to be when it comes to Anya. Convincing her to go inside was the only way I could fix that, even if me saying it clearly pissed her off a little.
Fuck it. If I don’t go talk to her now, I’m just going to spend the rest of the night dreaming up more idiotic reasons to come back over here, so I rap on the door between the garage and the house. Anya quickly calls out for me to come in, loud enough that it’s clear she’s just on the other side. I open the door and spot her inside the mudroom, rinsing out paintbrushes in the utility sink.
“Feel better now?” She doesn’t look away from what she’s doing, but I can see a smirk curling at her lips.
I groan inside. I don’t get how this woman can see right through me after knowing each other for what amounts to one night and a few hours, total. It makes no sense, and I can’t decide if I love it or hate it.
She uses one of the damp brushes in her hand to gesture for me to come inside. I toe off my shoes before stepping across the threshold.
“Yeah,” I admit. “I do feel better.”
She lets out a little snort. “And did Tyler’s posse finally take off for the night? Or are you guys going to hang out and knock back some beers together? I’m thinking he’s a Mickey’s malt sort of guy.”
“He better be a Shirley Temple kind of guy,” I mutter. Anya raises a brow and I answer that look with a sigh. “He’s on parole for drug trafficking, so he needs to keep his nose clean. No drinking, no drugs, no bullshit.”
“Seriously? Then he must know you’re a big bad Marshal guy, I guess. He seemed a little squirrelly when you showed up but I just figured it was because there was too much testosterone in one area.”
“He knows. I haven’t gone over there and flashed him my credentials or anything, but I don’t need to. Between my mom and his aunt, we already know everything about each other.” I scratch the back of my neck. “But the typical guy bullshit is part of it, too. I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”
One corner of Anya’s mouth hitches up. She sets the last brush on a tray to dry and starts to rinse out the sink.
“Which is how? I’m dying to know,” she says dryly.
“Like he wants to know what you sound like when you come.”
My stupid, off-the-cuff answer spills out before I have a chance to think through how wrong it is. My only option now is to stand here and wait for the ire I know is headed my way.
But Anya just shuts the water off, dries her hands, and props her hip against the sink edge so she can face me—all without saying a word. Finally, she crosses her arms over her chest and tilts her head.
“Isn’t that how you look at me?”
The already-small room suddenly feels like it shrinks in half and I can’t breathe for how much I wish the walls would keep closing in on us, because the woman I want is somehow still too far away. Maybe I wasn’t sure what would happen if I came over here, but I knew what I wanted to have happen.
I wanted this. I wanted Anya. I wanted the wild, reckless feeling that was there in that dingy hotel room, and the relief when the two of us were surrendering to it. I wanted to fuck her against the back of this door, then take her somewhere else in this house and do it all again. I wanted to lie next to her and feel her body against mine, soaking up the quiet as we both come down from doing what feels good.
I let every one of those cravings wash over me. After that, nothing else matters but closing the distance between us. I stop short of reaching for her, even when the energy between us makes it feel like her hands are already on me.
“No, that’s not how I look at you,” I say slowly. “Because I already know. I know exactly what you sound like when you come. Every little moan and whimper you make, the way your pussy gets so tight when you get there. I know all of it.”
Anya sucks in a sharp breath, and a flush of pink hits her cheeks. I want to touch her so much my entire body is aching for it.
“I hate this,” I say. “Staying away from you is killing me.”
“You decided that,” she says, poking me the chest with both of her index fingers. “Not me.”
I half expect her to shove me away but she relaxes her pointy-fingers and lets her hands fall to my chest. Leaning into her touch, I exhale as relief starts rushing through me. I crane myself forward until I can dip my head and get close enough to breathe in her scent, the same as it was that first night: nothing perfumed; just coconut and Anya. Then I catch a whiff of myself. And I do not smell like coconuts, that’s for sure. I smell like one of Chris’s killer workouts and some lawn mowing in the Arizona heat, mixed with desperation and bad judgment.
Anya starts to drag her nails down my chest, teasing under the hem of my shirt. I catch her hands in mine.
“I’m not sure how far you want this to go, but I’m seriously sweaty and I stink. If I lift my arms up to take my shirt off, it’s going to kill the mood. Trust me.”
“This house has four bathrooms.” She continues working her hands up my shirt. “And the shower in the guest suite I’m staying in happens to be big enough for two.”
I hold my breath, and not just because I reek. Because I need to think beyond my dick for a second.
“Are you sure about this? If there are house-sitting rules about this kind of stuff, then I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“Rules, rules, rules,” she whispers with a quiet laugh. “All they asked is that I respect their house as if it’s my own. So, no, there aren’t any rules about not having sex with the hot guy living across the street. And I definitely want this.”