The Voyeur Next Door (18 page)

“Do you know how frustrating it is to be this close and not be able to kneel between your legs?”

I shut my eyes and let the deep rumble of his words wash over me in a hot wave.

“To not spread your lips and lick your pussy clean?”

A gasp escaped me at the same time as my hips gave an involuntary jerk, like his tongue really was just there, waiting to sweep over me. It was met with only air.

“That’s how I would make you come the first time,”
he went on.
“Then I’d make my way up your body and slide inside you slowly, inch by inch until I was so deep you wouldn’t be able to stand it.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. My hand rushed down to my mound. My fingers parted the cleanly shaven lips to locate the thick pool in between.

“Oh my God!” I gasped. “I’m so wet!”

“How wet?”

Two fingers effortlessly worked their way deep into the cavity of my body, all the way to the knuckles. The walls gripped the intruders with enthusiastic vigor and I swore loudly. My feet jerked off the floor and anchored on the edges of the bench by their heels. The knees dropped so I was lewdly sprawled and open for him. My free hand drifted off my breast to take up the phone. I held it down between my legs and hoped he could hear the wet, sucking sound my pussy was making with every thrust.

“Christ…”
I heard him groan.
“Faster.”

I didn’t argue. I worked the muscles with the pad of my fingers, dragging them along the walls, seeking that little bundle I could never seem to find. But my body didn’t care if I found my g-spot or not. It had spent a long day on the edge of desperation and it was wound too tightly to hold off much longer.

“I’m coming!” I choked, hips lifting to meet every hungry slap of my palm. “God, I’m coming!”

My eyes screwed shut as the pressure snapped like an over coiled elastic band. I felt the sharp sting trigger my clit and I fell with a deep sob of relief. A kaleidoscope of colors shimmered to life behind my closed eyelids, exploding in time with the roar in my ears. My climax continued to milk at my fingers with an excitement I hadn’t felt since watching Q the first night. I was vaguely aware of my companion’s grunt somewhere in the distances, but I couldn’t bring myself to focus, not even as the world slowly righted itself once more.

“Aoife?”

It took me a moment to remember that was me, but it took longer for me to shake away the fuzzy haze of exhaustion long enough to answer.

“Hm?”

“Are you okay?”

“Mm.”

I heard him chuckle.
“I’m going to head back inside, okay?”

I didn’t answer. But I heard the squeak of his window hinges shutting. I continued to just lie there, eyes closed, legs sprawled apart, fingers still knuckle deep in my pussy. Honestly, I was content to stay there forever.

“Are you falling asleep on me?”

It took energy I didn’t possess to lift the phone off my pelvic bone all the way to my ear.

“Possibly.” But I forced myself up. “Did you come?”

“Yes, I did. Thank you.”

I made a sound I hoped was satisfaction as I dumped myself down on the bed.

“Me too.”

He made a humming sound.
“I heard.”

“Was I too loud?” I wondered.

“No, you were perfect. I liked hearing you.”

I yawned.

“You are falling asleep on me,”
he teased.

I chuckled. “I’m awake. Promise.” But I could feel myself drifting no matter how much I fought it. “Okay, maybe a little.”

There was amusement in his tone when he spoke.

“Go to bed. Call me tomorrow and have your laptop ready.”

“My laptop?”

“Mmhm. I want to do that again, but closer.”

Gabriel

I woke up the next morning and for the first time in a long time, I felt … happy. I felt content. I felt like I had a reason to smile and it wasn’t because the day was bright and the sky was clear, or that the construction crew I’d been waiting to hear from for over a week finally got back to me via email regarding the upgrades I wanted to do to the garage.

I got to work with an almost skip to my step. I wasn’t sure where my usual dark cloud had gone, but it could stay there. Lloyd glanced up from the wrench set he was cleaning with a shammy cloth.

His brow lifted. “What’s her name?”

I waved him off as I jogged my way up the steps to the office.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about. Morning.”

At the desk¸ Ali glanced up. One finger poked her glasses higher up on her face and she blinked at me from behind the lenses.

“Morning,” she repeated with a wary sort of hesitance. “There were no calls today.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

I sprinted up the stairs to the loft. The early morning light cast a dim glow over the space. Speckles of dust scattered when I trudged through the beams of light to the dresser. I was yanking on my jumpsuit when Ali appeared at the top of the stairs.

She looked different. I wasn’t sure what it was, because her hair was still in its habitual bun and her face was obscured behind her glasses, but something about her had my hands stalling on the zipper and my eyes narrowing.

“Sorry,” she said quickly. “I just wanted to tell you that Earl invited me to family dinner this Sunday. I thought I would warn you in case you weren’t aware.”

I yanked the zipper up all the way to my throat.

“I know,” I told her. “Mom really wants to meet you.”

“Why?”

I prolonged having to answer by rolling the sleeves up on my suit.

“She’s nosy,” I semi lied. “Plus we haven’t had a woman work here since…” I broke off, cleared my throat and tried again. “In a long time.”

Her brows furrowed. “Oh.” She rubbed her hands anxiously at her midsection. “I guess that’s it then. I’ll let you get back to work.”

“Ali?” Her name shot out of me before I could stop myself, or even think of a reason why I said it.

“Yeah?”

I had nothing. But I still didn’t want her to go. Not yet.

“How’s Tammy’s costume coming along?”

She shrugged. “Good. I talked to her last night on the phone about it. I think she said she needed it for this weekend, so…”

I moved slowly towards her. I told myself it was because she was standing by the only exit, but I had no interest in the stairs.

“She’s not giving you a hard time is she?”

Ali shook her head. “No, what she wants done is actually pretty simple so…”

“That’s not what I meant.” I stopped when there was a safe distance between us. “I know my sister. She’s spoiled and a brat. She can sometimes forget she’s not the queen of the universe.”

Her laugh filled the silence and it struck me—not for the first time—I liked the sound of it.

“She’s fine,” Ali assured me. “But thank you.”

I drew in a breath and inhaled her delicious scent of … that was when it hit me. Her scent was different. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was sweeter, like an orchard in spring.

“You smell nice.”

I wasn’t sure which of us was more stunned by my verbal diarrhea. I did know that I was horrified by my inexplicable inability to keep my damn thoughts to myself. What the hell was wrong with me?

“Thank you,” she whispered, her cheeks a soft, baby pink. “My sister gave it to me for my birthday a few years back.”

“I like it.”

Her head lifted and I had a distinct impression she was looking at me, but the fucking lenses kept reflecting light, keeping her eyes concealed. It took all of my restraint not to tear the damn things off her face.

“Thank you.” She ran her hands down over her skirt, took a deep breath and edged back a step, then another. “I should get back to work.”

I lunged for her when she took another step and met air. My hands closed around her arms before she could go tumbling backwards down the stairs and I jerked her back, back to me.

She struck my chest and I kept her there with both arms around her middle. Her glasses slipped down the length of her nose on impact and caught on one ear. Thick, dark lashes swept up and I was captured in her wide, brilliant eyes.

They were a splintered gold across a bed of moss green, surrounded by an endless fan of lashes. The contour was wide, dominating against her otherwise delicate features. It amazed me that I had never noticed before.

“Are you okay?” I asked, finding my voice.

Ali nodded. Her hands were shaking when she shoved her glasses back into place.

“Yes, thank you.” She wet her lips with the tip of her pink tongue. “I need to go.”

I released her when she took a step back and I didn’t stop her when she turned and hurried downstairs. All I could think was that her eyes were hazel.

The day was unnaturally slow. We had no business at all and I found I actually liked the lull. It gave my mind a chance to escape while I helped Lloyd scrub down the tools. Ali kept to the office. I wasn’t sure what she was doing up there, but I was relieved for that, too. The woman complicated too many things and I could never think straight when she was around. It didn’t help that she made me want things I had sworn I would never again allow myself. She brought out a side of me that I kept locked up and that made her the type of dangerous I needed to stay away from. The last woman I let myself fall for had destroyed any and all chances of me ever touching that life again. She tainted the thing I had once cherished. Those were now shoes I would never don again.

But Ali made me want to. She made me miss a life I had spent the better part of five years burying deep into the ground, right alongside Regina. I couldn’t be that man anymore. I couldn’t let my own wants and desires destroy another person the way it had destroyed her. If I had stopped sooner, if I had been better, stronger, Regina might still have been alive. Instead, I had let my own arrogance blind me to the razor’s edge she was walking.

Regina was dead because of me and I wouldn’t let that happen to Ali, or Aoife.

“Gabe?”

I blinked out of my spiraling depression and focused on Lloyd standing a few feet away. He jerked his chin over my shoulder and I turned just as a man stepped into the shop, darkened to a silhouette by the afternoon glare. I squinted and set down the cloth in my hand.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

The man stepped in deeper and any good mood I could possibly ever possess, evaporated.

“Hi again!” Carl Doray smiled brightly at me around the twin black eyes and busted nose wrapped in thick, white tape. “This place isn’t easy to find.”

It clearly hadn’t been hard enough, I thought to myself.

“Is there something I can do for you?” I asked, unable to keep my contempt at bay.

“I’m actually here to see Ali, if that’s all right?”

No, I wanted to tell him. It wasn’t all right.

“Ali!” I called up, never taking my eyes off the asshole.

Carl just kept on grinning. It made me want to hit him again.

Ali appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Yes?” She spotted Carl and gave a visible start of surprise. It made me feel a little better that she hadn’t actually invited the douchebag. “Carl?”

“Hello!” he said, moving towards the stairs.

Ali started down towards him. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

Carl chuckled. “Trust me, it wasn’t easy. But Alyssa knows your sister,” he said with a glance at Gabriel. “I did a Google search after that.”

“You Googled me?” I said, annoyed.

The man shrugged. “Well, Ali mentioned she worked for you and Alyssa may have mentioned you owned an auto body shop. The rest wasn’t very hard.”

I wasn’t sure why, but I had an overpowering urge to punch him in the mouth. Maybe it was the smug little grin on his face whenever he looked at Ali, like he was expecting her to pat him on the head and tell him what a good boy he was.

“Was there something you needed?” Ali asked, before I could follow through on my urges.

“Actually…” Carl edged a step too close to Ali and lowered his voice. “I was hoping you’d have lunch with me. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Ali frowned. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes! Yes, of course, I just want to discuss something. It will be very quick.”

Ali checked her watch. “The shop closes at one for lunch. That’s in ten minutes.”

Carl gave an enthusiastic bob of his head. “Great. I know just the place. I’ll wait outside.”

He walked out and silence descended on the shop. I watched Ali, who watched Carl walk away, and wondered if it was murder if they never found a body.

“Are you really going to have lunch with that tool?” I demanded.

Ali turned her head towards me and pursed her lips. “Are you going to hit him again if I say yes?”

“Possibly,” I muttered.

“It’s only lunch,” she said. “I promise not to elope with him, although, if he gets me a donut, I might consider it.”

With that, she left me glowering at her back as she hurried upstairs.

“Was that your handiwork?” Lloyd cut into my frustration with his amused question.

“He walked into it,” I mumbled, stomping back to the drill bits I’d been cleaning.

Ten minute later, Ali jogged down again, purse in tow and hurried out of the shop without a word to anyone.

Lloyd closed the doors and put up the signing telling people we’d open again in an hour. Then he left me alone to stare at the door and wonder what the hell was so important Doray had to take her to lunch to discuss. The bastard was probably going to try and weasel a date out of her.

Realistically, it really shouldn’t have bothered me half as much as it did. But it infuriated me, which surprised me since I wasn’t the jealous type. Regina had slept with other men while we were in the club scene, a fact I hadn’t been aware of until she left. What had bothered me most was the fact that I hadn’t been surprised. I had known from the moment I met Regina that she wouldn’t be satisfied with only me. She was just too wild, too unpredictable. Nothing anyone ever did was ever enough. It hadn’t mattered to her that we had been together for ten years.

But maybe a lot of that was my fault. I wasn’t the right person to Master her. Not because I wasn’t strong enough, but because I hadn’t cared. I had used her for my own personal needs as much as she had used me and at the time, that had been enough. At the time, it had all been about fucking. Lots of fucking, fun and exploration. It was why when Regina started sleeping with Lloyd and Mac, it hadn’t fazed me. It had just been another fucked up aspect of our relationship. But with Ali, I knew without a doubt that I would knock my friends out cold if they went after her. 

That feeling alone was enough reason to keep Ali at arm’s length.

She returned promptly an hour later. I was opening the doors when she hurried up the driveway and ducked inside. She said nothing to me, nor did she make eye contact as she walked to the stairs.