finger over my lips and listened intently. Grace’s eyes grew wide as what had started as incoherent mumbling morphed into the unmistakable sound of a woman having sex.
Panting. Moaning. Begging.
Then another crash. What the fuck was going on up there? Were there more than two people involved?
Skin slapped against skin followed by the sound of a woman crying out. Heat crept up my neck and spread across my cheeks. Someone was having much more fun on a Saturday afternoon than we were.
An unmistakably male voice shouted “fuck” and the woman’s cries tumbled out fast and desperate. The knock of a headboard against drywall thudded louder and louder. The woman’s breathless moaning almost sounded panicked. My chandelier started to sway more furiously, and I swear the vibrations from whatever furniture was knocking against whatever wall travelled down from the ceiling and straight to my groin. I squeezed my thighs together just as the man yelled out to God and she gave a final, sharp scream that echoed through my box-filled apartment.
In the silence that followed, my heart thudded through my sweater. I was half exhilarated by what I’d heard; half embarrassed I’d consciously eavesdropped on something so personal.
Someone less than three yards away from me had just come for America.
“That might be a guy I have to get to know,” Grace said when it was clear the sexcapades had stopped. “He certainly sounded like he knew what he was doing.”
“They seemed very . . . compatible.” Had I ever sounded that desperate during sex, that hungry for my orgasm? I knew the sounds of a woman who exaggerated in the bedroom. The woman upstairs hadn’t been faking. Like jumping at the scary bits of a horror movie, the sounds from her had been involuntary.
“They sound like they have excellent sex. Maybe you should knock on their door and suggest a threesome.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, along with a cup of sugar.”
Footsteps clipped along the ceiling. “She kept her heels on,” Grace said. “Nice.”
The tapping wandered across my ceiling toward my blanket box. The upstairs front door creaked, then slammed. The sound of footsteps disappeared.
“Well, she got what she wanted and split. You’re not going to need a TV in this place. You can just tune into the soap opera that is your neighbor.”
“You think she was a prostitute?” I asked. A woman leaving less than five minutes after an orgasm like that wasn’t normal. Surely she’d stick around for oxygen or round two? Hell, I wasn’t sure I’d have made it to a vertical position, let alone in heels, within an hour of what she’d experienced.
“A prostitute? She’s a lucky one if she is.” Grace giggled. “But I don’t think so. A guy who can make a woman sound like that doesn’t need to pay for it.” She leaned forward and placed her empty glass on one of the dozens of boxes littered about the apartment. “Right, I’m going to get home to my vibrator.”
“That’s really way too much information.”
“But keep me posted on your neighbors. And if you run into them, try to get a picture.”
“Yes, because if you’re going to masturbate over my neighbors, it would go better with pictures.” I nodded sarcastically. “You’re a pervert. You know that, right?”
Grace shrugged and stood. “It was better than porn.”
She was right. I just hoped it wasn’t a regular show I was going to get. If nothing else, I felt plenty inadequate at work. I didn’t need to have the same feeling at home.
Chapter 2
Max
Harper Jayne was really pissing me off.
She’d irritated me from the moment she’d started work almost two months ago. Up until now I’d managed to keep my distance.
She was smart. That wasn’t a problem.
And she got on with her co-workers well enough. I couldn’t complain.
She didn’t seem to mind helping Donna with the photocopier. There were no delusions of grandeur for me to moan about.
She was eager to learn. That had been one of the first things that grated on me. She was too eager. The way she looked at me with those big brown eyes as if she’d be willing to do just about anything I suggested was maddening. Every time I glanced at her, even if it was a glimpse of her in the kitchen as I came into the office, I imagined her sliding to her knees in my office, opening her red, wet mouth, and begging for my cock.
And that was a problem.
I always had a strict divide between my business life and