Princess Next Door Read online

  He was starting to think it wasn’t the beer but the food she’d eaten.

  “I’m never eating takeout again.”

  So many people had said the same old thing.

  It was going to be a long night. Instead of being pissed about that, though, Zane found himself smiling as he headed to her laundry room. There were worse ways to spend an evening.

  Chapter Four

  Wynter woke with the worst feeling in the world. Grabbing her head, she groaned and turned to see Zane lying beside her. She gasped, sitting up in the bed.

  “There’s some painkillers and water by your lamp.” He held onto her pillow, and she stared down at him, startled to see him in her room.

  “Erm, what are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Give yourself a moment and last night will all come flooding back, and you won’t need to ask another question.”

  She’d gone out drinking, and slowly, she recalled being in the bar with Zane. Dancing with him, listening to him perform with his group, and then she winced. “I vomited in your car.”

  “Yes, you did, and I’m sure there’s a nice big puddle out there as well. Not to mention all the vomiting you did in here last night. Those wings you ate must have been really nasty.” He held onto the pillow, and she chanced another glance at him.

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and with a quick look underneath her sheet, she saw he was also in boxer briefs.

  Nibbling her lip, she looked at him. “Did we, erm, did we…”

  “Have sex?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  He laughed. “Don’t sound so disappointed. Believe it or not, Princess, I don’t screw a vomiting body, nor do I screw a corpse.”

  “A corpse?”

  “You were completely out of it last night, and the idea of being with you didn’t appeal, not at all.”

  “That bad?”

  “Yep, that bad.”

  She rubbed at her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You also vomited in my truck, and I’ve not even gone down to check how bad that is.”

  “I will totally clean it. I promise.”

  “You feeling any better?”

  Her stomach felt tender, but her head was easing, and besides being completely embarrassed, she felt fine. “Yes.”

  “Good. You need to call Marshall. I told him you would in the morning. You were too busy hurling last night.”

  “I will. I will totally do that.”

  He held out her cell phone. “Here you go.” He snuggled back into her bed.

  “You slept here last night?”

  “I was worried that you’d fall asleep with vomit in your mouth, and that image wouldn’t leave me, so I decided to be a gentleman and stay. I hope that’s okay.”

  “It is.” She held her cell phone. “I’ll go make the call.”

  “Take your painkillers first. It’ll help with the bad head.”

  She took the painkillers and entered her bathroom, closing the door silently behind her.

  Stepping in front of the mirror, she winced. She looked awful. Her eyes were all dark from the small amount of makeup she’d worn last night.

  She didn’t stink, which she was happy about.

  Dialing Tammy’s number, she waited for her friend to answer.

  “It’s about time you called. How are you feeling?” Tammy asked.

  “I’m feeling … okay.”

  “Marshall said you were vomiting last night. You didn’t have that much to drink.”

  “I ate some takeout food, and believe me, I won’t be doing that again anytime soon. That stuff was just disgusting.” She wrinkled her nose. “Zane took care of me. Like … all night.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “That’s a sweet thing to do, right? Take care of someone you don’t really know?”

  “He still there?”

  “Yes. I need to clean his truck.”

  “You threw up in his truck?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll be telling Marshall about that. He felt so guilty leaving you with Zane, but he loves his car.”

  She laughed. “It was fine. Zane didn’t hurt me or anything, and I feel really comfortable around him.”

  “If you ask me if that’s normal, I will slap you,” Tammy said.

  “Okay, okay, I won’t say anything.” Even though all she wanted to do was ask the question.

  “Have you ever just thought about trusting your gut with something like this?”

  “No, absolutely not,” she said.

  “Zane seems like a nice guy, and he could have just left you last night. I think you need to stop overthinking everything, otherwise you’re going to drive yourself insane.”

  “Noted, and I hate to say this, but I am already there,” she said. She rubbed at her head. “Do you think I should make him breakfast?”

  Tammy laughed. “Why don’t you think about fixing his truck, and then how he took care of you? Maybe there’s truth in that little rumor after all.”

  Wynter snorted. She couldn’t help it. “Houses don’t bring people together. There’s no truth in it.”

  “We’ll see. I can hear wedding bells in the distance.”

  Saying goodbye, she hung up. Then she freshened herself so she looked like she could at least join the land of the living rather than staying camped out in her bathroom.

  When she opened her door, Zane was already awake and stretching. He stood in front of her window, and she couldn’t help but admire the dragon tattoo on his back. The blue and black ink coming together as one was mesmerizing.

  “I’m going to clean your truck, and I’m also going to say thank you so much for taking care of me. You really didn’t have to do any of that, and yet you did.”

  He laughed and turned toward her. “I’m a real hero.”

  “So as a real hero, do you want breakfast?”

  “Bacon, eggs, and waffles?” he asked.

  “I can make all of that if you’d like.”

  “Count me in. I’ll check on our clothes. I did a load of laundry last night in between you vomiting.”

  Once again, another reason to really appreciate him. He was not even rubbing it in her face, which she was pleased about.

  Heading downstairs, she began making breakfast, settling for a bowl of fruit and some toast for herself.

  She was nervous as he came out and began looking around her stuff.

  “Did it take you long to move in?” he asked.

  “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.”

  Zane watched as she slowly cleaned away her vomit, only she didn’t stop at the floor. She cleaned the entire seating area, wiping everything down, spraying some kind of smelly, flowery odor stuff, and in the end she spent two whole hours cleaning his truck.

  “There, I’m going to leave the windows and doors open. Do you want some lemonade?” she asked.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  She left him alone, and he climbed into the driver’s seat. The truck was as good as new. He was shocked by how good it looked and smelled.

  Princess joined him outside. They sat together in two deck chairs he’d brought out and watched their neighborhood go about its business. A couple of kids several doors down were arguing over a ball.

  Parents were cleaning their cars, and not one of them approached them.

  This was what he liked about this street. Even the deputy sheriff had told him that they were left alone when Slade and Cassie lived here.

  “I really do like this place,” she spoke up.

  “I do as well.”

  “It’s warm. It’s cozy. This is probably going to sound crazy, but I’ve even driven down this street during Halloween and Christmas. I love the decorations that people do. It just feels like home.”

  “I get that. I love this place as well. I couldn’t believe when my house went up for sale. It felt like fate, you know.”

  “Yeah, and I was able to use my inheritance to afford it as well. It felt good.” She pushed some of her blonde curls off her face. “I think my grandparents knew that I was a little different from the rest of my family. They left me enough to get started on my own and live my own dream.”

  “They sound like good people.”

  “My family is nice. They just like to judge everyone and everything.”

  “Sounds like every single person in the world.” He finished off his glass of lemonade, and felt so calm, so relaxed.

  It had been a long night. He’d spent most of it awake, babysitting Princess, but he couldn’t recall a time ever feeling so at home.

  “Can I trust you?” she asked.

  “I cleaned vomit from you. I spent the night. You can trust me, Princess. There’s no one I’m going to spill your secrets to.”

  “I want to lose my virginity.” He tensed up and turned toward her. She stood up, placing her hands on her hips. “Do you like the way I look?”

  Okay, his dick just got hard in the fastest time he’d ever known it.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you were taught by an older woman, and well, you’re an older guy.”

  “Princess.”

  She bent forward so that her hands were on his knees. “Please, listen. Don’t say no yet. I know this is completely crazy, and it’s only because we’ve been friends such a short time, and I will probably regret this, but I don’t want to just lose it. I want to have experiences. Sitting here, watching the street, thinking about my family. I don’t want to save it for marriage. I don’t want to just be with Mr. Right. I want to have fun. That’s why I moved here. I came here to have fun, to learn how to live, not just to exist.” She stopped, biting her lip, and he just wanted to suck that lip right into his mouth. “I know it’s asking a lot, and I was a real bitch to you when we first met, but I’m not. I promise.”

  “You’re asking me to teach you how to have sex?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t think that’s weird that you’re asking a stranger about this?”

  “Well, of course it’s weird, but I can’t think of anyone else I’d trust with this. I trust you.” She squeezed his knees. “You took care of me when you didn’t have to. That says something to me.”

  He glanced over her shoulder and saw they were getting a little attention. “I think it’s time we moved this inside.”

  Her shoulders slumped, but she didn’t argue with him. He didn’t know if he was happy with that or not.

  Closing up the car, he followed her inside her home, making sure to lock the door behind him.

  Once inside, she stopped in the sitting room and turned toward him. “I’m asking way too much.”

  “You’re not asking too much. You’re just asking … a lot, but you know what, it’s fine. I don’t mind you asking, and I don’t mind any of that.”

  His dick was more than happy with the idea of helping her. He wanted to get her nak
ed, spread those pretty thighs, and be the first and only man to taste her creamy pussy. She would be so wet by the time he got his hands on her.

  Not right now.

  He needed to keep his head in the game; the one he actually used to think with.

  “I need to think about this,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “You know what, I’ve thought about this.” He stepped up close to her, intent on kissing those sexy as fuck lips only to stop. “I want to kiss you right now.”

  She nodded. “I’d like to kiss you, too.”

  “I don’t want you to say things you don’t mean, or what you think I expect you to say.”

  “I’d never do that.”

  He pressed a finger against her lips. “I also don’t want you to keep playing nodding heads as we’re kissing.”

  “Nodding heads?” she asked, frowning.

  He moved his head from side to side in the way he meant, and she covered her mouth laughing.

  “I’ve never seen that before.”

  “It happens. Just close your eyes, no tongue, okay.”

  She held her hands up. “Fine.”

  He waited as she stood, closed her eyes, and puckered her lips.

  “Don’t pucker.”

  “I feel like I’m taking a test or something.”

  “Consider it a test.” She stopped puckering, and he took a step toward her. He touched her cheek, and when she opened her eyes, he told her to close them.

  She did as he asked, and he tilted her head back. Her skin was flawless, smooth, and he stroked his finger over her cheek, moving around her ear, and back down to her chin. Her lips parted a little, and he slid his other hand up from her hand, cupping her face.

  Moistening his own lips, he took possession of hers, and listened as she sighed his name just before he did.

  The moment he kissed her, he felt like his world had been turned upside down and inside out. He lost all focus apart from her.