The Voyeur Next Door (32 page)

I met Ali at her apartment that night at exactly seven. I had taken great care to dress casual in slacks and long sleeved top. I even shaved and combed my hair back. I hadn’t been on a date since I was eighteen, but I hoped the same rules still applied, because I had no new material planned.

I knocked and waited, wondering if I should have brought flowers. Earl used to tell me that flowers on a first date were mandatory, but that was when Earl was dating back in the fifteen hundreds and things were different in the twenty first century. Regina had laughed when I brought her flowers on the first date, calling me old fashioned, but sweet. I hadn’t liked either analogy. Ali was different and that complicated my nonexistent game plan. I opted to forgo the flowers.

The door opened and Ali smiled at me from the other side. The pull on her lips was tight and I could see the reluctance shining in her eyes, but I ignored both.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Ready to go?”

She nodded.

I stepped back as she shut the door and locked it. Her hand strayed absently to her face before she remembered she didn’t wear her glasses anymore and moved to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear instead. I took the hand when it began to slide back down to her side and held it.

“Where are we going?” she asked as I led her downstairs.

“Was there somewhere you wanted to go?”

It didn’t surprise me when she shook her head.

I had chosen a quiet little Greek restaurant Earl used to take me to as a kid. The staff had changed over the years, but I recognized a few faces as we waited to be seated. I had already called a head and asked to book a table in the back, but not near the bathrooms. Somewhere away from the windows and too much chatter. I figured if the only person Ali had to worry about watching her was me, then she would be more comfortable.

“This is nice,” she murmured as we slid into the booth.

“Earl used to bring me here all the time when I was a kid,” I said. “Used to be my favorite place.”

She took up the menu the hostess had left behind and flipped through it. Her fingers rapped nervously on the plastic covering.

“So, what’s good?”

“I’m a fan of the lamb souvlaki,” I said, taking up my own menu. “But the gyros are really good, too.”

She set the menu down and folded her hands on top. Her gaze moved past me to the painted portrait of Venus over my shoulder.

“Aphrodite,” she said around a deep breath.

I looked, even though that painting had been there forever.

“They have it labeled wrong,” she went on. “The Romans called her Venus. She was Aphrodite in Greek mythology.”

I glanced down at the gold plaque on the bottom of the gilded frame. Sure enough, it said Venus. I turned back to Ali.

“You know your mythology.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Not really. Just the basics.”

Well, I hadn’t known that. I didn’t tell her as much.

“You look beautiful,” I told her, pulling her wandering eyes back to me. “I should have mentioned it back at the apartment.”

Some of the strain lifted from her face and she smiled at me. “Thank you.”

I held out my palm to her across the table. My fingers closed when her hand settled into place. Gingerly, I rose out of my seat and rounded the table to her side. She said nothing as I slid into the leather bench next to her. My free arm slipped over the back of the seat and I leaned into her.

“I love the smell of orchards on you,” I murmured, releasing her hand to ghost my fingers along the curve of her cheek. “I love waking up to it on my sheets and on my skin and filling my apartment.” I hooked my index finger beneath her chin and tipped her face up to mine. “I love knowing you were there.”

The misty glaze in her eyes almost made me chuckle, if the subtle parting of her lips hadn’t drawn my attention.

I kissed her, softly, delicate little nips that coaxed an intoxicating moan from her that deepened the need growing in me. But I reined it in by drawing back.

“I have a question for you,” I said, trying to cool the fire crackling between us before I ruined my chances of ever being allowed back to the restaurant by taking Ali right there in the booth.

“Yeah?”

“Who’s Jack?”

Ali blinked. Then burst into a fit of giggles that echoed through the restaurant. I watched her, chuckling myself because her damn laugh was so contagious and waited for an answer.

“When I first met you,” she began, shoulders still trembling. “And you had that horrible facial hair, you reminded me of a lumberjack.”

I tried to be insulted, but I could actually see the humor in that.

“It wasn’t horrible.”

“Oh, it was,” she corrected. “You had this smoking hot body and then your face … ugh.”

“Thanks!” I muttered, jabbing her in the side with my finger.

“Then you shaved and … mmm.” She took her bottom lip between her teeth and stared hungrily at my mouth. “God, I was so turned on.”

Damn her! There I was, trying to be a gentleman and keeping my dirty thoughts to myself and she was watching me like I was the whipped cream on a sundae.

“I shaved for you, you know,” I told her. “Aoife said she didn’t like men with facial hair.”

She chuckled. “I remember. It should have been obvious right then who you were.”

I hissed through my teeth and sat back a notch. “Yeah, there are things I think of now that should have clued me in as well, but, since we’re sharing.” I twisted a coil of hair around my finger. “The night you first saw me jerking off…” I peered deeply into her eyes and gave a light tug of her hair. “I was thinking of you.”

Her eyes widened. “Me?”

I nodded. “It was that morning when you were on your knees in the office and your lips were parted and your cheeks were pink and all I wanted to do was fuck your mouth.”

The leather squeaked beneath her wiggling bottom and I knew that if I slipped my hand beneath her skirt, she would be wet.

“I wanted you to,” she breathed.

The strand twisted around my finger unraveled as I closed my whole hand into all that thick mess and dragged her to me.

“Christ, woman!” I growled against her mouth. “You’re turning me into a fucking sex addict.”

Her slow, heart stopping smile wrapped around my chest like a silk band. “That makes two of us, Jack.”

The waitress arrived and I was forced to taper down the hard on straining against the front of my pants. We gave our orders and watched as she hurried away.

I kept the conversation on normal things while we waited. I asked about her sister and got a vague answer about not really knowing much.

“We didn’t get along very well,” she explained. “We didn’t exactly fight or anything, but we were more like two strangers living in the same house. Occasionally, we would meet at meals and family events, but I couldn’t tell you two things about her.”

“When did you last see her?” I wondered.

“I haven’t seen her, or my mom, since I left for school, so about five years. But I do get emails from Lena once a month asking how things are.”

“Well, that’s something.”

Ali shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”

“So, you don’t talk to your mom?”

She shook her head. “I don’t even think she knows I’m back in Canada, not unless Lena told her.”

“And she doesn’t contact you?”

A contemplative frown drew her brows together. “I guess she could if she asked Lena for my email address.”

I blinked. “Your sister doesn’t have your phone number, or address?”

Ali shook her head. “She never asked for them, so I never offered.”

I didn’t know what to make of that. I wasn’t raised by my mother, but I still went to see her almost every day. Earl would have boxed my ears if I didn’t. Whatever she was going through, she was still my mother. But I supposed comparing my mother to Ali’s was like comparing a frail bird to a vicious, man-eating shark. My mom might not have been the best mother in the world, but Ali’s had been a downright monster. I was actually glad she had no contact with that woman.

“Do you have any other siblings?” I asked, changing the subject.

“I might. I’m sure my dad got remarried so … maybe.”

“Where is your dad?”

Ali shrugged. “I don’t know. After my mom divorced him, he paid child support for eighteen years and set up a trust fund for me for when I turned twenty-one, but I haven’t seen, or heard from him since my sixth birthday.”

“Jesus,” I muttered.

She looked at me, her mouth grinning sadly, but her eyes mournful. “My past isn’t pretty, Gabe. And I’ve never told anyone.”

“No, it’s not,” I agreed. “But thank you for telling me.”

Our food arrived. The steaming plates of roasted meat and steamed vegetables were set in front of us and we were left alone to enjoy.

I rolled up my lamb and pita and took a big bite, not because I was trying to prove anything, but because I was starving. I chewed and swallowed before stealing a peek at Ali.

She had her head down over her plate. There was a fork and knife in each of her hands and she looked like she was trying to find the right way to dissect her meal.

“It’s a skewer,” I told her. “You just pick it up by the sticks.”

“I know!” she snapped.

But she set her utensils down and pinched the two ends of the stick like they might be hot. Her gaze flicked to me and I quickly pretended to be engrossed in my own plate.

“Do you know I hate peppers?” I ventured. “Like red, yellow, and green. It doesn’t matter if they’re cooked or raw, they gross me out.”

“I don’t like olives,” she stated. “They remind me of fish eyes.”

I nodded slowly. “That would be a good reason.”

I caught her take a nibble of her skewered lamb, inwardly grinned and went back to my own food.

“Do you like ice cream?”

Ali nodded. “Oreo, or chocolate mint.”

“Earl used to crush nuts and bits of chocolate into a tub of ice cream and we’d eat it while we watched football on Sundays,” I recalled with a fond smile.

“You and Earl are close, huh?”

I shrugged. “He’s like my dad, but old and a total manwhore.”

Ali laughed. “Well, I guess now that he has Beatrice, you can stop accusing people of wanting to sleep with him.”

I paused mid chew and peered at her. “You know what, that was a legit assumption. But now that I know you, I think I did Earl a favor.”

She cupped one hand over her full mouth. “How so?”

I grinned. “He would never have been able to keep up with you.”

I laughed as she gasped and turned a brilliant shade of crimson.

“You’re awful.”

We went for ice cream afterwards and spent the last minutes before nightfall strolling through the park. I stopped at the lake and we sat to watch the ducks while the leaves around us shivered with the cool breeze.

Fall was approaching. The leaves were laced with hints of orange and brown. People had traded their shorts and t-shirts for jeans and sweaters. But it wasn’t cold enough to be uncomfortable.

“Thank you for tonight,” Ali murmured from beside me, her ice cream sundae in one hand, her plastic spoon in the other. “I haven’t been this comfortable with anyone … ever.”

I planted a kiss to the side of her head. “You don’t ever have a reason not to be, Ali. I want the person you are when you’re alone.”

She sighed and settled her head on my shoulder. I tucked my arm around her and drew her in closer.

“So naked and eating a cup of pudding,” she decided baldly.

I laughed. “Definitely won’t say no to that.”

THREE YEARS LATER…

Ali

“God, I don’t know what’s in this salad dressing, but I think I want to marry it.”

Gabriel laughed as I shoved crisp blades of lettuce into my mouth. “Is there any type of food you wouldn’t marry?” he teased, stealing one of my French fries.

“Seafood.” I smacked his hand. “Stop that! You have your own fries.”

“I ate all mine,” he protested, going for another one.

Spring wafted through the open terrace doors, tangling in my unbound hair and filling my apartment with the beginnings of summer.

Against my back, clad only in his gray sweats, Gabriel nuzzled the side of my neck where my robe had slipped off—thanks to his sneaky fingers. His hot breath felt amazing against my chilled skin, but I didn’t want to get up, or get dressed.

The blankets we’d lain down on the balcony had bunched beneath us from our fooling around earlier and I was sure my neighbors had seen things that they probably would rather not have, but at that point, I was sure they were quite used to seeing either Gabriel, or me naked. Part of me even wondered if there was some website out there dedicated to just the two of us fucking like wild rabbits. If there was, I didn’t want to know about it. Not that it would stop me from wanting that man like my life depended on it.

“I swear, I will bite you,” I threatened as another fry was stolen from my Styrofoam takeout container.

He stuffed it into his mouth before I could stop him and laughed when I poked him in the forearm with my fork.

“Look, fair trade. I’ll share my salad with you,” he promised.

To prove it, he speared several blades onto his fork and brought it to my mouth. My lips parted eagerly and he slid the side order in. He kissed me once the fork was removed.

It had taken a long time to get me to finally eat around him and to do so without taking six hours to finish a bowl of soup. I was still leery about eating around others, but not as bad as I used to be. Gabriel assured me I was adorable when I ate. So adorable that it looked perfectly normal. I took his word for it.

“So we have twenty minutes before our neighbors get home,” he murmured into my ear. “What do you think we should do in that time?”

I moaned as his fingers worked down the inside of my bent knee and traveled downward. My thighs parted, the junction already slick with both our releases.

“I like what you’re thinking,” I purred, setting my supper aside and hooking one arm back and around to thread my fingers through his hair.

His container was placed down next to mine and his free hand went to the sash on my robe. It came undone easily and my breasts were freed to the air. The nipples shriveled and tingled with anticipation.

His fingers dipped into the hot pool of my arousal and slid past the tight ring to settle inside me. I groaned in appreciation and arched my hips. My fingers tightened in his hair.

“I love my hot little pussy,” he drawled into my ear. “It’s always so wet for me.”

“I like it better stretched around your cock,” I breathed.

“It will be,” he promised darkly.

He withdrew and lifted me up into his arms. I was carried into the bedroom and placed down on the bed.

No longer was the room only mine. Since moving in with me a year earlier, the place had doubled in stuff, but I loved seeing his things alongside mine. I loved seeing the things we bought together. It was our place and he was mine.

“What’s that smug little smile for?”

The grin in question blossomed into a giggle. “Just thinking about you.” I pulled him to me, on me, and cradled him between my legs while he kicked off his sweats. “How much I love everything about you.”

His hands closed on my hips and I was forced higher on the mattress, giving him room to climb over me.

“Yeah? Like what?”

I kissed him. “Like your mouth and your hands and your … yes!” My words became a mewl of pure pleasure as he sunk his cock deep inside me arched my back and raked my nails down his hard back.

“Love that, too?” he taunted between shallow thrusts.

“Love that,” I moaned. “Love it so much. Deeper!” I hissed, sinking my nails into the taut globes of his ass and urging him closer until the slight pain curled my toes and rippled along the walls of my pussy. “God, I can’t get enough! It’s never enough.”

I thrashed and bucked while he bent his head and teased my nipples with his tongue. His hips rose and plunged in time with mine. The slow, sweetness was maddening. But I loved it as much as I loved his dark, hungry side.

He pulled away, taking his cock with him. My juices glinted along his thick shaft as he staggered away from the bed.

Breathing hard, I pushed up onto my elbows. “What…?”

He shrugged. “That’s all you get for today.”

I watched horrified as he wandered his way around the bed and flopped down onto his back. He folded his arms beneath his head and closed his eyes while his erection lay long and hard against his chiseled abdomen, the fat head a violent purple.

“Are you serious?” I gasped.

He merely rolled his shoulders.

Oh hell no!
I thought, my body buzzing with the need for release.

Scrambling up, I jumped him. My knees went on either side of his hips and I braced my weight on his chest as I rose and impaled myself on his delicious cock.

“He’s mine!” I growled, riding him hard and fast. “And I want him!”

He popped one eye open and peered up at me. “This is unwanted physical contact, woman.”

My own eyes narrowed. “Unwanted, is it?” I rolled my hips in slow, teasing circles I knew drove him crazy. “Maybe I should take my pussy elsewhere if that’s the—”

His hands were in my hair before I could finish my empty threat. With a movement I never saw coming, I was rolled beneath him.

“Whose pussy?” he snarled into the side of my neck as he pinned my arms over my head and pounded into me, no longer sweet, or slow. “Whose pussy is this, Ali?”

I thrashed wildly as my body screamed for more. My heels dug into the mattress in my desperation to meet his every brutal thrust.

“Answer me!” he growled, jerking hard until I couldn’t breathe as the world shuddered between my ears.

“Yours!” I cried. “Yours! Yours!”

With a sob of his name, I clamped down hard around him, holding him prisoner in my body as he ripped me apart and rebuilt me. I was crying and whimpering as I came down from the most beautiful high and found him moving inside me, slow and sweet again.

He grinned. “Welcome back.”

“I think you killed me a little that time,” I choked out. “God, I want more.”

Gabriel chuckled. “Of course you do, my little cock fiend.”

I purred and stretched around him. “Only yours.”

Lowering his head, he kissed me hard. “Damn straight only mine.”

It was nightfall by the time we lay in a sweaty, tangled heap in the middle of the bed. Lights danced in the windows outside the terrace doors, but I didn’t care enough to want to move. Truthfully, I had everything I wanted in that bed. I no longer felt like I needed to live through other people when Gabriel refused to let me. He broke my walls and saved me from my isolation. He gave me a friend, a lover … a family. He gave me the world by giving me him.

“I love you, Gabriel,” I whispered into his damp chest. “I love you so much.”

The fingers combing languidly through my hair stilled. The muscle beneath my cheek gave a hard kick and I pressed a kiss to it before lifting my head to peer into his dazzling eyes.

“Close your eyes.”

I did as he asked without question and felt the bed move and bounce as he left it. I stayed in his leftover heat and waited, listening to his footsteps as they moved around the apartment. But it wasn’t for very long. The bed dipped and he was there again.

“Come here.”

I rose and moved blindly in the direction of his voice. His hands caught me and I was drawn back against his chest. The sweet scent of vanilla filled my senses, tangled with the residual scent of sex, sweat, and fabric softener. I heard the rustle of cardboard.

“Open.” His voice whispered against the side of my face.

I held my breath as my eyelids parted. The world was a smudgy black broken by sharp flickers of orange. I had to blink several times to bring everything into focus.

The lights were off. The only glow came from the open terrace doors and the scatter of candles lit throughout the room. It illuminated the bed and us and the pink box in Gabriel’s hands.

“Open it.”

I did, slowly, with unsteady fingers and peered down at the items inside with my heart pounding in my chest.

It shouldn’t have taken my brain as long as it did to figure out what was happening, but the damn thing had fainted, leaving me alone to stare with my heart in my throat as Gabriel waited silently behind me.

I had to swallow, a few times to get past the lump choking me and bringing tears to my eyes. My hand shook as I tipped the box further to let the light slice off the Boston cream donut’s chocolaty glaze and the loopy white frosting circling a beautiful, square cut diamond with two heart stopping words.

“Gabriel?”

“What will it be, baby? Will you marry me?”

I couldn’t set the box down fast enough, or get my arms around him tight enough. I was laughing and crying and squeezing the hell out of him, but I didn’t care.

“Yes!” He exhaled into my shoulder, which made me laugh/cry even harder. “Of course I will!”

“It was the extra cream puff, wasn’t it?” he teased once I’d gotten myself under control and he’d settled his ring on my finger. “I knew it was the right call to get two. Plus, I couldn’t get
Marry Me
to fit on one.”

I laughed, staring starry-eyed as the candlelight sparked off the smooth surface and glided down the silver band.

“It’s so beautiful,” I sighed, unable to tear my gaze away, but forcing myself to look up at the man who had given me everything. “But I didn’t need it. I would have married you for the cream puffs alone.”

He chuckled and pulled me down onto the bed. He reclined next to me and searched my face.

“I’d give you the damn world if I could, Ali.”

Heart swelling painfully, I pulled him to me and kissed him.

“You already have.”