Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Benjamin supposed that technically there was nothing wrong with his upstairs neighbor.
Other than being massively inconsiderate of proper noise levels, he hadn’t committed any atrocious crimes. He hadn’t, for example, murdered anyone, at least as far as Benjamin knew.
It was just…
Well, Benjamin hadn’t interacted with him all that much beyond sightings in the foyer or the stairwell when he’d moved in around this time last year. And when Benjamin had finally met the man face to face, it had been… not great.
Benjamin had been freshly dumped and more heartbroken than he should have been, trying and failing to get a decent night’s sleep before another long, dull day at work. He’d been lonely and sad and despairing of ever being wanted again.
His ex-boyfriend hadn’t been some great love, but that had been part of the problem. Benjamin had settled for him, lowered his expectations, and accepted that companionship was better than any hope of a great love, and he’d still been dumped mercilessly right before Christmas.
And as he’d been trying and failing to get any sort of rest, there had been a cacophony above him. A truly unbelievable amount of noise. A rhythmic banging and then a rhythmic scraping, like furniture was moving across the floor over and over again.
It had gone on for long enough—and Benjamin had been in a sorry enough emotional state, despairing of ever having love or companionship or a break from the monotony that was his lonely, boring life—that he’d leaped out of bed and dashed upstairs to the fourth floor in his flannel holiday pajamas.
He’d pounded on 4B’s door with all the indignant rage he could muster, planning to chastise the man soundly for rearranging furniture at such a late hour.
And then 4B had opened his door, and he’d been shirtless and flushed and sweaty and wearing only a pair of boxer briefs that had clearly been pulled on with extreme haste.
Boxer briefs that had failed to hide the sizable erection he’d been sporting, one he seemed to have no shame in displaying to Benjamin’s shocked gaze.
And Benjamin had realized immediately that 4B had not been rearranging furniture at all. And anyone not in a depressed fog would have understood that right away and not interrupted what had clearly been a marathon sex session of epic proportions.
Benjamin’s mortification had been instant, his cheeks flushing so hot he’d no doubt been red as a tomato.
And then he’d run.
Barefoot. In his pajamas. He’d run away without a word.
He hadn’t slept that night at all, even when the noise had finally ceased. He’d been too miserable. It had been too much like a reminder from the universe that Benjamin was unwanted. Unloved. Completely alone and destined to remain so.
And so yes, even though 4B had since subjected Benjamin to plenty of other raucous nights of ‘furniture moving’ (really, was the man’s need to fuck so great that he never required sleep?), Benjamin hadn’t gone back up to knock on his neighbor’s door.
He’d invested in a sound machine instead, and a decent pair of earplugs.
But he hadn’t quite forgiven 4B for being a witness to his embarrassment. Or for being, unknowing or not, a key part of one of the worst nights of Benjamin’s life.
And now Benjamin had to face him again, this time with gift-wrapped panties in hand.
Perhaps it was time to consider a move.
4B didn’t have a doormat, not even a boring one—its resident was probably too carefree for such things. But Benjamin could still leave the gift at his doorstep, right, even without a mat to leave it on? He might have unwrapped it already, but he didn’t actually have to hand it over in person.
Benjamin was just bending down to place it on the hallway carpet when 4B’s door opened. Benjamin was faced suddenly with a pair of legs, sturdy and muscular and dusted with dark hair, bare all the way up to a tanned stretch above the knees, where a pair of athletic shorts finally covered skin.
“Thought I heard a little mouse at the door,” a deep voice drawled.
Well, fuck and damn and all of that. Jesus. Couldn’t 4B have had the basic decency to be out and about and not at home?
The rest of the hellish vision was revealed as Benjamin straightened slowly.
4B was shirtless again because of course he was.
He was probably allergic to covering his chest. He was displaying an indecent expanse of tanned skin, with tattoos of winding snakes running up his sides to disappear around his back, only for their heads to reappear over his extremely broad and shapely shoulders.
He had a nipple piercing, more tattoos on his neck—black roses this time—and messy, bleached hair that was at odds with his dark eyebrows.
His eyes were an alarmingly pale green, and he had full, smirking lips.
And that was maybe 4B’s worst offense, in Benjamin’s humble opinion.
He was horrendously, unbelievably good-looking.
Any mother’s nightmare and any gay man’s wet dream, all wrapped up in one excruciatingly appealing package.
When Benjamin had seen him that night a year ago in all his sexed-up glory, he’d had a brief moment of thinking he’d hallucinated him, as some sort of carnal mental torture.
He wasn’t even Benjamin’s type—Benjamin preferred men who didn’t look like they’d stab him just as easily as fuck him—but 4B had enough effortless sex appeal for that not to matter.
Now the shock of seeing 4B in the flesh, when he’d hoped for the exact opposite, had Benjamin frozen in place.
The smirk turned into a wide, mocking grin.
4B leaned against the doorjamb, the very picture of wicked amusement. “If it isn’t 3B.” His gaze dropped down to the rewrapped package, then back up to Benjamin’s mortified face. “And you have a gift for me.”