Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set (231 page)

“Yeah.  You too.”  Not knowing what else to say and suddenly wanting to escape back into her house since she had a terrible feeling that he knew she’d been watching him undress every night, she turned away from him.

“Goodnight Carlie.”

She didn’t turn.  Her face felt like it was on fire.  “Goodnight Connor.”

When she was back inside and the door was locked behind her, Carlie breathed a sigh of relief.  Then she laughed at herself for thinking that Connor knew she’d been watching him.  Well, she mused as she headed to bed; at least she had a name to add to her fantasies now.

Two weeks later she was standing beside her window at eleven o’clock at night.  Mitty was asleep on the floor by the foot of her bed.  She was glad that she didn’t have to work the next day.  Caring for Mitty was beginning to feel like caring for a child.  She walked him twice a day.  While she knew the exercise was good for both of them, it sometimes felt like he was walking her.

Connor appeared in front of his window.  He was standing closer than usual.  Carlie was more than a little disappointed.  Granted, he usually turned away when he took his pants off, but she loved to look at his ass almost as much as she loved to look at his chest.  He lingered by the window and was still standing there several minutes later when it finally dawned on Carlie what he was doing.  His eyes were closed and with the movements of his arm, she suspected that he was pleasuring himself.

She felt a blush rise to her cheeks and turned away.  But she wasn’t halfway to her bed when she turned back.  The movement of Connor’s arm was slow and steady.  Any doubt in her mind of what he was doing quickly left.  Carlie swallowed and stepped back slightly.  As she watched him, she grew more and more turned on until she felt as if she couldn’t take it anymore.  Finally, after watching him for what felt like an endless minute, she moved her hand into her panties. 

Her eyes drifted closed.  She was close to orgasm when she heard the movement of Mitty behind her.  She opened her eyes and realized that she’d moved closer to the window.  She chanced a glance across her yard and found herself looking straight into Connor’s eyes.  He gave her a slight smile.  She removed her hand from between her legs and hastily shut her blinds.  She was humiliated and was glad for the first time since Connor had moved in that he seemed to rarely leave his house.

Carlie took a cold shower and then went to bed. 

The next morning she called Tanisha.  “Hello.”  Carlie thought that her friend still sounded half asleep.

“I need to ask you a favor Nish.”

Tanisha yawned.  “Yep.  You got it Car.  Now let me go back to sleep.  The kids were gone last night.  Garth kept me up late.  I still have three hours before Leela will be home.  I plan to make good use of it.”

“I’m sorry.  When are your older kids coming home?”

“This afternoon.  Why?”

“I need someone to walk Mitty for me today.”

“He’s not that bad is he?  I thought you were starting to enjoy having him around.”

“I am.  There’s another reason Nish.  One that I’m way too embarrassed to tell you.”

“Huh uh girl.  You wake me up out of a dead sleep and then you tell me that you’re too embarrassed to tell me something.  Are you forgetting who you’re talking to?  We’ve been friends since kindergarten, when you ate glue and sniffed the fruit markers so much I swear you got high and I got paid by little boys when I let them look up my skirt.  You had sex didn’t you?  Oh Car, wasn’t it any good?”

“It wasn’t that.  I really can’t tell you Nish.  You’ll laugh at me.”

“I will not.  I have four children.  Believe me, sometimes when they get upset over really silly stuff I want to laugh at them.  Not that it means I love them any less.  I guess you’d have to be a mother to understand.  Fess up.  You’ll feel better after you tell me anyway.”

Carlie sighed.  “You know that guy that moved in next door to me?”

“The hot one that never comes out in daylight?  If I believed in vampires, I’d think he was one.”

“He doesn’t come out after dark much either.  I actually talked to him a while back.  His name is Connor.  He has this habit of undressing in front of his bedroom window.  It’s right across from
mine.  He’s got such a nice body.  I know that I shouldn’t look, but he stands there with the blinds open.  He actually raises them before he undresses.”

Tanisha laughed.  “So he wants you to watch.  Maybe he’s lonely too.  Have you started undressing in front of your window Car?  Did you catch him watching you?”

“Not exactly.  It’s worse than that.”

“Spill it.  I hope to be able to go back to sleep.”

“Thanks Nish.  He was standing in front of his window last night.  He stood there for a really long time.  After a while, I figured out that he was pleasuring himself.”

“Damn.  That’s kinda creepy but kinda hot too.  So he caught you watching him jerk off?”

“Did you have to say it like that?  We’re not in high school anymore remember?”

“It’s jerking off whether they’re thirteen or sixty.  Did he catch you?”

“Um, well I got really turned on and started to touch myself.  I moved in front of the window without thinking about it.  I opened my eyes and he was watching me.  He smiled at me.”

“Go get yourself a piece.  He wants you, you want him.  Simple as that.  Walk Mitty yourself.  Maybe you’ll run into him.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of Nish.  It was humiliating.”

“How was it humiliating?  He knows that you’ve been watching him and he likes it.  But he’s too shy to do anything about it.  So he thought he’d push it a little further and see how you reacted.  I’m thinking that your reaction was probably better than he’d hoped for.”

“Why would he want me?”

Tanisha let out a sigh that was full of frustration.  “I love you Car, but sometimes when I talk to you, I feel like I’m talking to one of my kids.  You’re not that big.  You’ve always been much more attractive than you’ll admit.  This guy has a thing for you.  Admit it to yourself.  Enjoy it. 
Take advantage of it.  Go get laid and let me go back to sleep.  And don’t ask me a question like that ever again or I’ll let Leela kick your ass.”

Carlie laughed.  “She’s five.”

“My girl can kick some butt.  She can take her brothers down.”

“They’re twice her size.”

“Yes they are.  Now I’m going back to sleep.  Go knock on Connor’s door and get yourself laid.  Call me this afternoon and tell me about it.  Then I’ll forgive you for waking me up.”

“But Nish. . .”

“No buts.  Talk to you later Car.”

Tanisha hung up.  Carlie groaned as she hung up her phone.  She couldn’t believe that she’d told Tanisha about what had happened the night before, let alone that her best friend seemed to think her problem had such a simple solution.

She got dressed and took Mitty for a walk.  She usually walked past Connor’s house, but that day she went in the opposite direction.  She avoided her bedroom window like the plague and tried to pretend she didn’t have a neighbor.

Tanisha teased her about Connor at work.  She threatened to tell Garth about what had happened if she didn’t do something about what seemed to her to be an obvious mutual attraction, but finally shut up about it when Carlie begged her. 

Two weeks later, she came back through the alley on her evening walk with Mitty.  She let them in through the back gate and unlocked the side door to her house.  Mitty had already gone inside.  She was halfway inside when a voice stopped her.  Connor’s voice.

“Carlie, can I talk to you for a minute?  Please.”

Carlie wanted to pretend that she hadn’t heard him.  She paused with her hand on the doorknob and let out a quiet sigh.  She took a deep breath and then let it out, and turned to face him.

“I think I owe you an apology.”

“Oh.”

Connor let out a sigh of his own.  “Do you want to come over for a cup of decaf, or tea or something?  I’d rather do this inside than out.  You can bring Mitty if you want.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea Connor.”

“Please Carlie.  I feel like I need to explain myself.  I mean you no harm.  Bring your dog.  You know he won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

Mitty was a very protective dog, Carlie had to admit that.  She called out his name.  He came running.  She clipped his leash back to his collar and shut and locked the door.  Her heart was pounding as she walked to the front gate.  Connor met her on his front porch.  He held the door for her.  Once she and Mitty were inside, he shut the door behind them.

His living room was very neat.  There was no TV, only an elaborate stereo system in one corner and a big desk with both a desktop and a laptop computer.  He gestured for her to sit down.  “You can let him off of the leash.  Do you prefer coffee or tea?  Though I think I’m out of tea bags so it would have to be iced.”

“Tea is fine, with a little sugar please.”

“It’s already sweetened.  Do you want a slice of coffee cake?  I’m sure it’s not as good as anything you make at the shop, but I thought it was good.”

“No thank you.”

Connor shrugged and went towards the kitchen.  Mitty followed him.  She saw him pat the dog’s head.  He was back a few minutes later with two glasses of tea.  She took a sip and then placed the glass on a coaster on his coffee table.  It was perfectly sweetened.

Connor settled into the armchair across from her.  Mitty curled up at his feet.  She shot her dog a dirty look and Connor chuckled.  They were both silent for several minutes.  Then he cleared his throat.  “I feel like such an idiot Carlie.  I’m so sorry about that night.  What I did was wrong.  I noticed you watching me a few times and I enjoyed it.  It made me feel good.  It’s hard to explain, but it made me feel as if life was worth living again, knowing that you were watching me.”

Carlie picked up the tea just for something to do.  She took a sip and then replaced the glass.  “What do you mean Connor?”

“My wife died almost five years ago.  We have a daughter.  She’ll turn five this spring.  My mother has custody right now.  I couldn’t stand to raise her by myself.  She looks just like Bessie.  I never agreed with her choice.  She had cancer.  When she found out she was pregnant, she chose to discontinue any kind of treatment.  We’d been using birth control, but things happen.  Bessie thought it was a sign from above and she made up her mind.  She thought that I’d be able to carry on without her if I had a piece of her with me, but I couldn’t do it.  I’m a terrible father and a terrible man.”

“You’re not.  I’m sure it wasn’t an easy choice for your wife to make.”

Connor sighed.  “Sometimes I think it was.  Sometimes I think that she was tired and would have been ready to go even if she hadn’t gotten pregnant.  But that’s not why I asked you in.  That night, I let my feelings towards you overtake my sensibility.  I think of you quite frequently when I do that in private.  I thought that for some reason if you saw you’d realize that I knew you were watching and wanted you in the same way that you seem to want me.  Or seemed to want me.  I was thrilled when I saw that you were touching yourself as well, but then you opened your eyes and you saw me.  The look on your face was terrible.  I shouldn’t have smiled at you.  I never should have done it in the first place.  I apologize.  I promise you that I’ll never do it again.  You can go back to watching me if you’d like.”

Carlie couldn’t bring herself to look at him.  “No Connor.  I should never have watched you in the first place.  I was wrong too.  I’m going to go now.  Come on Mitty.”

Mitty raised his head, but didn’t move.

“Carlie.  I’ve wanted to approach since the first time I saw you, but I never had the courage.  You’re so beautiful.  I’ve seen some of the cakes you’ve made.  They’re wonderful.  It’s almost like an art form.”

Carlie laughed.  “It’s a cake Connor.  The shop was Tanisha’s idea.  I never knew what I wanted to do with my life.  She always seemed so sure.  I’m just kinda along for the ride.  I’ve felt that way my whole life.  The shy, kinda cute girl that always hung out with the pretty girl who was never afraid to speak her mind.”

“Do you not know that you’re beautiful?  Don’t you own a mirror?”

Carlie shook her head.  “I’ve gained almost forty pounds since my divorce.  I wasn’t that great to look at beforehand, now it’s just kinda sad.  I’m okay with what happened that night.  We were both wrong.  I’m thinking of selling my house.”

Her last statement had slipped out.  It hadn’t been true until she’d said it.  But now that she thought about it, moving away from this neighborhood was starting to sound better and better.

“I see.  Can I take you out to dinner sometime?  Or make you dinner.  I seem to have developed more than a bit of agoraphobia since my wife’s death.”

“I’m sorry Connor.  I wouldn’t feel comfortable.”

“I understand.  But I want you to know that I do think you’re beautiful no matter what you weigh.  Will you say goodbye if you do sell your house?”

Carlie nodded, feeling tears prick her eyes.  “I have to go.  Mitty.  Come.”

Mitty finally responded.  She clipped his leash back on and made her escape.  When she was home, she let the tears flow.  Her feelings were so conflicted that she didn’t come close to understanding them.  She understood that it had to have been hard for Connor to say the things to her that he had. There was a part of her that wanted to run back to his house and tell him that she’d love to have dinner with him, but there was a part of her that was still much too humiliated to face him again.