I, of course, didn’t. That would be radical, and Memphis Tennessee Conner wasn’t a radical. Memphis was a calm, cool, and collected girl. I didn’t do rash things. Especially not with strangers I met in the night.
No, sir-ree-Bob.
“Alright,” I said, stepping back. “Well, I’ve got to be at work in an hour, and it’ll take me that long to get ready and get there. It was nice meeting you.”
I moved to the door, but he moved faster.
He had it open and waiting for me to enter.
I couldn’t see him, though. The light in the hallway was out, too. The only thing lighting up the entire place was the emergency lights that were barely light enough to allow you to see your feet as you walked. Oh, and the neon red EXIT sign that was at the front and back exits.
I was surprised when I felt him following behind me up the stairs.
Then, to my horror, he stopped at the apartment next to mine and opened it, letting his dog inside.
“Sorry about the noise. I’ll have to keep it down from now on,” he muttered before disappearing into the darkened apartment.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
How freakin’ embarrassing!
I’d been talking to the man who’d been responsible for keeping me up for weeks! And told him so!
Shit!
With nothing left to do, I walked into my own apartment and started getting ready for work.
I was a vain person, sad to say.
I hated looking bad.
My father’s club had scarred me for life with the women they’d brought around over the years of my childhood. Over time, I’d seen how awful those women looked as they left. Not horrible in the aspect of they were ugly or anything.
On the contrary, they were all beautiful.
However, after a night of Lord knows what with the club members, they always left looking exhausted.
I would never leave the house, nor a man’s bed, looking exhausted, just because I’d seen that with my own eyes, time after time, since I was sixteen.
I had a complex, and I would never go anywhere looking anything less than perfect. Even if I had to be late.
Which I nearly was, thirty minutes later.
I was backing out of my door just as the sun was rising.
The sun was poking just over the tree line at the back of our complex, shining into the open window at the end of my hall.
Enabling me to see the man and the woman that were stepping out of the apartment next to me.
She looked exactly like one of the many club hanger-on castoffs used to look. Used and exhausted. Mascara running. Hair a mess. Clothes wrinkled.
It disgusted me.
Not the man, per say, but the woman really made my stomach turn.
I mean, have some dignity!
I wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for the man’s smile I could now see.
He looked familiar.
Red hair and beard. Strong, square jaw. Green eyes. Large build. Muscular and bulky.
I could totally picture him in a kilt, throwing a tree. Or were they called cabers?
He really seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t place him.
He was grinning at me, like he knew I was disgusted.
And the woman was no better. She was sneering at me.
Why, I don’t know. It wasn’t like I was coming to knock on his door or anything.
The man had his arms crossed and he was leaning causally against the wall as he waited for her to make her way fully outside.
It was more than obvious to me that he was telling the woman to leave.
Which was probably why she was sneering at me the way she was. She was embarrassed.
Hell, I would be too if I got kicked out by the man I’d been fucking all night.
Combining the woman’s sneer, and the man’s grin, I just couldn’t help it. Literally, I tried with everything I had to hold it in, but my rough upbringing reared its head, and good Memphis took a back seat to ‘Say what needs to be said and fuck the consequences’ Memphis.
“Woof-woof,” I said as I passed.
Her gasp of outrage and the man’s laughing bellow followed me out the door.Chapter 2There’s a 99.9% chance that I’m hungry.
-Downy
Downy
“Oh, God!” Foster laughed, wiping a tear away from his eye. “She really said ‘woof-woof’?”
God, the woman I’d met in the dark had been a stunner.
I hadn’t seen much last night when I’d come home to get some lunch, but this morning. My God, she was fucking beautiful. Then she’d said ‘woof-woof’ and I’d about died laughing.
I’d met Foster’s girl on the way home this morning, and I’d stopped to let her out before I went in. Then she’d come out of her door, and I’d been frozen.
I nodded. “Sure as fuck did. You’re really going to have to stop using my bed. That’s disgusting.”
Foster and Miller had stayed over one night when they’d moved to town, and had never left. They’d been occupying my spare bedroom. The only redeeming feature about having them here was that they bought food and paid all of the rent.
I hadn’t paid rent since they’d both moved in. However, there really wasn’t enough room for them here.
Foster shrugged. “I’m sorry. You were supposed to be working last night. I needed a bed.”
“Well…then you could find your own apartment,” I offered dryly.
He glared. “I’ve been looking. I just can’t find one that allows pets.”
“You don’t have any pets.” I said dryly.
“That doesn’t mean I won’t have any later!”
I sighed and kicked back in my recliner. I’d do it in my bed, but the bed had who knows what on the sheets, and I wasn’t sleeping in it ‘til the fucker changed them.
“She’s familiar somehow. I haven’t fucked her…but I’ve met her somewhere,” I said tiredly.
I’d worked the night shift last night from twelve in the evening to eight in the morning for some rookie who’d gone home with the shits.
It wasn’t the first time I’d done that, but it wasn’t getting any easier, either.
I was thirty four years old. I didn’t do late anymore. It was a rare occasion to be up past twelve. Let alone all night.