Page 5 of Never Kiss the Bad Boy

I’d like to satisfy her. All night long.

Okay, that’s a dog-level thought and I’m not a horndog, despite my brothers thinking the opposite. But something about Dani’s got me riled up, and it has nothing to do with the midday sunlight pouring down on us from high in the sky.

By our three o’clock break, the noise next door has died down, and I catch Wayne’s eyes silently before jerking my chin toward Dani’s house. His lips quirk as he fights a smile. He’s eager to bear witness to me losing my shit, a rare but entertaining sight.

I leave the crew sprawled out in the dirt beneath the small amount of shade on the back of Kathy’s house and make my way to the front yard before detouring toward Dani’s front door. I’d like to make a better impression than I did earlier, so I swipe the sweat from my face with the hem of my T-shirt and straighten my hat on my head. It probably looks like a nervous habit, which it is, but I’m solid. Nerves of steel here. Just gotta deal with a prickly neighbor, that’s all.

A beautiful, mouthy one.

The door is open, and though the screen door is closed, I can hear music coming from inside. I raise my fist to knock, hard enough to be heard over the tunes but not so loud I sound like the jerk she already thinks I am. Nothing happens, and when I squint, I can see into the house a little bit, but I don’t see any movement or silhouette of a person.

Until Dani dances into view. I thought her hips were swaying when she walked? Nope, that was nothing compared to what they’re doing now. What’s that Shakira song? Hips Don’t Lie or something like that? Well, Dani’s hips are telling the god’s honest, fucking truth right now.

I clear my throat and knock again. I see her whirl in place, all dancing instantly stopping, and as she stomps to the door, she’s no longer smiling and happy. Her anger is back in full force. Her temper is whiplash fast and burns scalding hot.

That shouldn’t be attractive, but on her, it is.

I silently wonder if I should get my head examined. My sister-in-law, Samantha, is a therapist of sorts and would be all too glad to shrink my twisted thoughts and fucked-up mind.

“What do you want?” Dani demands, not opening the door but talking through the screen.

Unconsciously, I scratch at my lower lip with my thumb, trying to find the words to smooth this over. It’s day one of a job that’s going to last weeks, and I really don’t want this situation to be adversarial the whole time. “Hi, Dani. My name’s Kyle. My crew and I are doing Ms. Wilson’s pool next door,” I say, figuring an official introduction is a good place to start. “I just wanted to?—”

She interrupts me with a huff and a held up hand. “My friends call me Dani. You can call me Miss Becerra.”

I can’t hide the grin that steals my lips. God, she’s stunning. Strong, mouthy, and bossy look good on her. Not many people, women especially, would tackle my whole crew plus all the guys who came through for lunch today and have every single one of them eating out of the palm of their hand. But she does.

“My apologies, ma’am. Nice to meet you, Miss Becerra.” I emphasize her name, tasting it the way I did with her first name earlier. Dani Becerra. Much, much better. It’s as well-rounded in my mouth as her dancing hips were.

She rolls her eyes at my politeness, not the least bit charmed. “Wish I could say the same, but your trucks screwed up my business all day.”

I look forlornly behind me at my truck parked in front of her house. “Yeah, sorry about that. I had no idea until I got here in the middle of things. I was hoping to talk about the parking issue with you and see if we can work something out.”

“Nothing to work out. Don’t park there and we won’t have any issues.” She says it like there’s no conversation to be had. She declared it, and that makes it so.

Before I can counter, she shuts the door in my face.

Gobsmacked, I stare at the white-painted wood. What the hell just happened?

A second later, the music turns up even louder and I think I hear Dani singing along.

CHAPTER 3

DANI

Today starts the same as almost every day of the week. I’m up before the sunrise, getting the day’s food started before having coffee with Nessa. We’re adding something new to our routine, though—bitching about the crew next door, because there are a few trucks parked out there bright and early again.

“Did they say anything? Apologize?” Nessa asks as she sets my delivery inside the front room. Today’s relatively light, mostly loads of fresh vegetables and meat that went on special today. Dry goods like rice and beans, I take care of myself on my weekend days off, since I can buy those by the fifty-pound bags.

“The crew lead came over, wanting to ‘work something out’,” I say, emphasizing what he really wanted to work… me. Oh, he thought he was all polite manners, aw, shucks smiles, and ‘apologies, ma’am’, but I know what he was thinking behind those icy blue eyes. It was plain as day, so if he was trying to hide it, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Especially to someone like me, who’s worked with men her whole life.

All he was missing was his zipper open, displaying his ‘apology’ in its full length.

I know guys exactly like him. They’re a dime a dozen—charming, flirty, and attentive. At least, until they get in your pants. After that, they ghost like a day-after-Halloween sale.

Or worse, they stick around and expect you to take care of them.

Okay, that’s kinda bitchy of me. Because it’s the little devil in my head talking about my mother, who is basically a saint. It’s just that I have zero interest in living a duplication of her life. As much as I love her, and as much as she loves taking care of my father, that’s not me. I want a partner, not a manchild who only feels ‘loved’ when I’m slaving away to provide him with a full belly, empty balls, and a clean house and thinks doing so is supposed to fulfill me in some way.

---