Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
HUNTER
It’s just after six am when I step out onto my postage-stamp-sized balcony with my coffee.
The sky is the color of a healing bruise, edges pinking up as the sun creeps above the neighboring roofline.
I lean on the railing, already cataloging the day’s to-dos, when movement catches my eye in the next unit over.
It’s her. Iris. I’m so fucking obsessed.
A whole month in this building, and she’s all I think about. Every goddamn day. She’s in my dreams, my mornings, haunting every empty second. I can’t shake her. I don’t want to.
She’s on her own balcony, half a dozen potted plants crowding the cement, hunched over them with her hair pulled up, and her entire body swaddled in some kind of floaty blue thing that swishes around her ankles.
She crouches down, elbows resting on her knees, and gets this ridiculously earnest look on her face.
I watch, totally shameless, as she pokes her finger into the dirt of a tiny jade plant and then literally starts whispering to it.
No joke. I can actually hear her voice carrying over the rail, all soft and coaxing, like she’s encouraging the little guy to get his shit together and bloom already.
“Come on, Jasper,” she says, tapping the side of the pot. “You’re so close! I believe in you. Just one new leaf for me?”
She moves on to the next plant, a leggy basil that looks like it’s seen some shit, and keeps up the pep talk. I can’t look away.
She’s got this basil plant between her hands like she’s cradling a kitten.
“You’re a survivor, Barry,” she whispers, her lips curving into a smile that absolutely ruins me.
“Just because Karen next to you died doesn’t mean you have to give up.
You’re not a quitter. You’re strong. You’re loved.
You’re…” she scrunches up her nose adorably, “extremely floppy, but we’re working on it. ”
She coos to the goddamn plant, and the sound skates across the space between our balconies, straight into my bloodstream.
I’m not sure if she’s so engrossed in her plants that she doesn’t see me or if she’s ignoring me. My coffee cup is trembling in my hand, and I’m not even pretending not to stare.
She tucks a curl behind her ear, totally focused on her plants. Goddamn, she’s glowing. The morning sun hits her face, and she looks like something out of one of my goddamn fantasies. Motherfucker. I want her. Bad.
I’m standing there with my coffee, morning wood pressing uncomfortably against my fly, and I can’t stop looking.
Every time she bends, the robe thingy parts, and I catch a hint of bare ankle, the curve of her calf, soft skin that looks like it would taste like vanilla and honey, and the kind of sunshine that’s just for her.
I’m not a creep. At least, I didn’t use to be. Now I’m that guy, staring over the balcony like a peeping Tom, obsessed with the girl next door talking to her fucking plants. I try to remind myself why this is such a bad idea. Why she’s a bad idea.
She’s too young. Too bright, too soft for somebody like me.
I’m old enough to know better and jaded enough not to care, or at least I thought I was.
I’ve always loved my quiet, solitary life.
Until I met my new neighbor. Now, I can’t even remember the last time I wanted anything the way I want Iris.
There’s nothing about me that deserves her—all sunshine and laughter and sugary sweetness.
She needs someone closer to her own age. Someone gentle and not so set in his own ways. Somebody who can hold a conversation like a normal human being, instead of barely grunting out two words before wanting to devour her.
I’ve always loved my peaceful, quiet, and solitary lifestyle. Or, at least, I did until I met Iris Gardner. Now, I have no idea what I really want.
I should keep my distance. I really, really should.
But fuck, I know that’s never going to happen.
She glances over and spots me. “Good morning, Hunter!” she calls, and her silky voice cuts right through me.
I nod, the way I do with the guys at the station, a chin-lift that says, “I acknowledge your presence.”
“Plants are looking good,” I say, and immediately want to bash my own skull in for how stilted it sounds.
She brightens at the compliment, turns her entire body to face me, a tangle of honey-colored hair frizzing out of the knot on her head. “Thanks! I’ve always sucked at raising plants, but I’m trying to change things up.”
She grins at me, and my heart does something so embarrassing I actually grip the railing a little harder. This is ridiculous. I’m a grown man. I’ve run into burning buildings. I shouldn’t be short-circuiting because my neighbor’s smiling like I hung the damn moon.
But I am. “I see,” is the only thing I can find to say.
“I think they like the new digs,” she goes on, biting her bottom lip. “You know, morning sunlight, positive reinforcement, and gentle criticism for the ones who flop sideways and refuse to thrive.”
I nod because my mind is too busy drinking her in. Fuck. I need to get the fuck out of here before I do something stupid. Like fall for my neighbor. “I have to get to work,” I mutter, taking a step back toward the door. She’s making me soft. Hell, she’s driving me insane.
And for some reason, that doesn’t bother me as much as it should.
“See you later,” she calls behind me. Fuck. I shouldn't look forward to it, but I do.
The next morning, I drag my ass home after a long motherfucking twenty-four-hour shift, so wound up from dealing with a four-alarm blaze and two screaming rookies that I need to run the tension out of my system right this minute.
I barely manage to unlock my door without ripping the knob off.
My hands are shaking. I’m wired, pissed off, and so amped I could probably run a marathon backward.
I kick my boots off, strip out of my uniform in record time, and yank on my usual running stuff.
Battered shorts that have seen better days, a soft tee with a small hole under the right armpit, and old tennis shoes that look like they've been chewed up and spit out by a wood chipper.
Fuck it. I'm not trying to win a best-dressed contest. I just want to get the hell out of my own head.
I slam the door behind me, jog down the hall, and decide to take the stairs down to the lobby.
I hit the street at a dead sprint. No warm-up, no stretching, just pure adrenaline and muscle memory.
The morning air punches into my lungs, hot and humid, sweat breaking out before I hit the first block.
My legs burn. Good. I want them to burn.
Every step is a ‘fuck you’ to the last twenty-four hours. To the two rookies who nearly drove me out of my goddamn mind, to frequent calls that just kept coming in, to the way Iris’s laugh keeps replaying in my skull, over and over, like some song I’m already obsessed with.
I run hard. Five miles, maybe more. By the time I stagger back up the stairs, I’m soaked, shaking with exhaustion, and I don’t even care.
I take the stairs two at a time up to the second floor.
As I pass Iris’s door, I get a little whiff of her delicate floral scent, and my cock wakes the fuck up.
Motherfucker. Just what I need. No matter how exhausted my body is, my dick just needs a little reminder of my gorgeous neighbor to turn to full wood.
The cool air hits me in the face as I storm through my apartment.
I slam the bathroom door behind me and strip in one violent motion, shorts and tee hitting the floor before the water’s even on.
I crank the dial all the way to cold. Not cool.
Not refreshing. Frostbite, arctic-shock, holy-shit cold.
The spray hits, and a shiver rushes up my spine.
I lean against the wall, forehead pressed to the tile, and wrap my hand around my cock.
I squeeze hard, trying to banish her from my head, but it’s no use.
All I see are those blue eyes, wide and bright, her lips curving in a smile just for me.
Her robe slipping off her shoulder, a teasing flash of skin. The memory alone nearly undoes me.
I stroke faster, desperate and rough, hips jerking, chasing the friction like it owes me something.
My breath comes out ragged, my head filled with nothing but her and the sharp, brutal need to come.
I fuck my fist, squeezing tighter, faster, hips bucking into it like I can chase her voice, her laughter, the sunlight in her hair.
My whole body locks up, muscles straining, and I groan her name through gritted teeth as I shoot all over my hand and the icy-cold tile.
For a second, everything just stops. I hang there, chest heaving, forehead against the wet wall, sweat and water mixing, my pulse thundering so loud it drowns out everything else.
Jesus Christ.
I soap up and rinse off fast, soap and water sluicing away the mess, but nothing can scrub her out of my brain. All I see behind my eyelids is Iris, skin flushed, eyes wide, lips parted in the kind of smile that makes me want to ruin her for anyone else.
I want her so goddam bad.
That’s the understatement of the year.
By the time I drag myself out of the shower, toss on sweatpants, and collapse on the edge of my bed, I’m still wired. Still thinking about her. There’s no peace.
I stare at my bedroom ceiling, veins still humming with leftover adrenaline and Iris-induced desire.
My mind replays the way her voice gets all soft when she talks to her plants.
The way she grins at me, like she thinks I’m funny and interesting and more than just the grumpy guy next door who can barely look her in the eye.
My chest squeezes. I roll onto my side and groan, pressing the heel of my palm to my forehead just to get a grip.
I’m so fucking gone over my stunning neighbor.
I want her with a hunger that's gone beyond craving into something primal. My body aches for her. Some nights, I lie awake staring at that shared wall between our apartments, wondering if she feels this invisible current humming between us, pulling like gravity.
I have to stop this. For real this time.
Starting a relationship with Iris? Disastrous. End-of-days, flaming-dumpster-fire bad. She’s barely out of college, all soft curves and brighter than daylight, and I’m just old, grouchy, and too set in my ways.
So, I tell myself I’m done. No more staring across the balcony. No more “accidental” run-ins in the hall, no more daydreaming about what she’d sound like screaming my name.
I’m going to do whatever it takes to bury this obsession for good. Distance, distractions, a goddamn exorcism. Whatever. Because letting myself want her? That’s the kind of craving that never ends well.