Bad Boy Good Man

By Abigail Barnette

Newly independent real-life adult Ellie McCormack loves everything about her first apartment...except her neighbor. His bi-weekly sex fests keep her up at night in more ways than one as she wonders about the man who’s making all the noise—and what he’s doing to make his women so damn loud.

But even her wildest fantasies couldn’t conjure up a man like Antony DeLuca. When she works up the nerve to confront him, she’s expecting a player, but there’s more to Antony than his carefree sexual escapades. One hot night with him helps Ellie see through the man who drives women wild, to the good guy beneath it all. A guy that she just might be able to fall for...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abigail Barnette
• Release date: Mar 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311440709

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Bad Boy, Good Man

Abigail Barnette

Copyright © 2015, Jenny Trout

All rights reserved.

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Chapter One

Oh fuck, oh yes, don’t stop! Don’t stop!

I stared impassively at my two best friends, who sat in abject horror as they listened to the bi-weekly pornographic soundtrack that flooded my apartment on Tuesday and Thursday nights. They hadn’t believed me when I told them. They’d thought I was exaggerating.

They’d thought wrong.

Oh. My god. Dawn’s hands hovered open in the air in front of her, as though she could protect herself from what she was hearing by holding up an invisible brick wall. That is disgusting.

It’s the slamming headboard that really makes it, I think, I mused aloud. My numb demeanor was not for effect; I had to hear this crap so often, I’d eventually started tuning it out. It’s got a nice, rhythmic ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump—

Ellie, how can you live like this? Sarah’s big brown eyes widened in disbelief. This has to be in violation of…something.

Honestly, it’s almost worth it, just to see your faces. No, it wasn’t. It was a pain in the ass to hear someone having awesome sex twice a week while I was having none. It made me surly. I’m going to have to move.

Absolutely not! Dawn tossed her long, blond ponytail over her shoulder. There are laws against this kind of thing.

Against fucking? Sarah asked, then burst into laughter, her golden brown skin flushing. I’m sorry, but this is just ridiculous. You have to go over there and talk to him.

Or I could, Dawn volunteered. She’d do it, too; she was going to be the scariest prosecutor in New York, once she passed the bar.

Great idea! I chirped, rubbing my hands together. You’re exactly his type. Blond and barely-legal looking.

Sarah laughed so hard she almost rolled off the couch, just as a piercing crescendo of an Oh! reached its pinnacle and cut off mid-orgasm. The slamming of the headboard picked up speed, and I held up one finger. Aaaaaand— I paused for the long, masculine groan of relief. Scene.

This is totally insane— Sarah started.

Dawn corrected her with a cluck of her tongue. Watch the I-word.

Sarah rolled her eyes. She and Dawn had butted heads a few times on the ableist language issue. Dawn worked with mentally ill teens at a juvenile detention center, and she had no patience for slurs.

Sarah went on. You’ve got to say something to him.

Maybe I’ll bake him a cake and leave it outside his door. And, when he opens the box, bam. ‘Stop having such loud sex,’ written in frosting right across the top. It wasn’t a bad idea; I did make great cakes.

I should have stayed in Connecticut and become a baker.

Dawn leaned forward and took both my hands in hers, maintaining eye contact with me as she said, gently, "Do not make a cake for this pervert. You need a refresher course in how to be assertive, but I don’t have the patience for that, right now."

Sarah checked her phone then yawned as she ruffled her brown corkscrew curls. Yeah, it’s getting late. At least, now, we know what you’re dealing with.

And, we’ll be more sympathetic, Dawn promised.

We hugged out our goodbyes, with them insisting they help me clean up our wine glasses and bags of chips, and me politely declining in the timeless ritual of seeing friends out the door. When I’d closed it and dead bolted it behind them, I leaned against the painted red metal and surveyed my apartment.

It was super small, just a teensy studio with my twin love seats, a pass-through kitchen, and my bed partitioned off from the main living area by a lacy, decorative folding screen. But it was beautiful, with exposed brick walls, high ceilings, and two tall, arched windows, all original to the building, a converted textile factory from the early 1900’s. And, every inch of its lovely five hundred square feet belonged to me.

It wasn’t that I’d disliked sharing a place with Dawn and Sarah, even though our apartment hadn’t been much bigger, but after college, I’d just wanted a place of my own. When my dad had found this place going for half what it should, in this market, he’d put the pressure on me to make the leap into becoming a homeowner so that I wouldn’t keep wasting my money on rent. And, yeah, he had helped with the down payment—and so had Mom because she hadn’t wanted to be outdone by Dad—but that’s just a benefit of being the child of wealthy divorced parents. I paid the bills and the mortgage, so it was my apartment.

But when I’d moved in two months ago, I’d expected to savor that first and foremost joy of living alone: quiet. Instead, I had to listen to Mr. Revolving Bedroom Door banging a different lady friend every other night.

At least, it was quiet while I got ready for bed. I scrubbed off my makeup, rolled my long, copper hair into a sock bun, so I wouldn’t have to curl it in the morning, and brushed my teeth. Angrily. Honestly, it wasn’t so much the sex that bothered me, but the rudeness of how loud he always was. Or, how loud he made them get.

I didn’t want to think about that.

Either way, he acted like

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