Princess Next Door

“Yeah. Tammy and Marshall helped when they could. They have a family of their own, so they didn’t have much free time.”

“Your family?”

She wrinkled her nose. “They didn’t even agree with me moving here so they didn’t help.”

“Are you far away from them?”

Shaking her head, she placed their food on the dining room table. It was only a small table, one she’d gotten from a flea market. She’d cleaned it up, and now it was good as new. “No, they’re about twenty minutes away, but they weren’t going to help me because they didn’t see what I was doing as a good thing.”

“That fucking sucks.”

“It’s the way it is. All the time I was looking and while the papers were going through they were trying to talk me out of it.”

“Wow,” he said.

“What about your family?” she asked, not wanting to talk about her own.

“They disowned me years ago. I didn’t want to join in the family business of real estate. They own an empire, so I went out on my own when I was eighteen and never looked back.”

“You don’t miss them.”

“None of them were all that interesting to miss. I’ve got my guys, and they’re all I need in the world.”

She sipped her tea.

“If you’d have come knocked on my door for help, we’d have helped you move in a lot faster.”

She still had a couple of boxes in the laundry room to unpack. For the most part, she was moved in.

“It was okay.”

“I can’t stand having boxes around, and all the moving shit. I can’t think with it lying around. It’s like a job that always needs doing.”

Wynter watched him eat, and she liked having him at her table, even without his shirt. No one in her parents’ house was allowed downstairs unless they were completely dressed.

She was a rebel, in her pajama shorts and shirt, eating breakfast with a man she’d spent the night with.

“Now that wicked smile on your face is telling a whole of stories right now. You’re going to share?”

“I’m just thinking about how different I’m behaving right now.” She shook her head, tucking some of her blonde hair away. “Ignore me.”

“Were your parents strict or something?”

“Not really. Just set in their ways. I’m now the black sheep of the family. Going out and living on my own.” She shrugged. “I like it. It’s freeing.”

“There is something to be said about just being yourself. We spend way too much time worrying about what other people think and feel.”

“They would be having a huge fit right now if they saw me last night.”

He reached out, taking hold of her hand. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

She gave his hand a squeeze, liking his touch.

“I am curious though,” he said.

“What about?”

“Why did you think for even a second finding some faceless dick in a bar would be the key to losing your virginity?”

She groaned. “You remember all of that.”

“I’ve discovered, Princess, that with a few beers inside you, you get very, very talkative.”

She covered her face, and when she dropped her hands he was still sitting there, laughing at her.

“Don’t laugh. That is so not fair. There should be some kind of rule where friends don’t laugh at other friends after vomiting.”

Zane didn’t stop, not once. “I’ve heard of people making a lot of mistakes in my time.”

“Could we please just stop, and really not talk about this? I don’t even want to think about what was going on inside my head.” She leaned her elbows on her arms and stared at him. “How did you lose yours?”

He raised a brow. “You really want to know?”

“Yes. You’ve seen me at my worst. I may as well keep on going.”

“I had an older lady friend many years ago. Her husband traveled a lot, and of course she got lonely.” He patted his chest. “She taught me everything I know.”

She stared at him. “Do you miss her?”

“Nope, but I appreciate everything she ever did for me. She’s the one who listened to me play, and told me I was good.”

She saw the fondness in his eyes, but not love.

“Your first time is going to be crap, Princess. The least you could do is save it for someone special.”

****

“How can you even bear to look at me right now?” Princess asked, opening each door of his truck.

She’d gotten changed, and Zane had left her long enough to take a shower and change into clean clothes. Princess wore a pair of rubber cleaning gloves, a shirt, a pair of shorts, and some kind of coverall.

“Quite easy, actually.”

“This is gross. It stinks so bad.”

He kept a good few feet away, aware that with the sun up, and his car baking in it, the stench wouldn’t be all that good.

“Do you want me to help?” he asked.

“No. Absolutely not. It’s bad enough that I made this smell. I can’t—no, stay back.”