Number Neighbors Read online

  ME: I move so I can reach between us and grab your cock. I position it so it’s in the right place, rubbing against my wetness, and I push down until you’re fully inside me. You lie down, and I rock my hips against you. You slide your hands over my body until you can grab my ass, and I ride you hard.

  ME: I lean forward so my hands are either side of your head and fuck you, then you grip me tighter and hold my hips in place. You move your hips and fuck me hard, burying your cock inside me with every thrust. I moan into your ear and into your mouth, and then I come, clenching down tightly around your cock.

  Fuck.

  I reached down and moved the bullet so the very end was on my clit, then closed my eyes for a second. Imagining the scene, I rubbed the bullet against my clit and came quickly, my legs spasming with the force of the little—but powerful—orgasm.

  ME: You come hard inside me, groaning my name into my mouth, biting my lip. I collapse onto you, exhausted, and you push deeper inside me as you ride out your orgasm.

  Was that it? Was it finished? I’d finished. Had he? Was it good for him? Was it anti-climactic?

  I wasn’t exactly a soprano in the writing department. I could pour a mean beer and mix one hell of a margarita, but writing…

  Not so much.

  ME: Um… I think I’m done.

  Should I have sent fireworks? Was that how one ended a sexting session? Should I have seen if there was an encore due?

  I was woefully unprepared for this.

  NN: You should watch porn more often. That was hot as fuck.

  ME: If I were a man, I’d think ScarJo sucking my dick was hot too.

  ME: Actually, I think so anyway.

  NN: LOL. An orgasm and a laugh. The best sexting for a while.

  ME: I will take that compliment.

  NN: Same time tomorrow, stranger?

  ME: It’s your turn tomorrow.

  NN: Don’t worry. I’ll watch some porn before. ; )

  ME: Hey, it works.

  NN: Any excuse to watch porn works for me. Goodnight, stranger.

  ME: Goodnight, number neighbor.

  CHAPTER THREE – HANNAH

  Books and… Bondage

  Book club had to be one of the weirdest things anyone would ever come across in their lifetime.

  It wasn’t every day you met four octogenarians who liked to read bondage romance novels.

  It was quite the treat.

  Unless you were the granddaughter of one of those women, then it was a little more trick and a lot less treat.

  “Did you have to bring the damn kitten?” Grandma asked, staring at the cat box. “It can’t read or drink. It’s useless.”

  “It’s been alone half the day,” I replied. “Besides, it’s asleep. Even if it were awake, I could guarantee it would be less trouble than the fearsome foursome.”

  “The fearsome foursome,” she mused. “We need that on t-shirts.”

  “You need to stop ordering dust jackets from eBay,” Immy said, walking into the room and tossing a package in Grandma’s direction. “You’re not fooling anyone, Grandma.”

  “This isn’t dust jackets; it’s my new bra!”

  I blinked.

  I wasn’t even going to respond to that.

  “You order bras from eBay?” Immy froze. “Why?”

  Grandma tore into the packet. “You can buy ones with holes to free your nipples!” She held up the bra she’d bought.

  Well, I used the word ‘bra’ loosely.

  It was more a scrap of vaguely sculpted lace with holes where her nipples were supposed to go.

  No wires, no support, no nothing.

  “Where on Earth do you think you can wear that?” I sputtered, staring at the lime green scrap of material. “Do you know your nipples play with your kneecaps?”

  She threw the bra at me. “Have some respect for your elders!”

  “Why? Judging by that, you have no respect for anyone, elders or otherwise.”

  Immy picked the ‘bra’ up with her finger and thumb. “She’s right, Grandma. You can’t wear that. These things are made for lingerie sites… or porn sites.”

  I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything like that on a porn site.

  I hoped I never would, especially not on an eighty-something-year-old woman.

  Now, let me make this clear: I was not against anyone wearing anything that made them feel confident, beautiful, or like an absolute boss.

  I was merely against knowing my grandmother was wearing such a thing.

  It was a vision I didn’t need, thank you very much.

  “Oh, Hannah, I have a date for you.” Grandma folded her quasi-bra into a tidy little triangle and tucked it into the pocket of her cardigan. “He’s twenty-eight, a lawyer, and has no friendly exes or children.”

  “Subtle, Grandma. Real subtle,” Immy said, twirling her wine glass.

  I rolled my eyes. We all knew Grandma loved Mason and especially Maya, and she was making Fran’s wedding cake for the love of God.

  The woman was all drama.

  Well, ninety percent drama. The other ten percent of her was Jack Daniels.

  It wasn’t a questionable mix at all.

  “I don’t need a date,” I said for what was probably the five-thousandth time this month. “I’m fine.”

  “With your cat?” Grandma asked with faux innocence.

  “It’s not my cat. It snotted in my shoe before I came here.”

  Grandma looked at my foot. “Why didn’t you change your shoes, then?”

  “I did!”

  “Oh. Then you need new ones, because they look like they’re covered in cat snot.”

  The doorbell rang, giving me a welcome break in the conversation. At the same time, my stomach sank, because it meant the others were here.

  Lilian, Evelyn, and Kathleen.

  Which meant the night was just getting started.

  AKA, time to pray for all our souls.

  I did just that, shooting a quick prayer to whichever God from whichever religion may be listening right now. All three women came into the living room clutching books that declared they were Wuthering Heights.

  The dust jackets weren’t fooling anyone. I knew the actual title of the book was Heather’s Discovery: A Sexual Journey, a memoir about a woman exploring her sexuality in the world of BDSM.

  I was equal parts excited and terrified. Excited because they were branching out to non-fiction, but terrified they were getting lessons from this poor woman whose name was not actually Heather.

  “How do you get the dust jackets to stay on the paperbacks?” I asked, picking Evelyn’s book up from the table right after she’d set it down. “And you do know that everyone knows you’re all smut peddlers, don’t you?”

  “Open the cover. Sticky tack,” Lil answered, unscrewing the Jack Daniels. “And we know, but it’s fun to take the books to church and wait for all the prissies to open a book discussion.”

  Kathleen nodded sagely. “This morning, Wilhelmina Porter-Scott asked us what we thought of the book, and Jen told them she was enjoying the voyeur scene.”

  Grandma cackled. “Poor little Willy went bright red and did the cross over her shoulders. She’s not even Catholic, the silly old prune!”

  I side-eyed her. “Are you aware that you’re an eighty-year-old bully?”

  “Yes, dear, but you’re confusing me with someone who gives a shit.”

  Well, that conversation was always going to end like that. I really should have known better than to ask that.

  Immy shot me a look that said she could read my mind and passed me a glass of wine.

  Yes.

  Very helpful.

  Thank you.

  Lil passed the Jack Daniels around to the ladies and took her seat. “Let’s discuss Heather’s latest escapades! I know we only said it to wind up Willy, but I really did enjoy the voyeur scene. Especially because she didn’t know who she was doing it with! Blindfolded!” She shuddered.

  I stilled
. What on Earth had I gotten myself into this time?

  “I thought that was a little strange,” Evelyn ventured, taking a sip from her glass. “Imagine having sex with, well, anyone. Do you really think she enjoyed that?”

  “I don’t think it matters,” Kathleen added. “Sir was with her the entire time, and she could have safe-worded to get out.”

  Grandma nodded. “All she had to do was say ‘marshmallow’ and she was out of there.”

  “Her safe word was marshmallow?” Immy raised her eyebrows. “Who the hell is going to yell that while getting flogged?”

  Excellent question.

  “She wasn’t getting flogged, dear,” Evelyn said. “She was—”

  “She knows what she was doing, Eve,” Lil drawled. “It was hypothetical.”

  “Oh.”

  Lord above. These women were something else.

  I sat back and cradled my wine glass. I would have to break into that Jack if this carried on this way. I thought they would at least try to be restrained, but that was my mistake.

  I knew better than to think that.

  At least there was food.

  Immy had been roped into preparing a charcuterie board, and luckily for my cheese-loving ass, the pensioners were far too into their discussion about Heather’s latest escapades to care that I was eating all the goldfish crackers and Edam cheese.

  What? They went surprisingly well together.

  After listening to them arguing over the merits of voyeurism for a solid five minutes, I peered into the cat box at a sleeping but snotty Lucifer, then disappeared into the kitchen with my empty wine glass.

  The canary yellow clock on the wall—one of Grandma’s new finds from wherever the hell she found her questionable décor.

  I had no idea how Immy put up with it.

  Maybe she spent more time at Mason’s these days. God only knew I would.

  I poured a small glass of wine and leaned against the counter. I didn’t have long until I had to be home in time for my late night texting date, and I also needed to make sure Lucifer ate a little something and had some water before bed.

  I tapped my finger against my lips. Maybe I needed to take Isaac up on his offer to take a look at the kitten. Being able to say ‘he’ or ‘she’ would undoubtedly be an improvement on ‘it,’ and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t dying or anything.

  I knew nothing about cats. Except that they were assholes, but everyone who’d ever been on the internet knew that.

  Even people who didn’t know what the internet was probably knew that.

  “My God,” Immy said, walking into the kitchen with a heavy exhale. “They get worse every week.”

  “I’m dreading their next book pick,” I admitted. “They seem to be getting sexier and sexier.”

  “No kidding. I’m worried they’re going to look into field trips to local sex toy stores or something.”

  “Stores?” I raised my eyebrows. “I’m worried they’re going to hunt down sex clubs and put their study into practice.”

  Immy shuddered as she refilled her glass, almost spilling the last of the wine onto the countertop. “Shh, Han. Don’t say it that loud. They might hear you and actually do it.”

  I wrinkled my nose. The last thing I wanted to do was give those horny old ladies any ideas. Knowing them as well as I did, none of it would stay as ideas.

  “Hannah!” Grandma yelled from the living room. “Your kitten is snotting all over its box!”

  “It’s not my kitten,” I muttered, putting down my glass.

  “It’s totally your kitten,” Immy replied with a smirk.

  I stuck my middle finger up at her and went back into the living room.

  For that, I was scooping up the kitten that was not my kitten and leaving Immy to handle the octogenarians by herself.

  That’d teach her.

  ***

  I needed a vet.

  The problem? It was ten o’clock at night.

  Twenty-four hours after leaving the book club, I was sitting on my kitchen floor, cleaning up the second load of cat sick today.

  It wasn’t really what I’d planned to do today.

  Lucifer was clearly really unwell, and a quick Google search confirmed what I’d feared: I should have taken it to the vet the moment I saw the cold coming on.

  Guilt tinged every part of me. The poor little thing had been unwell because I just hadn’t done what I should have done.

  I was so, so mad at myself. Despite my neutral feelings toward the little black furry critter, I did love animals, and I didn’t want any animal to suffer.

  The only option I had was to go next door and see if Isaac could help me. He’d already said all I had to do was knock on his door, and that was what I was going to have to do.

  I finished cleaning the mess and went to Lucifer’s bed where it had procured one of my blankets for itself. I grabbed it and went to the sleeping kitten on the sofa. After wrapping it up tightly, I held it to my chest, picked up my keys, and went outside.

  His car was in the driveway, thank God. The last thing I needed right now was to drive to the other side of the town and pay all the emergency vet charges.

  Namely, I couldn’t.

  I ran across our yards, happily noting that he had lights on in his living room.

  No, that wasn’t me being a creeper. Our houses were just laid out the same, okay?

  Mostly.

  I rapped my knuckles against his door three times. It took a moment, but a shadow in the window gave way to him opening the door.

  “Hannah? What’s—” he paused when he saw the bundle in my arms. “Is that the kitten?”

  I nodded. “It’s sick. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You did the right thing. Come in.” He stepped aside for me to enter, and even through my worry about the kitten, it took everything I had not to stare too much at his gray sweatpants.

  Seriously.

  They needed to be made illegal, especially on a man as hot as he was.

  “Bring it into the living room. What’s wrong?” He led me into the gray and white living room and motioned for me to take a seat on the L-shaped sofa.

  He took the kitten from me and sat it between us.

  “It’s been snotty for a few days, but it threw up twice today. I don’t think it’s kept any food down.”

  “Shit, okay.” He gently unbundled the blanket. “Hello,” he said softly, when Lucifer opened its big blue eyes. Isaac picked it up and turned it around, then reached between its back legs.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  His lips curved into an amused half-smile. “I’m checking for balls.”

  Oh.

  “Are there any balls?” I asked.

  His smile gave way to a low chuckle. “Two balls. Congratulations, it’s a boy.”

  Yippee.

  “Well, at least his name won’t have to change now.”

  “And you can stop referring to him like he’s a member of the Addams family.”

  “That, too.”

  Isaac grinned. “Give me a second. I keep some stuff in the kitchen, then I can check him over properly.”

  I nodded, reaching out to smooth Lucifer. So. It was a boy. While I didn’t care either way, it was nice to know.

  Because, you know.

  Not. My. Cat.

  Isaac came back in with a small black bag. He sat back down on the other side of the sofa and unzipped the bag before pulling out a few things. He used the stethoscope to check his heart, then gave Lucifer’s face a once over, checking his eyes, ears, and teeth.

  Then he shoved a thermometer up his ass.

  Well, he didn’t shove it. He actually inserted it very gently, but saying it like that doesn’t add any drama, does it?

  I did like a bit of drama.

  Damn it. I was turning into Grandma Jen.

  “His temperature is fine, his heart is beating how it should be, and his teeth all look good,” Isaac said after a moment. “He is snotty an
d his eyes are a little gunky. It’s probably just cat flu. You said he hasn’t had any injections, didn’t you?”

  I bit my lip and nodded.

  “It’s okay.” He reached over and touched my upper arm reassuringly. “He’s around nine to ten weeks old, so he’s only just old enough for them anyway. Even if he had them already, he’d probably still be unwell because chances are, he picked this up before he found you.”

  Weirdly, that made me feel a little better.

  “Can he have the shots now, then?”

  He shook his head. “Not while he’s ill. I’d prefer him to be over the worst of it before he gets the vaccines. If you want to leave him with me tonight, I can take him in and get the medicine he needs.”

  “Is he really sick?”

  “I can check him over better at work, but the flu is probably just making him feel too unwell to digest the food. Is he drinking fine?”

  “Yeah, and he hasn’t thrown that up as far as I know.”

  “There you go, then. I’ll take him in and get him some decongestant and some anti-inflammatory meds.”

  “Now? I can take him tomorrow. It’s fine.”

  “Ah, but if I say he’s mine, you won’t have to pay right now.” He winked, grinned, and scratched Lucifer under the chin.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “You’re right, I don’t, but unless you have a spare hundred or so dollars hanging around right now…”

  I grimaced. “Understood.”

  He laughed and wrapped Lucifer in the blanket. “It won’t take me long. I’ll give you my number, so call in the morning and I’ll let you know how he’s doing. Do you have your phone?”

  All right, so it wasn’t the way I’d ever planned on getting his number, but I’d take it.

  “Not with me, no. Thank you. I really appreciate it.” I stood when he did.