Keeping Her Up All Night Read Free Page A

jagged nerves wrenched themselves back into red alert.
    The sound came from the other side of the wall.
    ‘Oh, for goodness’
sake
.’
    Amber leaped up and tore open her wardrobe to dragout a skirt and the first top she could lay her hands on. There was no time for shoes. In a fury she flew out of her flat to hammer on her neighbour’s door.
    Her fist halted in mid-crash as the door opened abruptly.
    It was him, of course. All six foot two of him. His stubble had progressed, and somehow his lashes seemed blacker too, though his grey eyes still held the same silvery glint. Leaning a powerful shoulder against the frame, he cast another of those long, slow, considering looks over her—like the king of the pride contemplating a plump little wildebeest.
    ‘Well, well. Amber,’ he said, in his deep growl of a voice. ‘Nice of you to drop by.’
    Was he trying to be
funny
? No doubt in his black tee shirt and the artfully scruffy jeans clinging to his bronzed, muscled frame he was exactly the sort of testosterone machine certain women might have enjoyed bouncing a bit of stimulating repartee back and forth with …
    She wasn’t one of them.
    ‘That noise you’re making,’ she rasped. ‘I’m trying to sleep and it’s disturbing me.’
    He lifted his black brows. ‘At six in the evening? You should get a life, sweetheart.’
    He started to close the door, but Amber was quick. She shoved her foot into the space. ‘Now, wait a minute. I
have
a life. A busy life. And it’s because you’ve been assaulting Jean’s piano …’ She shook her head, outraged at the scandal of it. Jean’s beautiful Steinway … ‘You and your friends with those stupid drums … That’s
why
I need to sleep at six in the evening.’
    He looked at her for a long, considering moment, his strong brows still raised in disbelief. ‘You don’t like music?’
    Her?
Whose first steps had been a dance? She clenchedher teeth. ‘I like music, mister. When I hear it. I’ve already asked you politely. Now, if you don’t keep your noise down …’
    ‘Ah. Here it comes. The threat.’ He tilted his head to one side and made a thorough appraisal of her from head to toe.
    The full scorching force of bold masculine interest lasered through the thin fabric of her clothes. She grew conscious that in her rush she’d chosen a close-fitting top with a deep neckline, she wasn’t wearing a bra, and her feet were bare. Only with difficulty did she prevent herself from crossing her arms over her breasts.
    ‘I love women who talk tough,’ he said, with a lascivious twitch of a black brow. ‘What will you do to me?’
    Wild words rocketed to her tongue. The frustrations and anxieties she’d been repressing over days seethed inside their cage. She wanted to rip open his arrogant jugular with her teeth and nails, claw at his lean face, draw his insolent blood.
    He broke into a laugh and flash of white, even teeth lit his face. ‘Don’t do it. Why don’t you come in and we’ll see if we can work something out?’
    She drew herself up. ‘Look, Mr …’ she hissed.
    ‘Guy. Guy Wilder.’ His sexy mouth broke into a smile, but she didn’t care that it illuminated his rather harsh face like a sunburst and made him handsome.
    ‘Whatever.’ Her breath came in short bursts, as if Vesuvius was seething inside her, alive and molten. ‘I came here to ask if your band can practise somewhere else. If you can’t be more considerate I’ll report you to the Residents’ Committee.’
    Amusement crept into his voice. ‘We seem to be getting a bit heated.’
    ‘Does Jean even know you’re here?’
    At her escalating pitch his black brows made an eloquentupward twitch. ‘Not only does my dear aunt know I’m here, she
wants
me to be here. I’ll give you her address, all right? You can check up. Set your mind at rest.’
    ‘I know Jean well, and I know she would strongly object to your upsetting her neighbours. She would never have agreed to your setting up