The East Coast Series Box Set

1. Cassidy

Cassidy

Then he penetrates me with his cock.

“No, that doesn’t sound right.” I hold down the delete key with my index finger and start again.

He positions his tip at my entrance and slides inside.

“Entrance? What is her vagina, a portal?”

Delete.

He thrusts his shaft inside me and we cry out in pleasure as we embark on a journey of pure ecstasy.

“Jesus Christ, this is getting worse by the second.” I slam my laptop shut and glare at my bird. “This is hopeless. I’m a lost cause.”

Candy cocks her head.

“I’m really not in the mood for your positivity right now, okay? I’m wallowing. Let me wallow.”

She hops onto the bottom perch in her cage and pecks at her food, letting me go on my self-pity spiral.

“Not only did Sheldon break my heart, but he took my writing mojo with him.” I stab the air with my finger.

“He’s off living his life, having tons of hot cheater sex.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting over here and I haven’t so much as felt the touch of another man, let alone write about a fictional one.

What kind of romance author has no romance in her life?

” I let out a humorless laugh and shake my head. “A pathetic one, that’s who.”

Candy tweets like she agrees.

“I should be writing the best book of my life, and get revenge on my adulterous ex-boyfriend. He should be seeing my face on all the billboards in this city and have to deal with the fact that he lost me because he’s the one who screwed it all up.

And that would happen if I could just finish a damn book. ”

It’s been a year-and-a-half since my last book release. It’s not for lack of ideas. I have dozens of half-baked concepts saved on my MacBook. But whenever I get to a sex scene, I freeze up. Who knew getting cheated on would be a perpetual boner-killer?

“No, you know what? Fuck this, and fuck him. I’m going to finish this book if it kills me.”

I open my laptop and try to start again, but voices in the hallway pull my attention.

I gasp. “It’s my new neighbor!”

I fly off my chair and bolt to the door, stretching on my tippy-toes to reach the peephole.

A large man stands beside Rupert, the bellhop in our building. I smush my face against the door, straining to see what he looks like through the tiny fishbowl lens.

“He’s very tall,” I whisper-yell to Candy. “He has dark hair.”

She chirps.

“I don’t know. I can’t tell if he’s cute. He’s facing away from me.”

The man speaks to Rupert, revealing a deep voice. “Thanks. I can take it from here.”

“Welcome to the building, sir. If you need anything at all, please let me know. My name is Rupert.” Rupert shakes his hand and then stuffs his hand into his pocket after he pulls back. “Thank you very much, sir. That’s very generous of you.”

Neighbor Man tipped him. That’s promising. Points for him.

After Rupert leaves, the man wheels the luggage cart inside his apartment.

My shoulders jump as his door slams shut behind him. I won’t count that against him though. These doors are heavy and take some getting used to.

“I miss Sherry.” I turn around and walk back to my desk wearing a frown. “I hope she’s doing all right.”

The elderly woman who lived next door to me for the last five years was recently moved to a nursing home. Her memory was on the decline and I know it was the right thing for her family to do, but I can’t help feeling sad about it.

I slump down in my chair and run my fingertips over the keyboard, willing the words to flow.

“All right. You’re a small-town girl who just inherited her wealthy grandfather’s estate in the big city.

You move up there to go through his belongings, and you meet the handsome billionaire who’s running his company.

He sweeps you off your feet and you fall in love. Now it’s time to bone him, goddamnit!”

I stare at the blinking cursor for the next twenty minutes. Not a single word comes out.

Maybe I’m just not feeling a spark between these characters. The reviews from my last book bounce off the walls of my brain like a pinball.

One star: A lackluster plot with two-dimensional characters.

Two stars: This didn’t feel like Quinn’s previous work.

One star: DNFed this at twenty percent.

One star: The characters had no chemistry.

I can’t blame the readers. I know it wasn’t my best work. My relationship was on the rocks and I wasn’t into the story. But it kills me that my readers could tell that from my writing.

My phone vibrates on the desk, pulling me from my intrusive thoughts.

I swipe my thumb across the screen. “Hey, Aarya.”

“Hey, boo. What are you doing?”

I heave an overdramatic sigh. “Oh, you know, just sitting here writing the worst book in the history of mankind—no, wait. Scratch that. To write the worst book, that would mean I’d have to actually be writing.”

“Still no luck with the book, huh?”

“Nope. My creativity has dried up like an old sponge.”

“It’ll come back to you.”

“What if it doesn’t? What if the last book I published is it for me?”

“It’s not. You’re just in a slump. Sometimes you’re up, and sometimes you’re down. It happens to the best of us artists.”

I run my fingers through my hair and pull at the roots. “How are you? What are you up to today?”

“I just left the gallery. I want to get a workout in before dinner tonight. You feel like meeting me at the gym?”

“Hell yes. I need to blow off some steam.” I close my laptop and head to my bedroom. “I’ll meet you down there in ten.”

“Sounds good. Oh, and please don’t take that pre-workout again. You were like a feral squirrel last time.”

I scoff as I pull out a sports bra from my dresser drawer. “I was not.”

“You looked like you were on speed and washed it down with a Red Bull. Dump that shit in the garbage.”

“I don’t like your tone today.”

She laughs. “When do you ever?”

Several minutes later, I meet Aarya at the gym in our apartment building. We head to the ellipticals first.

“I’m assuming you didn’t write anything today?”

I pull my hair into a ponytail as I start pumping my legs. “I can’t get out of my own head. Every time I try to write, it’s like I’m staring at this blank wall and I can’t figure out how to get around it.”

“Every author experiences writer’s block once in a while. Maybe you’re trying too hard. You can’t force it.”

“But the more I avoid it, the longer it’s going to be until I can finish the book.”

“Or the longer you obsess over it, the harder it’s going to be to achieve. Take a break from it. Do something else. Get a hobby. You spend too much time with that serial killer bird of yours.”

My eyebrows press together as I toss a glare her way. “She only killed one bird. She’s not a serial killer.”

“Fine. She’s a plain old murderer then.” Aarya scrunches her nose. “I don’t know how you sleep with that thing in your home after what she did.”

Five years ago, I found a fallen bird’s nest out on the sundeck with two baby Cardinals in it.

The mother was nowhere in sight and they looked hurt, so I nursed them back to health.

But after doing some research, I learned that the mother wouldn’t come back to take care of them if she smelled a human on them.

Rather than send them back into the wild to fend for themselves and likely die, I bought a cage and named them Maggie and Wally.

Everything was great until I came home one night and found Wally dead on the bottom of their cage.

Maggie pecked him to death and sat there on her swing with his feathers sticking out of her bloody beak as if everything was fine.

I’ll never know what the real reason for the murder was, but Maggie was pissed off about something and I can’t blame her for that.

Female Cardinals aren’t as vibrant in color as the stunning bright-red males, so maybe she was jealous of her beautiful brother.

Maybe he just shit in her birdseed. Regardless, I bought her a new cage and changed her name to Candy—after Candice Montgomery, the woman who axed her friend to death forty-one times and walked free.

I thought it was fitting.

“I love Candy despite what she did, like a good mother should. Plus, she’s an excellent listener and—oh, look!” I hunch down and lower my voice. “There’s my new neighbor.”

The tall, dark-haired man stands with his back to us as he fills out paperwork at the front desk.

“Did you meet him already?” Aarya asks.

“No. I saw him through my peephole when Rupert moved him in. Couldn’t see his face though.”

Her eyes narrow as she strains to see him across the gym. “He’s certainly a big boy.”

Gray joggers hug his tree-trunk thighs and ass. His white T-shirt stretches from shoulder to shoulder across his broad back.

Come on, Neighbor Man. Turn around. Let’s see what you look like.

He takes what feels like forever filling out his gym membership forms, but then he turns and enters the cardio area.

“Damn,” Aarya murmurs.

Damn is right. Neighbor Man has a thick jaw covered in dark scruff. His messy hair falls in his eyes and curls around his ears. His nose has a slight bend in it, like it was broken at some point. He’s the walking definition of rugged. Between his size and his hardened expression, he looks menacing.

“How old do you think he is?” I whisper.

“Mid-to-late thirties maybe.”

I nod in agreement. He definitely looks older than me.

He skips cardio and heads straight for the squat rack, which is conveniently located directly in front of the row of ellipticals.

Aarya waggles her eyebrows. “Showtime, baby.”

I roll my lips together and avert my eyes. “He’s in front of the mirror. He can see you ogling him.”

“Don’t act like you don’t want to watch him drop that ass right now.”

I do. I really do.

“Fine. I’m going to watch one squat and then I’m going to work out.”

Once Neighbor Man racks the plates on either side of the metal bar, he ducks under it and positions it on his traps, squaring his feet hip-width apart. I hold my breath as he squats down and presses back up.

Aarya hisses. “I’d let him bend down over my face like that and put his balls right in my mouth if he wanted to.”

A loud laugh bursts from my throat, garnering the attention of several people nearby, including my neighbor. “Okay, that’s it. I’m going to finish my workout far, far away from you.”

Aarya keeps her eyes zeroed on his ass like a laser. “I’ll be right here.”

I shake my head and make my way to the dumbbells.

And I only check out my hot neighbor twice in the reflection of the mirror.

After I finish my usual routine for bis and tris, I say goodbye to Aarya as she heads for the sauna. I step inside the elevator, press the button for the sixth floor, and dab my forehead with my towel as the door slides closed.

Then a giant hand shoots out and the door slides open again.

Neighbor Man steps inside.

I smile up at him as I press my back against the cool metal wall to give him space, though he doesn’t smile back because he doesn’t even look at me.

He glances at the illuminated six on the panel before leaning against the opposing wall without a word, staring straight ahead at nothing.

Everyone in the building gives a courteous hello when they share an elevator. It’s elevator etiquette. Common decency.

I suppress a groan. Please don’t be a dick. Sherry was so sweet. She gave the best hugs, and even better advice. We spent every Tuesday and Thursday night together playing Rummy. I cooked and she baked. She was the greatest neighbor a girl could ask for.

Sadness sits on my chest like a weighted blanket.

I miss you, Sher.

After a loud ding, the door slides open. Neighbor Man doesn’t move, allowing me to step into the hallway ahead of him.

So, he won’t say hello but he displays a modicum of courtesy by letting the woman step out first.

Interesting.

I can feel his presence behind me as we walk. He could easily pass me to get to his door, but he takes his time at a slow pace.

I reach my door and pretend to fumble with my purse as I get out my key card, allowing him enough time to get to his door on my left.

I glance over at him and act like I haven’t realized he’s been in the hallway with me this whole time. “Oh, hey. You’re my new neighbor.”

His dark eyes meet mine for a brief moment. “Looks that way.”

Before I can stick out my hand and introduce myself, he swings open his door and steps inside his apartment, letting the door slam shut behind him.

Okay now that slam was on purpose.