Arrogant Neighbor: A Navy SEAL Romance Read Free

stacked boxes. You never realize how much stuff you have until you put it all in boxes. All this stuff that once fit inside my little bedroom back home suddenly filled an entire apartment. That excited me a little.
    My apartment. I had my own apartment.
    I settled on the bed, the only piece of furniture that I’d bothered to do anything with that day, and let my dreams of the future play out in my head. I had a good job at a small publishing company downtown, reading and editing manuscripts that had been given a contract for publication. It was my dream job, and I couldn’t believe I got it right out of the gate. I’d thought I would have to work as an English teacher for a while until I could get my foot through the publishing door. But this had been Philip’s parting gift. He was friendly with the owner of the company and got me an interview. I liked to think that I got the actual job myself with my stellar interviewing skills, but I’m not sure. Either way, I had my dream job and I was going rock it when I started in the morning.
    If I could get some sleep.
    But even as that thought crossed my mind, the porno soundtrack began again.
    Did that guy never sleep?

Chapter 3
    Major
    I felt like I’d just gone to sleep when my phone began buzzing near my ear. I rolled over and reached blindly for it, nearly knocking it off the nightstand before I finally got a grip.
    “What?” I mumbled.
    “Mr. Rutherford? This is Todd Watson, the building manager.”
    “Are you asking or telling?”
    The man on the other end of the line cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to bother you so early in the morning,” he said, a slight edge to his tone. “But your new neighbor, Miss Graham, left a message on my voicemail last night complaining about noise coming from your apartment.”
    “I have a new neighbor?”
    “Yes. Miss Graham moved into apartment C yesterday.”
    “I wasn’t aware of that.”
    “Yes, well, she called me at one o’clock this morning and again at two to complain about the amount of noise you were making. Apparently you had company?”
    I might have laughed if it wasn’t so absurd. My neighbor was telling on me? Were we a couple of children on a playground or something?
    “If you could just keep it down in the future.”
    “No problem.”
    I disconnected the call before Todd could say anything else that would embarrass us both. A glance at the phone’s screen told me it was barely seven in the morning. I groaned again. I’d only fallen into bed three hours ago after taking that girl home. She had been half asleep and still functioning at half-wit because of whatever she’d been drinking at the concert. She couldn’t quite remember where her apartment was and ended up taking us clear across town before she realized she lived not more than two miles from my place. And then she started to cry when I said goodbye in the truck. I ended up having to give her my phone number and practically carrying her into her place. She probably wouldn’t even remember me when she woke. But if she did, I certainly didn’t intend to speak to her again. The number was fake.
    Girls aren’t the only ones who can do that.
    I tossed the phone back onto the nightstand and tucked the pillow comfortably under my head, planning on grabbing a few hours more sleep. But just as my eyes slid closed, the low beat of a song began playing somewhere nearby. I couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from at first, but then the volume was cranked up and not only could I tell where it was coming from, I understood just how thin the walls were in the place.
    It hadn’t escaped me before now. I could often hear old Mrs. Watson’s television blaring through the wall our apartments shared. But it never occurred to me that having a neighbor on the other side would be quite so invasive.
    I put a pillow over my head, but it didn’t drown the sound out enough to help me sleep. Just enough for me to grow more and more irritated. I finally tossed