I opened one eye. Then the other.
Classical music was rolling down from the great house. I’m not a ‘classical music’ guy, but this tune was one I recognized from Tom and Jerry cartoons back when I was a kid. The bit they always played over montages of sunrise and the characters waking up and yawning. And always a rooster readying himself to crow.
It was a literal ‘wake-up’ call.
I groaned and buried my head in my pillow.
I had to give it to her. She had a wicked sense of humor.
I wasn’t expecting that.
Clearly I needed step up my ‘Bad Neighbor’ game.
I waited until the sun was fully up, then walked out onto my porch. It was a beautiful morning. The sky blazed the kind of deep cloudless blue that only autumn can accomplish. The air was cool, but the sun was still warm on my skin.
Every inch of my skin.
I lifted my arms and stretched, making sure to face the great house. The whole front was an open bank of floor-to-ceiling glass offering a two-hundred and seventy degree view of everything below it.
I grinned, then scratched my torso before making a great show of adjusting myself.
“Mornin’ Princess,” I muttered, pleased with my plan.
It wasn’t like I made nude-yardwork a regular practice. I’m too fond of my more sensitive bits to expose them to potential bug bites and poison ivy.
But she didn’t need to know that.
I scratched again, adding a particularly exuberant belch into the equation. Then laughed. I was grossing myself out and I was a near-hermit. She was a spoiled little brat. She had to be dying.
I strode - nakedly - across the lawn to the equipment shed and heard the whispery sliding noise of the great house’s deck doors. Good. I’d riled her enough that she was coming out to yell at me.
I kept my eyes forward, ignoring her completely. A girl who craved the limelight the way she did would probably hate being ignored even more than having a filthy caveman ruining her pristine lake view with his ass crack. So I didn’t even glance her way.
Her laughter floated over the lawn. Nervous laughter maybe ? I hoped.
I resisted the urge to check, and walked around to the side of the shed. I’d built an extension off the roof and used that shelter to stack logs for the woodstove so they could cure without getting wet. Last week I’d moved the snowmobile out of the shed and housed it next to the woodpile under a tarp.
Aria laughed again. Not the reaction I was expecting, but it was a reaction, so it counted.
Autumn was a dicey season in Upstate New York. It was always a gamble trying to guess when you’d need the lawn mower for the last time and when you’d need the shovels for the first time. Last October, I’d used them both in the same week.
Which meant I needed to make sure the snowmobile was in working order, now.
The whisper of the deck doors signaled Aria’s retreat back into the house. I continued ignoring her as I yanked the tarp off of the snowmobile.
I opened it up and first made sure mice hadn’t chewed through any wiring or built a nest in the engine. I was so engrossed that I almost forgot my mission and had to throw in a few grunts and scratches in case she was still watching.
The door slid open again. “Here it comes,” I muttered, grinning in triumph. Her muffled tread on the deck stairs meant she was heading down to the lawn to yell at me. Hopefully she’d already called her private jet to take her out of my hair.
“Whatcha’ doin’?” she called to me.
Her casual tone made me turn.
And take three hasty steps backwards.
She laughed again, tossing her wildfire hair and then swinging it around so that it cascaded over one shoulder all the way down to her breast.
Her exposed, naked breast.
Aria Jane Dolan was standing in front of me, completely… and beautifully… naked.
Like teenagers at a house party when the cops show up, every coherent thought fled my brain at once. I could only stare at her and will myself not to get a hard-on.
Her skin was the perfect shade of peach-y pale, and it covered a body that was smooth and spare with just the right balance of softness in her hips. Freckles dotted her torso like a constellation of stars, all of them the same pretty shade of brown-pink as her pert nipples.
I was staring, and I knew I was staring. And what was worse was that I knew she could see - very clearly see - the effect that staring was having on me.
I dragged my eyes back up to hers. Amusement danced in them as she pointedly dropped her gaze to my groin and back up again to my face. “Is this how we do it?” she asked, poking her tongue into her cheek. “Reckless Falls is a nudist colony now? Things around here must have changed more than I thought.”
“What are you doing?” My voice cracked like a middle schooler’s.
She laughed again. “Just following your lead, Derek.” She flicked her tongue over her lips and let her eyes drop again. “I told you, there’s nothing you can do or say to make me move, but I’m definitely enjoying your attempts. So keep ‘em coming.”
With one last disdainful snort, she turned back to the house, granting me a long, lingering view of that ripe, round ass of hers. She tossed a backwards glance over her shoulder and snorted when she caught me staring.
I knew she wanted me to see - that was the game we were playing now - so I wasn’t sure why I lifted my gaze when she caught me.
But I did.
And that’s when I saw it.
Mottled, faded bruising, in sickly shades of yellow and green, dotted her ribcage just under her left arm. Another bruise, this one still a vicious dark purple, flared angrily from her upper arm.
It was the exact size and shape as a thumbprint.
Her eyes widened at the same time as mine. All the haughty color drained from her face and she turned and rushed back to the house before I could say anything.