Fury on Fire (Devil's Rock #3)(4)

Faith groped for speech, shooting a quick glance down at herself in baggy sweatpants and a T-shirt. She plucked at her shirt, pulling it away from her chest. She wore a sports bra underneath, so her breasts were mashed into one nearly nonexistent uniboob.

“Don’t look so offended. You’ll thank me later.”

Feeling embarrassed enough, Faith mumbled something incoherent and abandoned the scones to her. Whirling around, she stalked back into her duplex without another glance behind her.

Once inside, she vowed not to think about the mortifying exchange. She dove back into unpacking, determined to get the rest of her house in order, telling herself that the encounter with her neighbor’s guest wasn’t a reflection on him . . . necessarily. So he had vulgar friends. It didn’t mean this North guy was going to be a bad neighbor. He was probably perfectly civil. Polite and courteous. The kind of guy who would loan her a shovel or hose or ladder.

After showering in her new bathroom, her contentment returned as she slid beneath the sheets of her bed. She stared up at the ceiling at the hypnotic spin of fan blades.

Her ceiling fan. Her shower. Her bed. Her home.

It had been a long time coming. Nothing could ruin this for her.

The noise started slowly. A gradual thumping . . . steady thuds against her wall. Like wood striking wood.

She sat up and cocked her head to the side, listening. She turned and stared at her headboard, her wall close behind it. It was coming from the other side. She pressed a hand to the wall, felt the vibration of every thud through the plaster and paint.

Then the moaning started.

Her face caught fire, understanding exactly what was happening.

Sex. Sex was happening on the other side of her wall. Mere feet away Serena was going at it with her neighbor. The mysterious North.

Serena’s moans twisted into wails, the volume increasing with every bang against the wall. “Oh God! Oh God, oh God, oh God!”

Not just sex, Faith amended. This was down and dirty f*cking. Her face burned nuclear-hot.

She dropped back on the mattress with a gust of breath. “Fabulous,” she muttered. It couldn’t last long, right? It had never lasted long with her and Chad. She winced. Nothing about what she was hearing next door resembled what she had with Chad.

She laced her fingers over her queasy stomach and stared up at the whirring fan blades, waiting for the racket to subside.

Minutes passed. The thumping continued.

Serena stopped crying out pleas to the Almighty and reverted to keening wails, broken up with intermittent pleas to North.

“Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop. North! North! NORTH!”

Faith’s eyes grew so large and aching in her face that she had to force herself to blink. That tantalizing glimpse of a muscled arm and too-long dark hair flashed through her mind.

The thumping grew louder. Harder. She marveled that his headboard wasn’t knocking the plaster off her wall at this point. His wall probably resembled swiss cheese.

Faith grabbed a pillow and pulled it over her head. It didn’t help.

She picked up other sounds, too. Over the headboard slamming against her wall, she thought she heard the sound of bodies slapping together. Through it all, North never said a word. She never heard his voice or his cries. Unlike Serena, he was a quiet lover. She had a flash of a faceless man, naked and hard bodied, thrusting between the redhead’s curvy thighs like a man possessed.

Serena was screeching like she was on the verge of death. Faith couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe a woman could be reduced to such sounds. What was this man doing that was so amazing? Every man had a penis. What made his so spectacular?

“Incredible,” she muttered.

She couldn’t believe she had moved next door to this.

She couldn’t believe sex could last this long.

And she couldn’t believe that she was starting to get turned on from it.

It was undeniable. The throb was there, deep between her legs, a pulsing beat. She pressed her thighs together, trying to kill it. She wasn’t this perverse. She didn’t even know what he looked like. She hadn’t even heard his voice. How could she be getting aroused? How would she ever face him after this?

Because eventually she would. They were neighbors. They would eventually come face-to-face and she would have to act like she hadn’t heard him hammering some woman on the other side of her wall. She moaned and rolled onto her side, still suffocating herself with her pillow.

Finally, Serena released a scream that sounded faintly like one of those jungle monkeys you hear at the zoo.

The banging stopped.

Faith lifted the pillow off her head and expelled a breath like she was the one who’d just finished a sweaty bout of marathon sex. Her thigh muscles relaxed. Her knees sagged. Her breathing eventually slowed as the night rolled in and darkness stole across her room, sliding in between her blinds like creeping hands.

Voices briefly carried through the wall, indistinguishable murmurings, and then silence fell next door. The only sound Faith heard was the rasp of her breath in the dark.





TWO




North didn’t linger. He never did. He lifted himself off the bed, not sparing a glance for Serena. For now the ache, the never-ending pressure in his chest, had eased. It was only a temporary fix. He knew that, but for as long as it lasted he’d take it. When the pressure returned and work and booze weren’t enough to kill it, he’d hook up with Serena or someone else. Nothing like sex to chase away the demons.