An unholy shriek awoke me from nine wonderful hours of blissful sleep. I jerked, sheets twisting around my naked body as I rolled around in search of the sound. Someone was hurt, or in danger. Kicking the sheets from my body, I swung my feet over the bed and raced to the window, only to discover my neighbor slowly backing away from the far corner of her yard, her hands over her mouth.
What the hell? I watched in confusion as she backed all the way to the other side of her yard, her head shaking slightly as if in denial. Lena began pacing back and forth across her lawn, hands holding her head in obvious dismay.
I was a real bastard for taking delight in my neighbor's misery. But after what she'd done to me, I just couldn't bring myself to drum up one iota of fucks to give. And while I was perfectly qualified to go over there and help her, I hadn't the slightest inclination to do so. I'd told her to stay away from me, after all. It would kind of defeat the point if I immediately broke that rule myself.
But then her hands slipped from her temples to her face, and her shoulders slumped, shaking slightly. Fuck. Now she was crying. Lena didn't strike me as the kind of person who cried often, or at all.
My mother might have died after a long, drawn-out battle with cancer, but she'd been around long enough to ensure I didn't grow up a complete bastard.
Sighing, I opened my window, bending over at the waist to lean out, my arms resting on the sill as I shouted, "Everything all right over there?"
She jumped an entire foot in the air, shrieking again as a hand clutched her heart. I felt bad for startling her, although the sight was rather amusing. Lena whirled around to face me, a hand swiping at her eyes as she glared up at me over the wall dividing our properties.
"What do you want?"
"Well, I don't want a damn thing. You just seemed to be having a bit of a problem, and I typically enjoy sleeping on my Sundays—not that you've ever let me before—so I thought I'd try to determine whether something was actually wrong or if I could just go back to sleeping and leave you to it."
Her eyes narrowed even more than they already had and I waited in amusement, wondering if she'd actually flip me off. I sighed when she crossed her hands over her chest instead, although the gesture pushed her breasts up so much that I couldn't be too disappointed.
"So nice of you to be so considerate of your neighbor's troubles. I thought you wanted me to fuck off. Why don't you consider taking your own advice?"
Now my eyes narrowed. As if she could chase me off—or determine whether or not I had to follow my own advice. Was this rational? No. But I'd already demonstrated an inability to act rationally around this woman, so I decided to go with it.
Against my better judgment, I snarled, "I'm coming down."
"No, don't—"
I slammed my window closed, making for my stairs when I remembered that I wasn't wearing a scrap of clothing. The image of Lena staring at my naked body, her eyes dragging down my hard form in approval, slammed through me. I leaned against my door, instantly hard.
I gave myself a hard mental slap. I'd sworn off this woman. As much as I would have delighted in spending the morning with her in my bed, I didn't want the drama, even if I could tell her ass would fit perfectly in my palms.
Not to mention the fact that she was fucking a man literally my father's age. I reminded myself of that very pertinent fact as I stepped into a pair of shorts and trotted down the stairs.
I'd barely knocked on her door when Lena ripped it open, her habitually fierce expression on her face. My eyes swept of their own accord down her entire body, my throat going dry at the sight of her nipples visible through her running shirt. My fingers ached to run over them.
I finally lifted my eyes up to her face, only to discover that she'd been doing a little perusal of her own. When I cleared my throat, her eyes jerked from where they'd been staring at my naked chest, a faint blush staining her cheeks. I resisted the urge to back her against the foyer wall and nibble down her throat. I frowned when resisting proved an annoyingly difficult task.
Deciding to go on the offensive, I leaned against the doorjamb, folding my arms across my chest and smirking when her eyes widened slightly.
"What's going on, Lena? Why are you yelling so early in the morning?"
She dragged her eyes away from my body, frowning up at me. "What are you doing here? I never asked for you to meddle. You've made it perfectly clear that you want nothing to do with me."
I tried to ignore the guilt I felt when I remembered how harshly I'd treated her the night before. I stepped inside, watching as she took a step away from me.
"Something seems to be wrong with your house."
"It's fine. I can manage on my own."
I said nothing, brow raised in silence. She fidgeted with the edge of her shirt. She hadn't been able to fix her electricity. How likely was it that she could fix whatever had gone wrong?
"Something's wrong with my water," she finally mumbled.
Lena gasped in shock when I swiftly moved past her, heading for her backyard.
"You really don't have to—"
I waved her off, professional curiosity mingling with something I refused to recognize as concern. Now I knew why she'd been pacing the yard. One of her obnoxious friends had probably messed with something during one of her parties.
But then I got closer. About ten feet away, I ground to a halt, throwing a hand over my nose as I battled not to gag. I glanced at Lena, who had followed me across the yard and wasn't bothering to mask her glee at my reaction. Refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing me unnerved, I mentally steeled myself and closed the remaining distance.
Holy fuck. Raw sewage seeped everywhere. It bubbled out of the cap that acted as the entry point for the sewer line. Either they'd done a piss-poor job of it, or something else had happened.
I whirled around to Lena. She'd crept up behind me to peer over my shoulder, and when I turned, she started. My hands darted out to steady her; I nearly groaned when I realized she wasn't wearing a bra. My fingers twitched before I reluctantly let go.
"How did you find out this had happened?"
She shuddered, eyes flicking up to the second story of the house. "I tried to take a shower and sewage spewed out of the faucet."
Whoa. So much for a simple blockage. I could have just called one of my guys and gone back to my house to leave her to deal with it.
But if it had gotten into the water ... this was serious. And depending on how everything had been constructed, I could potentially be looking at a problem in my house.
I returned my attention to the ground, surveying the area where I guessed the sewer line ran to her house. Sure enough, there was a faint sogginess bubbling up in just about a straight line from the shed to the house. I followed it to be certain, right up to the wall of her house.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. I wouldn't be going home anytime soon.
"Show me your bathroom."
Without a word, Lena led me back inside and up onto her second floor. I tried not to notice the rumpled bed as I passed by, images of her writhing in it as I thrust inside her slamming into me.
Any fantasy quickly withered and died the moment I smelled the bathroom. I quickly noted the brown sludge in the tub, faintly impressed by how far it had sprayed. Apparently, it had also backed up into the toilet, and was that the sink too?
"Jesus, what did you do?"
"I just tried to use the shower. When it sprayed out, I verified that it was also happening in the toilet and sink."
I sighed. If it had made it into the second-floor tub, then the problem had already spread throughout the house. Using the sink had just spread it farther through the pipes, causing more of a mess. But I didn't expect her to know that.
"So I doubt I need to tell you this, but your water and sewer are fucked. Somehow, they've mixed together, which means that the sewer has gotten into the waterline."
"How long is it going to take to get fixed?"
I shrugged. "Could be days. Or weeks. It really depends on how bad the leak is and where it's located. Judging by the fact that the sewage is even up here, there's probably more than one leak, and you're most likely looking at at least 10 days to fix it."
Lena paled, going absolutely still as she stared at the toilet and bit her bottom lip. I jerked my gaze away and steeled myself for what I had to say next.
"You're going to have to leave. The raw sewage is a health and safety hazard; you can't be living in it, especially when they're doing the repairs."
Lena jerked away, annoyance quickly returning color to her face. "What are you saying? It can't be that bad. I'll just stay out of their way. It won't be a problem."
"Lena," I said with as much patience as I could muster. "If it's really bad, they're probably going to have to rip out some walls to determine the cause of the leak. They might even have to reinstall new pipes if the current ones are contaminated or broken. Furthermore—"
"So what, I have to leave? Can't I just—"
"Furthermore," I continued, trying not yell over her, "there is a very real possibility that this could migrate over into my house, depending on the severity of the problem, and more importantly, how quickly we get to it. And while you may be fine with living with this shit—literally—I am not. So if it's all the same to you, I'd rather we fix it as quickly as possible, so that there's no likelihood the entire fucking neighborhood is affected."
She stilled, biting her lip again in worry. The thought that this might spread obviously hadn't occurred to her. I actually witnessed the moment she understood, watched as the light left her eyes and she hunched over slightly, as if someone had socked her in the stomach. Without a word, she stumbled out of the bathroom. I followed her, struggling to remain unaffected by her obvious dismay.
Lena sat on the end of her bed, staring unseeingly at the opposite wall. Her mouth twisted into a frown and then she fell back against the bed, her hands covering her eyes as her feet dangled just above the floor.
I stood riveted in the doorway. A messed-up sewer line sucked, but it hardly merited such a devastated reaction. What had really upset her?
"How much is this going to cost to fix?" she said, the words slightly garbled since her hands still covered her face.
I shrugged again, although she couldn't see it. "Like I said, it really depends on the severity, but best-case scenario, we're looking at thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars. If it bleeds into the neighborhood, it could be significantly more than that."
Lena laughed, a mirthless, slightly hysterical little laugh. Then she rolled away from me and curled into a fetal position before falling into such stillness that even I knew something was seriously wrong.
I stumbled toward her, reaching out to stroke her back before I finally realized what I was doing and paused, my hand hovering in the air over her.
"Lena—"
"I need to be alone right now, Travis."
My hand jerked back. I rocked on my feet, wracked by the need to say something, but unable to come up with anything sufficient.
Lena must have noticed that I'd come closer, though she kept her back turned to me. "Please ... just go. Just go, I beg you."
Such sadness colored her voice. I wavered, thinking the last thing she needed was to be alone. I felt uncomfortable just leaving her. I moved to perch on the edge of the bed, determined to help her, when she whispered, her voice barely even reaching me from mere inches away, "Please."
I finally realized that maybe my presence, for whatever reason, was upsetting her more, so I reluctantly moved toward the door. When I finally reached it, I paused one more time, glancing back at the still figure on the bed.
"I'll call my guys to come out right away," I said, thinking that might make her feel better. She flinched and said nothing. I waited for a response, but none came.
Finally, and after much hesitation, I closed her door and left, returning to my own house and wondering about the ongoing mystery that was Lena Douglas.
An unholy shriek awoke me from nine wonderful hours of blissful sleep. I jerked, sheets twisting around my naked body as I rolled around in search of the sound. Someone was hurt, or in danger. Kicking the sheets from my body, I swung my feet over the bed and raced to the window, only to discover my neighbor slowly backing away from the far corner of her yard, her hands over her mouth.
What the hell? I watched in confusion as she backed all the way to the other side of her yard, her head shaking slightly as if in denial. Lena began pacing back and forth across her lawn, hands holding her head in obvious dismay.
I was a real bastard for taking delight in my neighbor's misery. But after what she'd done to me, I just couldn't bring myself to drum up one iota of fucks to give. And while I was perfectly qualified to go over there and help her, I hadn't the slightest inclination to do so. I'd told her to stay away from me, after all. It would kind of defeat the point if I immediately broke that rule myself.
But then her hands slipped from her temples to her face, and her shoulders slumped, shaking slightly. Fuck. Now she was crying. Lena didn't strike me as the kind of person who cried often, or at all.
My mother might have died after a long, drawn-out battle with cancer, but she'd been around long enough to ensure I didn't grow up a complete bastard.
Sighing, I opened my window, bending over at the waist to lean out, my arms resting on the sill as I shouted, "Everything all right over there?"
She jumped an entire foot in the air, shrieking again as a hand clutched her heart. I felt bad for startling her, although the sight was rather amusing. Lena whirled around to face me, a hand swiping at her eyes as she glared up at me over the wall dividing our properties.
"What do you want?"
"Well, I don't want a damn thing. You just seemed to be having a bit of a problem, and I typically enjoy sleeping on my Sundays—not that you've ever let me before—so I thought I'd try to determine whether something was actually wrong or if I could just go back to sleeping and leave you to it."
Her eyes narrowed even more than they already had and I waited in amusement, wondering if she'd actually flip me off. I sighed when she crossed her hands over her chest instead, although the gesture pushed her breasts up so much that I couldn't be too disappointed.
"So nice of you to be so considerate of your neighbor's troubles. I thought you wanted me to fuck off. Why don't you consider taking your own advice?"
Now my eyes narrowed. As if she could chase me off—or determine whether or not I had to follow my own advice. Was this rational? No. But I'd already demonstrated an inability to act rationally around this woman, so I decided to go with it.
Against my better judgment, I snarled, "I'm coming down."
"No, don't—"
I slammed my window closed, making for my stairs when I remembered that I wasn't wearing a scrap of clothing. The image of Lena staring at my naked body, her eyes dragging down my hard form in approval, slammed through me. I leaned against my door, instantly hard.
I gave myself a hard mental slap. I'd sworn off this woman. As much as I would have delighted in spending the morning with her in my bed, I didn't want the drama, even if I could tell her ass would fit perfectly in my palms.
Not to mention the fact that she was fucking a man literally my father's age. I reminded myself of that very pertinent fact as I stepped into a pair of shorts and trotted down the stairs.
I'd barely knocked on her door when Lena ripped it open, her habitually fierce expression on her face. My eyes swept of their own accord down her entire body, my throat going dry at the sight of her nipples visible through her running shirt. My fingers ached to run over them.
I finally lifted my eyes up to her face, only to discover that she'd been doing a little perusal of her own. When I cleared my throat, her eyes jerked from where they'd been staring at my naked chest, a faint blush staining her cheeks. I resisted the urge to back her against the foyer wall and nibble down her throat. I frowned when resisting proved an annoyingly difficult task.
Deciding to go on the offensive, I leaned against the doorjamb, folding my arms across my chest and smirking when her eyes widened slightly.
"What's going on, Lena? Why are you yelling so early in the morning?"
She dragged her eyes away from my body, frowning up at me. "What are you doing here? I never asked for you to meddle. You've made it perfectly clear that you want nothing to do with me."
I tried to ignore the guilt I felt when I remembered how harshly I'd treated her the night before. I stepped inside, watching as she took a step away from me.
"Something seems to be wrong with your house."
"It's fine. I can manage on my own."
I said nothing, brow raised in silence. She fidgeted with the edge of her shirt. She hadn't been able to fix her electricity. How likely was it that she could fix whatever had gone wrong?
"Something's wrong with my water," she finally mumbled.
Lena gasped in shock when I swiftly moved past her, heading for her backyard.
"You really don't have to—"
I waved her off, professional curiosity mingling with something I refused to recognize as concern. Now I knew why she'd been pacing the yard. One of her obnoxious friends had probably messed with something during one of her parties.
But then I got closer. About ten feet away, I ground to a halt, throwing a hand over my nose as I battled not to gag. I glanced at Lena, who had followed me across the yard and wasn't bothering to mask her glee at my reaction. Refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing me unnerved, I mentally steeled myself and closed the remaining distance.
Holy fuck. Raw sewage seeped everywhere. It bubbled out of the cap that acted as the entry point for the sewer line. Either they'd done a piss-poor job of it, or something else had happened.
I whirled around to Lena. She'd crept up behind me to peer over my shoulder, and when I turned, she started. My hands darted out to steady her; I nearly groaned when I realized she wasn't wearing a bra. My fingers twitched before I reluctantly let go.
"How did you find out this had happened?"
She shuddered, eyes flicking up to the second story of the house. "I tried to take a shower and sewage spewed out of the faucet."
Whoa. So much for a simple blockage. I could have just called one of my guys and gone back to my house to leave her to deal with it.
But if it had gotten into the water ... this was serious. And depending on how everything had been constructed, I could potentially be looking at a problem in my house.
I returned my attention to the ground, surveying the area where I guessed the sewer line ran to her house. Sure enough, there was a faint sogginess bubbling up in just about a straight line from the shed to the house. I followed it to be certain, right up to the wall of her house.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. I wouldn't be going home anytime soon.
"Show me your bathroom."
Without a word, Lena led me back inside and up onto her second floor. I tried not to notice the rumpled bed as I passed by, images of her writhing in it as I thrust inside her slamming into me.
Any fantasy quickly withered and died the moment I smelled the bathroom. I quickly noted the brown sludge in the tub, faintly impressed by how far it had sprayed. Apparently, it had also backed up into the toilet, and was that the sink too?
"Jesus, what did you do?"
"I just tried to use the shower. When it sprayed out, I verified that it was also happening in the toilet and sink."
I sighed. If it had made it into the second-floor tub, then the problem had already spread throughout the house. Using the sink had just spread it farther through the pipes, causing more of a mess. But I didn't expect her to know that.
"So I doubt I need to tell you this, but your water and sewer are fucked. Somehow, they've mixed together, which means that the sewer has gotten into the waterline."
"How long is it going to take to get fixed?"
I shrugged. "Could be days. Or weeks. It really depends on how bad the leak is and where it's located. Judging by the fact that the sewage is even up here, there's probably more than one leak, and you're most likely looking at at least 10 days to fix it."
Lena paled, going absolutely still as she stared at the toilet and bit her bottom lip. I jerked my gaze away and steeled myself for what I had to say next.
"You're going to have to leave. The raw sewage is a health and safety hazard; you can't be living in it, especially when they're doing the repairs."
Lena jerked away, annoyance quickly returning color to her face. "What are you saying? It can't be that bad. I'll just stay out of their way. It won't be a problem."
"Lena," I said with as much patience as I could muster. "If it's really bad, they're probably going to have to rip out some walls to determine the cause of the leak. They might even have to reinstall new pipes if the current ones are contaminated or broken. Furthermore—"
"So what, I have to leave? Can't I just—"
"Furthermore," I continued, trying not yell over her, "there is a very real possibility that this could migrate over into my house, depending on the severity of the problem, and more importantly, how quickly we get to it. And while you may be fine with living with this shit—literally—I am not. So if it's all the same to you, I'd rather we fix it as quickly as possible, so that there's no likelihood the entire fucking neighborhood is affected."
She stilled, biting her lip again in worry. The thought that this might spread obviously hadn't occurred to her. I actually witnessed the moment she understood, watched as the light left her eyes and she hunched over slightly, as if someone had socked her in the stomach. Without a word, she stumbled out of the bathroom. I followed her, struggling to remain unaffected by her obvious dismay.
Lena sat on the end of her bed, staring unseeingly at the opposite wall. Her mouth twisted into a frown and then she fell back against the bed, her hands covering her eyes as her feet dangled just above the floor.
I stood riveted in the doorway. A messed-up sewer line sucked, but it hardly merited such a devastated reaction. What had really upset her?
"How much is this going to cost to fix?" she said, the words slightly garbled since her hands still covered her face.
I shrugged again, although she couldn't see it. "Like I said, it really depends on the severity, but best-case scenario, we're looking at thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars. If it bleeds into the neighborhood, it could be significantly more than that."
Lena laughed, a mirthless, slightly hysterical little laugh. Then she rolled away from me and curled into a fetal position before falling into such stillness that even I knew something was seriously wrong.
I stumbled toward her, reaching out to stroke her back before I finally realized what I was doing and paused, my hand hovering in the air over her.
"Lena—"
"I need to be alone right now, Travis."
My hand jerked back. I rocked on my feet, wracked by the need to say something, but unable to come up with anything sufficient.
Lena must have noticed that I'd come closer, though she kept her back turned to me. "Please ... just go. Just go, I beg you."
Such sadness colored her voice. I wavered, thinking the last thing she needed was to be alone. I felt uncomfortable just leaving her. I moved to perch on the edge of the bed, determined to help her, when she whispered, her voice barely even reaching me from mere inches away, "Please."
I finally realized that maybe my presence, for whatever reason, was upsetting her more, so I reluctantly moved toward the door. When I finally reached it, I paused one more time, glancing back at the still figure on the bed.
"I'll call my guys to come out right away," I said, thinking that might make her feel better. She flinched and said nothing. I waited for a response, but none came.
Finally, and after much hesitation, I closed her door and left, returning to my own house and wondering about the ongoing mystery that was Lena Douglas.
