Bleeding Heart

She called him on it. ‘Make you want to poke holes in your eardrums?’

‘A little bit. Big night?’

‘Not really. Just getting out and exploring the neighbourhood. It really is a great place. I may be shooting myself in the bank account, but you could crank up the rent and make a fortune, what with everything that’s around here and the location.’

‘I could, but then I’d have to lose all my good tenants. It’s hard enough with the ones that migrate to the suburbs.’

‘Your friends? The ones who used to live in my apartment and the one above?’

Seth nodded, and April noted that he looked a little uncomfortable.

Another mental note checked. Her suspicions that he had been involved with the woman who lived in her apartment strengthened, and she remembered the man’s – Ryan’s? – equally uncomfortable pause when she had asked what sort of landlord Seth was. At the time she had chalked it up to him wanting to get his security deposit back without burning bridges.

Maybe her landlord was more trouble than she wanted to get into? Maybe, in spite of the sad back story, he lived up to the way he looked.

She gazed at those thick forearms and imagined gripping them as he pumped into her, and she was pretty sure he would be worth all the trouble he could dish out.

‘I don’t understand the appeal,’ he said, and it took a minute for her to claw her way out of her fantasy and realise they had actually been having a conversation about the building. ‘Even when I was married, it never entered into the equation to move to the outskirts of town. I mean, who wants to be that far from everything?’

‘I just came from the suburbs, and I wholeheartedly agree.’

He cocked his head and his grin widened. ‘That’s right, first apartment on your own.’

In spite of his gentle tone, April’s defences went up a little. She’d been hearing enough of how she was ‘just a pup’ from her co-workers at the Department of Public Works, like she was the first person in the world to sign a lease and move out of her mom’s house.

It was irritating at work, but it was outright embarrassing coming from a guy she had used to christen her fancy sex toy.

Something must have shown on her face, because his smile became a little apologetic. ‘I lived at home until I got married, and then we moved into – get this – a camper trailer with no wheels.’

‘That sounds…nice?’

‘It wasn’t. The thing was forty years old and we paid my brother-in-law fifty bucks a month to park it in his driveway. Damn thing had a hole underneath the kitchen sink, and we’d have to tie the cupboard up with twine to keep the raccoons from crawling in. Still, we were pretty pumped that we were home-owners at twenty-one, even if the home was shit – so you’re doing better than we did.’

‘We.’ Again and again. She wanted to know more about his late wife, but she didn’t dare ask. Just because he was all right with talking about it didn’t mean that she was allowed to probe.

‘I won’t miss the suburbs,’ she said to get back on track. ‘No lawnmowers first thing in the morning zooming past my window.’

‘Yeah, you’ve got a nice buffer where you are, and even if you hear me out there there’ll only be five minutes’ worth of mowing.’ He leaned in a little bit. ‘Though, if I get at it before noon, feel free to come out and tell me off.’

Hell, she wouldn’t mind coming out to watch him push a mower across the lawn, especially if he did it in a tight shirt or, better yet, shirtless.

Jesus, April – can you stop being a pervert for ten minutes?

‘Anyway,’ he said, signalling the end of their conversation whether she liked it or not, ‘I’ve got to get back to it, and I think we’ve given you-know-who enough to talk about for a while.’

‘Long enough to establish me as the official hussy of Winsloe Court?’

‘Hey, now, don’t make me defend your honour.’

‘Against myself?’

‘Well, maybe not – and I kind of like that word “hussy”. Maybe that’s what I’ll start calling you.’ His grin got really big, and a little naughty. ‘The hussy in apartment 3B.’

Even though it was a joke, the way he said that ridiculous word was criminally hot and only further inspired her filthy fantasies. She could hear him doing it while he lifted her skirt to get a peek of whatever frilly things she wore underneath.

The heat started to flood her face and she knew she was about to light up, so she started up the next set of stairs.

‘I’ll talk to you later, then,’ she said, and took another quick look back. ‘And thanks about my hair.’

‘Later,’ he called.

Once she was in her apartment, she dropped her purse and threw herself face-down on the sofa.

‘God, you’re turning into a sex maniac,’ she said into the new-smelling sofa cover.

The best thing she could do for herself was stay away from the hot landlord, she decided, but she knew she’d never have that amount of discipline.

Even checking her phone to find a message from Todd didn’t have half the punch of bumping into Seth. She was quickly moving from lust to crush territory, and that wasn’t good.

Seth sat in his favourite chair and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes so hard they hurt.

‘I’m officially the creepy old man in the building,’ he murmured.

The flirting and the eye-fucking were getting out of hand, and now he’d humiliated himself further by christening her ‘the hussy in 3B’.

Lame.

He wasn’t sure if she’d been flirting back. Well, he’d been sure at the time, but now that he replayed their exchange he doubted himself. Maybe she was just humouring him. That exit was pretty quick. Lightning-fast. She ran up those stairs.

With a sigh, he sprawled back in the chair and looked around the apartment. His gaze fell upon his project on the dining-room table, and he groaned.

And you couldn’t shut up about Rita.

Normally he liked talking about Rita. He could yak someone’s ear off about what a dream she was.

Talking to April about Rita felt…off. Like he shouldn’t be showcasing what a sad fuck he was. He’d never had any qualms about sounding off to Evie, but then again he had never gotten that tickle in his gut when he talked to Evie. They’d been friends – and, later, a little more – and talking about Rita had just been a part of it.

Now he felt like he had announced to April that he sat alone in his apartment on a Friday night sorting old pictures. Which was completely true, and completely sad.

He looked at the painting that hung over the sofa. He rarely talked back to the voice in his head, but when he did he refused to talk to dead air. If he was going to address her and the little tsk tsk she put into his head, he was damn well going to give shit to the one thing he knew she loved more than him and that fucking cat – her painting of…whatever the hell that was supposed to be.

‘Is this what you had in mind, woman? Shoving my foot in my mouth like an asshole?’

Shut up, Wolfman.

Chapter Five (#ub1906fb1-8f13-5851-89a7-8aa2dd02f24e)

April would never confess to it except under threat of having the contents of her hard drive exposed, but she had been avoiding the elevator ever since the painting began two days earlier.