Chapter 2 Nipple Piercings for the Win!
NIPPLE PIERCINGS FOR THE WIN!
Addie
Multiple hours, two buses, and an overcrowded subway train later, Addie finally stood outside her Brooklyn apartment.
The lock temporarily held her key hostage and she jimmied it harder, cursing with each attempted turn.
On the other side of the door, Do-Re-Mi barked knowingly, losing their fool heads over their impending treats.
“I’m trying, guys. I’m trying.”
Another finger-bruising twist, and the lock finally disengaged.
Addie opened the door an inch and Do stuck his snout against the crack, his nostrils flaring as his big body blocked her way.
“I can’t get inside unless you three move back, and if I don’t get inside, guess who doesn’t get their evening treat? ”
Do barked once, followed by Re, and they stepped back, allowing Addie to enter. All big ears and drooling tongues, Do-Re-Mi jumped up, large fuzzy paws easily landing on her shoulders as they licked her from all angles.
Coming from one of Cerberus’s latest litters, Do-Re-Mi looked like a slightly larger cross between a German shepherd and a black Lab—except for the three heads and the fuzzy snakelike tail. Each pup had their own personality, but one thing shared was their love of bacon treats.
Who could blame them? Bacon was life.
They scarfed their treats in record time and then demanded a quick potty break.
In all reality, they could blink out of the apartment and do their business whenever they wanted, a product of being from the Underworld, but the neighbors tended to get antsy when an unsupervised three-headed dog ran about the block chasing pigeons.
Now both fed and pottied, the trio fought good-naturedly over their rawhide bone and curled up on their favorite side of the couch as Addie beelined for the bathroom.
She needed nothing more than to watch the memories of the day—and the fire-extinguisher chemicals still on her skin—swirl down her bathtub drain.
As the tub filled with hot water, she searched for her new bath bombs. Her phone, sitting on the sink ledge, erupted into a Darth Vader ringtone that made her grin.
“Hey, Pop.” Addie yanked her favorite lavender bath bomb out from the cabinet and tossed it into the rising water.
“Hey, cupcake. How did the big wedding go?”
“Oh, you know … same old, same old. Flowers were sniffed, vows were exchanged … and then fire sprinklers were set off, the NYFD busted in with their big hoses, and HEF was banned from yet another hotel.”
“I’m not even sure if you’re pulling my leg right now or if you’re being serious.”
“I couldn’t find a joke right now if I pulled a joke book off the shelf and read it cover to cover.”
She could practically see her father’s wince over the phone. “That bad?”
“Bad would be an improvement. So would horrendous. Atrociously horrendous would barely be on the right track. Maybe the Fates are trying to tell me something.”
Her father scoffed. “Like you’d let the Fates decide anything about your future.”
Addie cracked a smile. Her father knew her so well.
Fates. Destinies. Gods and goddesses and societal expectations to go along with their familial lines. She shirked it all, and even made it her life motto to stay clear of all the drama. And while growing up, her father had worked damn hard to make that happen as best he could, too.
Sometimes it worked. Other times it didn’t.
He started, “Have you thought about seeing if your mom—”
“No.” Addie dropped a second scented bomb into the water.
“It couldn’t hurt to see if—”
“Not in a million years or with a threat of apocalypse.”
He sighed, his concern palpable even through the phone line. “Adalyn…”
“Father.” Flipping on her flame-free candles, she dimmed the overhead lights.
“Fine. I’ll keep my yap-trap shut, but you know that if you ask Aphro—”
“Do not say her name. Please. She’s like freaking Beetlejuice.
Say her name too many times in a row, and she appears.
Besides, if I ask her for assistance, she’ll make things ten times more complicated and turn everything into a twelve-ring circus.
I don’t need that unnecessary drama in my life, not to mention that I don’t have the patience for it.
Only Maxi has that superpower,” she said, mentioning her sister.
He chuckled. “Fair enough. I guess I’ll let you get back to your plans for the rest of the night.”
Addie snorted at the not-so-subtle info-digging for any hint of relationship news. “Yeah, I probably should. I’ll see you at dinner on Sunday night, yeah?”
“As always, and there will be plenty of food if you want to bring someone … extra.”
“And share your barbeque? Not likely. Love you, Pop.”
“Love you, buttercup.”
Addie hung up and quickly evicted her bra, shed her clothes, and sank into blissful oblivion, the hot water instantly easing her sore muscles.
With a breathy sigh, she picked her book off the tub-side table and dove into her story about sexy alpha wolf shifters. Fictional significant others far surpassed real ones. If they did or said something annoying, you could smash them between the pages of the book and not feel guilty about it.
Addie read until her eyelids drooped for the third time, signaling a shift into nap-mode.
She set aside her book before it took a swim, and nestled into her warm water blanket for a refreshing snooze. Her dreams quickly pulled her into a beach scene where she traipsed slowly into the ocean with a tall, hazel-eyed stranger, first to her knees, and then waist deep.
A dream wave rolled in quickly, taller than expected, and knocked her back, loosening her handhold with the sexy, mysterious stranger.
Another wave struck and ripped the beach babe away completely.
One more hit and Addie bolted awake, her heart lodged in her throat. Her knee smacked her reading table and the shifter romance plunged into the now cool depths of the tub. Cursing, she fished out the soggy mess and searched for whatever had startled her awake.
Boom …
Thud …
Bang-bang-bang …
At nearly midnight, both the walls and floor shook from the pulsating rhythm coming from next door. A guitar—and a loud one—strummed to a heavy thumping beat, adding to the monstrous cacophony that infiltrated her peaceful oasis and ruined her chances of relaxation.
Only fitting since the jerk had also beat her out for the best apartment in the building.
He hadn’t even been a previous tenant, just showed up one day and sweet-talked the building manager into giving him the space, the very same apartment for which she’d placed her name months prior. Hell, the manager all but told her that it was hers … until it wasn’t.
And now the obnoxiously loud, tattooed man next door enjoyed the extra two hundred square feet of space and two spacious walk-in closets.
She’d only ever laid eyes on the backside of him as he left the building or walked down the hall, but even his nice ass wasn’t enough to stop her from wishing he’d fall into a curse-filled viper pit—or into Medusa’s sightline.
Fueled by exhaustion, sadness for her now soggy book, and an absolutely shitastic day, she climbed out from the tub and wrapped her curvy body in one of her favorite oversized towels before stuffing her feet into her unicorn slippers.
Her normal tactic of smacking her shoe against the wall wouldn’t cut it this time.
Letting her anger brew to a steamy boil, she stormed from her apartment and headed next door. Dripping in the hall, she pounded once, then twice. With no answer, she knocked and didn’t stop, her hand hurting more with each hammer of her fist.
What felt like an eon later, the guitar ceased, and the backup “music” lowered to a dull roar. Muffled footsteps headed toward the door, but Addie kept knocking until the wood disappeared beneath her hand.
She sucked in an unexpected, audible breath as her eyes connected with her brain and she slowly linked the dots.
“You!” She drilled her mystery neighbor with a hard glare. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Familiar hazel eyes beamed brightly as he leaned—shirtless—against the jamb of the doorway, his surprise slowly transforming into cocky recognition.
“Pretty certain that should be my line because I live here. What’s your reason?
Did you feel our connection earlier, too, and follow me home?
It’s a little creepy if you did, but sometimes creepy is a good thing. ”
She snorted. “The only connection I felt was when you sprayed me with a fire extinguisher.”
The gorgeous guy from the day’s earlier catastrophic wedding grinned. “You were the one that stepped in the way when I was trying to save the day—and your pretty little hide.”
“I didn’t need you to save the day or my hide. I had everything well under control,” Addie smarted back.
Mr. Sarcasm’s smirk remained in place as he tilted his head. “Were we at the same wedding? Gaudy affair with ridiculous candles all over the place and over-the-top foliage?”
“That was what the bride wanted.”
“Did she want her wedding cake to go up like a Roman candle, too?”
Addie bit the side of her tongue to keep from retorting. If she thought Mr. Sarcasm looked distractingly gorgeous in his slightly wrinkled suit jacket and undone shirt, he was mouthwateringly sexy now.
In the dimmed hallway lighting, his eyes appeared more soft gray than blue or brown, and his light brown hair hung over his left eye in pure disarray.
He was taller than she’d first thought, at least a foot taller than her own five foot two inches, and broad-shouldered with nearly 80 percent of his exposed skin covered in a beautiful array of colorfully inked artwork.
And nipple piercings for the win!
Addie very nearly drooled, but the sight of his twisted little smirk snapped her out of her admiration. “What?”