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It made me want to keep needling her. Pretty things, floral scents, a great ass, and a vicious temper. My kryptonite.
But no. She was just a small-town shrew, and I’d be out of here as soon as I could get these properties transferred into—and out of—my name. There was no use indulging in a fleeting interest that had probably only sparked because I’d already seen her naked.
Still, I reached down to snap off a particularly sharp piece of floorboard so it wouldn’t stab me in the shoulder again, and I couldn’t resist asking, “What’s your important meeting?”
She leaned so close I could smell the scent of her lavender shampoo, floral and feminine. When she spoke, she did it through clenched teeth. “Get. In. The. Hole.”
Holding her gaze for a moment, I gave her a nod and disappeared back into my apartment, landing softly on the desk. I glanced down at my bed. One side was littered with scraps of floor and ceiling. I climbed down from the desk and drew in a deep breath as I surveyed the mess. I really didn’t have time for this.
When I looked up, I saw pursed lips and eyes full of daggers framed by dangling auburn hair. Then her face disappeared and a towel was draped over the opening as a sorry excuse for a barrier between us.
“That towel won’t stop you from falling through again,” I pointed out.
“I don’t want to hear it,” she replied, voice slightly muffled.
“I’m just saying.”
“Buddy, I literally don’t want to hear it. When the towel is in place, pretend I don’t exist. We do not speak through the towel. Got it?”
“How do I know I won’t wake up in the middle of the night with you trying to get another glimpse of me naked?”
The towel was wrenched away to reveal her glaring face. She really was quite fetching when she was furious. The expanse of bare shoulder on display made me think the towel she’d used to cover the hole was the one that had previously been wrapped around her body. “I’m not the one who slapped your ass when I had you lying on my kitchen table. If either of us is a pervert, it’s you.”
I crossed my arms and popped a brow. “Is that right?”
“Yes. That’s right. Do you deny it?” She was doing that clenched-jaw-talking thing again, which made an almost irrepressible urge to laugh rise up inside me. I hadn’t had this much fun in months.
I gestured to my bedroom. “I’m going to sweep this mess up, and then I’m going to take my clothes off and go to bed,” I informed her. “If I see you peeping through the hole at me, I’m going to call the police. We’ll see which one of us they decide is a pervert.”
“Noted,” she replied, voice clipped, and the towel covered the hole once more.
I frowned at it. The way she’d said that twigged something in my memory. Who else did I know that had a fondness for ending discussions that way?
My laptop chimed with a new email, and I remembered. The grizzled, cranky, old-fashioned dinosaur I was meeting tomorrow liked to sign off on emails that way when he knew nothing had been resolved but he wanted to cut me off.
“Charlie Washington Reeves,” I said through clenched teeth, wanting to take all this pent-up aggression out on someone. “Esquire.”
“What?” The word snapped through the towel barrier, sounding even more peeved than before.
I glanced down at my crotch, which merrily twitched behind the gray jersey of my sweats. “Really?” I mumbled, then added, louder, “Nothing!”
Unintelligible grumbles made it past the blue terrycloth.
I shook my head and made my way to the kitchen to grab the broom. I knew one thing for sure—these next thirty days would be interesting.
FOUR
CHARLIE
The sound of moving furniture echoed from the hole. I frowned at the blue towel I’d draped over the opening before turning back to my laptop. I didn’t have time to worry about what my rude, arrogant, infuriating, full-of-himself neighbor was doing.
Another rude, arrogant, infuriating, full-of-himself man required my attention. I’d just sent off a quick email to tell him his theater renovation application was under review, hoping he could glean the not-so-subtle subtext that the chances of approval were slim to none.
I didn’t have the authority to touch the Radcliffe Apartments demolition permit itself, but as soon as the heritage approval application came across my desk, I’d get my favorite red stamp ready. DENIED.
I glared at the laptop screen, papers scrunching under my butt when I adjusted myself in my bed. I’d covered my abused behind with my biggest granny panties and my comfiest sweats, then did what I’d promised and sat on a bag of ice.
Another place I could sit, he said. The jackass. The girls would love that one when I got over the mortification and managed to tell them about it.
