Keeping Her Up All Night. Anna Cleary

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 clenched her 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 eloquent upward 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 your band in here night and day.’

      ‘It isn’t here night and day.’ His quiet, measured tone made a mockery of her emotion. ‘I write songs. The band you’ve been privileged to hear the last couple of nights—in the early part of the evening, let me remind you—were unable to use their usual venue. They have a gig coming up so they needed a run-through. That means …’

      ‘I know what it means,’ she snapped. ‘And it was no privilege. You might as well know now—your band sucks.’

      His black eyebrows flew up and his eyes drifted over her in sardonic appreciation. ‘I’ll make sure I pass your critique on to the guys.’

      She could hardly believe she’d said such a rude thing, but it gave her a reckless satisfaction. Even if he was Jean’s nephew, he’d made her suffer.

      If he was. She had some vague recollection of Jean’s stories about various family members. There was the brilliant one who wanted to direct movies, the scientist who’d fallen in love on a voyage to Antarctica, the boy whose girlfriend—the love of his life, Jean had said—had stood him up at the altar and run away with a soldier. She couldn’t remember any mention of a musician.

      The guy moved slightly. Enough for Amber’s critical eye to catch a glimpse of the indoor garden Jean kept in her foyer. Shocked by what she saw, she couldn’t restrain herself. ‘Just look at those anthuriums. Jean would be furious if she knew you were letting her precious plants die. Surely she explained her watering system to you?’

      He gave a careless shrug. ‘She may have said something.’

      ‘And what about her fish?’

      ‘Fish?’

      ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t been feeding them? That aquarium is Jean’s pride and joy.’ She glared at him—at the grey eyes alight in his dark unshaven face, his black eyebrows tilted in quizzical amusement. She’d never in all of her twenty-six years wanted so much to do violence to someone.

      ‘I’m not sure how the fish are doing,’ he said smoothly. ‘Why don’t you come inside and check them out? You can take inventory while you’re here, in case I’ve damaged something.’

      She caught the sarcasm but didn’t allow it to deter her. She pushed past him into Jean’s beautiful, immaculate flat and halted in the middle of the sitting room.

      Twilight had invaded. Only one lamp was lit, casting a soft apricot glow, but with the skylight in the foyer and the glow from the aquarium it was enough for her to see the damage. Newspapers were thrown carelessly on the coffee table beside a functioning laptop, more scattered on the rug. A sheet of Jean’s expensive piano music had been tossed on the floor as well, near to where a couple of her Swedish crystal wine glasses rested against the rumpled sofa.

      ‘Better, don’t you think?’ The guy’s smug, complacent gaze shifted from the disaster scene to connect with hers. ‘Some rooms are like some people. Just cry out for a little messing up.’

      Words failed Amber. Too late to try resolving this conflict without the use of aggression. This man deserved aggression—he begged for it—and she was in too deep now to pull out.

      She snatched up Jean’s precious sonata from the floor, then marched over to the aquarium. It was almost annoying to see the tank as tranquil as ever. No bloated bodies floated on its placid surface.

      She glanced back and saw him watching her with his thumbs hooked into his belt, a quirk to his mouth. ‘You have been feeding them, haven’t you?’ In her aggravation she rolled Jean’s sonata—rolled it and rolled it into a tighter and tighter cylinder. ‘This was just a ploy to get me in here, wasn’t it?’

      He spread his hands. ‘Aha. You’ve guessed my master plan.’

      She made a sharp, repudiating gesture with the sonata. ‘Don’t you mock me. I have every right to complain about your noise.’

      ‘Sure you do.’

      He moved a couple of steps, so his big, lean body was close.