Chapter 3
RAIDEN
"Gimme More" by Britney Spears blasts through my apartment at four in the morning, so loud that I throw myself out of bed, landing on my feet in a fighter’s stance, while frantically searching the darkness for a threat.
What the actual fuck is going on?
My heart booms out of my chest as reality quickly comes rushing back. There’s no one here. It’s just music. Very fucking loud music booming through the too-thin walls.
The firecracker next door.
If I weren’t so fucking pissed off about being shamelessly woken at four in the morning, I might even laugh about it. My new neighbor came to play, but she doesn’t know who she’s messing with.
A thrill rumbles through my chest, and I rub my tired eyes as I march through my apartment, dodging and weaving past unpacked boxes.
I made sure to keep my new neighbor up as long as I could through the night.
Jessica gave up about an hour ago, and the second she called it quits, she packed her shit and was out the door.
I crashed the second the door closed behind her, but I have to give my new neighbor credit; I didn’t anticipate that she would fight fire with fire.
She was shellshocked when she came banging on my door.
She hadn’t anticipated just how forward I’d be, and I suppose, I hadn’t anticipated just how hard she’d be to crack.
Shit, I should have known better. Women that fucking gorgeous are generally immune to a man’s bullshit, and my new neighbor .
. . Fuck. I’ve never seen a woman so fucking beautiful in my life.
I don’t know if it was her overall beauty that did it for me, or the way she seemed to despise me from the get-go, but the moment I opened that door and saw the fury in her eyes, I knew I’d never be able to let this one go.
Getting under her skin became my newest obsession.
I needed to see her break, but I didn’t realize that getting under my skin in return was going to be a part of the fun.
What can I say? I’m a sucker for punishment.
Storming out into the hallway in nothing but my black boxer shorts and my messy bed hair, I make a quick turn to my left, my long strides easily eating up the space between my door and hers.
I pause for only a second as my hand hammers against her door, certain that nobody on this green earth would be able to hear my insistent pounding over the insane sound of her loud music.
She pulls the door open a moment later, and just as expected, the firecracker from last night stands before me, but what isn’t expected is the full eighties fluorescent workout leotard with leg warmers, sneakers, and a matching headband.
“Oh, hey neighbor. Everything okay?” she asks with a wide smile that blows me the fuck away. Shit, I thought she was stunning when she was pissed, but that fucking smile just tore my soul to shreds.
I go to respond when her gaze sails down my body, her greedy eyes unable to help it until she gets to the front of my boxer shorts and cringes. “Oh, that’s a shame. Cold?” she questions. “It’s okay. It’s a common issue.”
I glance down at my cock, almost certain the fucking thing must have fallen off.
Hard or soft, I’ve never had a woman cringe at it before.
Only as I look at my usual bulge in the front of my shorts, I realize nothing is wrong.
She’s just fucking with me, and instead of taking the bait, I fix her with a hard stare.
“What the fuck are you doing? Your music is too loud,” I spit. “You’re gonna wake the whole goddamn building.”
“Oh my,” she gasps, placing her hand to her heart.
“I didn’t realize. Did I wake you? Gosh.
I’m so sorry. It’s almost as though that’s exactly what I had intended to do.
But now you’re up, you might as well join me for my new aerobic routine.
I’m really enjoying it. I’m thinking this is going to become a daily thing. ”
“What?”
She leans aside and uses her thumb to point over her shoulder toward her television, and as I peer past her, I see one of those morning workout shows that used to air back when I was a kid, every morning without fail.
“So much fun,” she tells me, her hands curled around small weights as she starts pumping them up and down to keep in the zone. “You should really look into the benefits of working out early in the morning. It’s great for your internal clock, really gets your heart pumping in the morning.”
“Turn it down.”
“Oh no. I can’t possibly do that,” she tells me. “I’m only just getting started. I have another two hours planned, followed by a hot yoga meditation that I think you would really enjoy. It might help to work out some of that sexual aggression you seem to have.”
“I have a lot of things, but sexual aggression ain’t one of them, honey.”
“I disagree. There seemed to be a lot of unnecessary heavy thumping against the wall, so I’ve taken it upon myself to contact a sexual psychologist for you. They should be reaching out to you the moment their office opens this morning.”
I gape at this woman standing in front of me.
“You did what?” I demand, knowing damn well a sexual psychologist is the last thing I need.
Nobody’s sex life is healthier than mine, but the bigger question is, how is anybody going to contact me?
The only thing this woman knows about me is my name and the way I sound when I come.
She certainly doesn’t have my number to give out.
“Oh, you heard me right. I think her name is Dr. Amelia Mendez. I was looking over her website. She seems to really know what she’s talking about. I gave her all of your contact info, so expect her call, and do yourself a favor and actually be nice to this woman.”
“Wait. You gave her my contact info?”
“Of course, silly. How else would I have gotten her to contact you?” she laughs and turns away, striding over to the laptop that rests on the edge of her couch, and fuck, it doesn’t go unnoticed how the back of her leotard is wedged right up her perfect ass, showing off the perky globes.
She sashays back to me before turning her laptop around to show me the screen.
“This is you, right? Raiden Kane? Works as an International Sales Rep for IV Global?”
My eyes widen as I take in my company’s website, more specifically, my employee profile. “How the fuck did you find that?”
“You see, some asshole was keeping me up all night, so I figured I’d do a little research,” she explains.
“Wasn’t hard. Took me all of three seconds to find your Tinder profile, which is gross, by the way.
You really need to clean that shit up. You’re a walking STD, and women can smell that shit from a mile away.
Point is, it was all too easy to track you.
I know everything there is to know about you, Raiden Kane, and just like I told you last night, I’m still not impressed. ”
It seems I underestimated this little vixen.
The firecracker goes on, stepping into me and raising her chin with defiance, fire burning in her jade-green eyes. “Baby, you chose the wrong woman to fuck with.”
Excitement pounds through my veins, and I find myself reaching out and curling my hand around her waist. I pull her in hard and fast, and as she gasps, she throws her hand up to keep from face-planting against my chest. “You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to it.”
She shoves against my chest. “Get your STD riddled hands off me,” she says, pulling away and fixing me with a hard stare.
“In case you’ve forgotten, we have paper-thin walls, and after fucking that poor girl for four hours, I know for a fact, you haven’t showered yet, and you are not about to get all of that mixed DNA all over me. ”
A grin stretches across my lips. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were flirting with me.”
She scoffs. “I wouldn’t flirt with you if you were the last man on earth,” she tells me. “Besides, I’m not interested in men who take almost four hours to tire out their girl. Maybe that’s something you should talk with your new psychologist about.”
“She ain’t my girl, and we both know exactly what you heard last night.
It’s all you’ve been able to think about.
I could get you there in seconds,” I tell her, bracing my arm against her doorframe and leaning into her, lowering my tone.
“When I eat, I take my time. It’s not a fucking race, Firecracker.
It’s about just how long I can get your legs to shake after I’m through with you.
But I suppose you wouldn’t have the stamina to find out.
After all, you’re the type who’s getting friction burn after fifteen minutes, right?
Shame. I thought you would be fun. Turns out, fucking you would be like fucking sandpaper. ”
“It’s truly remarkable that you were your father’s fastest swimmer,” she murmurs as she steps into me again, raising her chin just to be able to meet my eyes.
“In case you can’t figure it out. I’m calling you slow, so let me really spell it out for you, because I know how intelligence is something you’re still struggling to grasp hold of.
You couldn’t even begin to have what it takes to get me across the line. ”
“Ahh, shit. You should have told me you were a prude, incapable of orgasm. Makes sense now. I bet you’re itching for it, huh?
Always getting close but never able to really get yourself there.
Shit, those vibrators under your bed are probably screaming for retirement,” I laugh as a cocky grin pulls at my lips.
“I could do it for you. Show you what it’s really like to be fucked within an inch of your life. ”
Her gaze narrows to slits, her hands balling into tight fists. “I would rather fuck myself with a rusty chainsaw than let you and your oversized tree trunk anywhere near me.”
A smirk pulls at my lips, knowing this girl is going to be an absolute nightmare, especially if I don’t start waving a white flag, but that’s not about to happen.
Apart from work, I’ve got nothing else going on.
There’s nothing but time for me to waste, and I intend on wasting every second of it fucking with my new neighbor.
Ruining her perfect little day is going to be my new brand of heroin.
Day after day. Hour after hour. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to see that feisty little vixen who came pounding on my door with fury in her eyes and rage in her chest.
Damn. Just the thought of getting under her skin like that is giving me life.
“Uh-huh. Is that why your hands are itching to grab hold of me right now?” I ask, with a cocky wink I know is bound to piss her off. “Enjoy your aerobics, Firecracker. I’ll be seeing ya.”
“Unlikely,” she says, grabbing the door and slamming it closed right in front of my face, making sure the hardwood smacks directly against my nose.
“MOTHERFUCKER!” I grunt as pain explodes through my face.
I grip my nose, making sure it’s not broken, and after confirming it’s still intact, I head straight back to my apartment, knowing that it’s bound to bruise. It seems my little firecracker doesn’t just have a smart mouth and a chip on her shoulder; she also likes it rough.
Slamming the door behind me, I let out a sigh and crash onto my couch just as the sound of “Gimme More” by the Queen of Pop comes to an end. Before I can sigh in relief, “Gangnam Style” blasts through the thin walls, and she cranks it even louder.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
With my head pounding from the music, I quickly realize that the only way to survive this little firecracker and escape with my sanity is to not be here when she’s trying to make a stand.
With that snippet of knowledge, I head into my bedroom and start rifling through the overflowing boxes of clothes.
Finding a pair of loose basketball shorts and my runners, I pull them on, and within seconds, I’m heading straight back out the door for an early morning run.
I push myself to my limit, only returning to my apartment complex an hour later once every ounce of furious energy has worked its way out of my body.
I don’t do well when I don’t get at least four or five hours of sleep.
But it’s not as though I didn’t ask for this.
I should have done my research before picking a fight with someone just as stubborn as I am, but that doesn’t mean I regret it.
It just means I’m going to have to up my game.
If anybody is going to surrender here, it’ll be her.
I don’t crack, no matter how volatile a situation might be, and I always come out on top.
Creeping back into the apartment complex, relief floods through me as I find nothing but silence filling the long corridors, and as I take the stairs back up to level three, I let out a heavy sigh.
The morning aerobics class has finally come to an end, and hopefully that means she’s passed out on the floor in front of her TV.
I’ve got to give her credit where credit is due.
I appreciate her commitment to the cause.
She didn’t just turn on the TV and crank the music; she fully committed with the eighties-style leotard and leg warmers.
If I were a smart man, I would probably take that as my clue that she’s not somebody who does something halfway.
When she’s got her mind set, she fully commits. But so do I.
Reaching my apartment, I unlock the door as loudly as I can, opening and closing it with a heavy BANG before shifting moving boxes around just for the sake of it. Then, with my morning quickly slipping away from me, I head into the shower.
As my little firecracker mentioned, I work as an International Sales Rep for IV Global—a globally recognized tech firm, and luckily for her, that means I’m generally not around.
She’ll get a reprieve from me every now and then when I’m sent out to deal with clients.
I can be gone for days, or sometimes weeks at a time, but then I’ll be right back.
After all, I wouldn’t want her to miss me.
Shit. She’s this far under my skin, and I haven’t even figured out her name.
Perhaps it’s time to do a little research on her.
After finishing in the shower, I get dressed and start to head out. I usually don’t like to get to the office until after seven, but it seems I need to do a little recon on my new neighbor, which I’m sure is bound to take up plenty of time.
Then, after stopping by the mailboxes on my way down to the parking garage, I see a tiny piece of junk mail spilling out of her box, and after pulling it out, I finally learn her name.
Kiara St. James.
Today is going to be a fan-fucking-tastic day.
***