Right Next Door: A Sexy Novella

By Delilah Peters

Everything she was waiting for moved in right next door…

A single mom by day and ER nurse by night, Emma kissed her wild past goodbye to focus on raising her two young daughters. Nobody with kids has the time to be chasing orgasms. Juggling work and laundry is tricky, but she’s keeping it together—mostly.

Single dad Will Taylor hauled his collection of concert T-shirts and carpentry tools to New Bedford expecting to build a new life with his young son. A fresh start with great schools, good friends…and the hottest mom he’s ever seen, living a scant ten yards from his front door.

From the very first time they touch, Emma and Will’s connection is electric. Soon stolen kisses and dirty texting aren’t enough—they need adults-only alone time. And lots of it.

This book is approximately 22,000 words

The Dirty Bits from Carina Press give you what you want, when you want it. Designed to be read in an hour or two, these sex-filled microromances are guaranteed to pack a punch and deliver a happily-ever-after.

One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carina Press
• Release date: Jun 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781488056963

Book preview

Chapter One

My new neighbor...was a dead man.

Dead.

Toast.

A ghost.

A goner.

The sharp, rapid tap of a hammer started up again below my window, and I groaned and rolled onto my stomach, smushing my face into my mattress and dragging my pillow over my head.

Only thirty minutes earlier, I’d wrapped up a sixteen-hour shift of broken bones, bad IV sticks, arrogant doctors, and terrified family members. I’d stumbled through the door, mumbled my thanks to my overnight nanny, gotten my two girls dressed, fed, and on the bus, and collapsed on my bed. I needed sleep. Desperately. And for sleep to happen, I needed quiet.

The cacophony of noise invading the sanctity of my bedroom had never been an issue in our quiet neighborhood before. Partly because the majority of my neighbors worked normal jobs with normal hours, and partly because my old next-door neighbor, who’d relocated to an assisted living facility across town, had been in her eighties and, well, courteous.

A wood saw rang out between our houses with a high-pitched, rasping whine, and I grabbed the stuffed lobster Lola had left on my bed and hurled it at the window. Her plushie’s plastic eyes clicked against the blackout shades, but had little noticeable effect on the asshole outside.

Typically, the seven p.m. to seven a.m. shift I’d picked up when we first moved to New Bedford was a perfect fit for my little family. I had a bit of time with my girls in the evening and got back from work early enough to see them off to school before crawling into my bedroom cave. I reserved the middle of the afternoon for chores and errands I preferred to do alone.

Much as I loved my babies, a simple trip for groceries took five times longer with them in tow. Mostly because of Lola, and her need to touch absolutely everything. Which kids do, so I let her do her touching on our weekend outings, when I wasn’t pulling my hair out because our laundry mountain had avalanched.

But while small town hospitals are wonderful for many reasons, they’re awful for others. Namely, there’s a limited pool of on-call nurses to draw from, so when someone calls out for a shift, you’ve got about a one in four chance of being asked to cover. And, honestly, everyone thinks the overnight shift is the busiest. It isn’t. The evening shift is when the maximum level of crazy happens.

People suck at transitions. The transition from work or school to home is the worst. They get into accidents on the way back from soccer practice or have heart attacks after dinner... Or decide the ingrown toenail they’ve had for eight months is suddenly an emergency. Which is not to minimize their pain, of course. Ingrown toenails are the devil’s business.

The hammer started up again.

With a frustrated roar, I flipped the covers off my legs and stormed down the stairs to the kitchen. There, I flung open the kitchen door, squinted against the too-bright early-spring sun, fisted my hands at my sides, and hollered, Would you please shut the fuck up?

Silence. Blessed, blissful silence. Even from the birds.

A throat cleared, and a deep voice said, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were sleeping.

I blinked my exhausted eyes, and my new neighbor came into focus.

He wore old work pants, a holey flannel, a waffle weave henley, and a tool belt, slung low on his hips. A ginger. Or gingerish. His full beard was red, but his hair was more a warm, brownish auburn, like sunlit oak leaves in autumn.

Wait. What? Brownish red. His hair was brownish red.

Cautiously, he approached the kitchen door, moving slow, as if I were some kind of wild, irrational animal. A few steps away, he held his hand out for me to shake. I gave his palm a narrow-eyed glare but didn’t reach for it.

Will, he said. William. I just moved in.

Will? Not Magnus or Titus or Finn. It seemed so pedestrian for someone so hunky.

Hunky? W. T. F.?

Exhausted, I answered, struggling to maintain my dignity at the same moment I realized I was wearing shorty-shorts and a tank top—nipples at attention thanks to the chilly April air. My restless twenty minutes of sleep had not been kind to my night clothes. Side boob galore. I work nights.

Again, I apologize. He dropped his hand, tucking it into his back pocket.

I glanced at the mess on his side of our shared driveway. Pressure-treated posts stuck straight up in the ground beside the three concrete steps and landing that led up to his own kitchen entrance. They stretched along the side of the drive, and the first hints of framing lined the last section.

A lump formed in my throat. You’re building an access ramp.

He scrubbed the back of his head. Ah, yeah. Permit’s in the front window.

Did he think I’d be angry? About an access ramp.

Is it for your...wife?

No.

I waited a moment to see if he’d offer up any more information. When he didn’t, I sighed. Okay—

It’s for my son.

Dammit.

You develop a pretty thick skin in my business. I’d seen lots of things other people couldn’t fathom and didn’t want to, but we all have things that still make us uncomfortable, even as we have to face them. For some nurses, it’s blood, oddly enough. For others, vomit or poop.

For me, it was children. I could treat them, effectively and efficiently, and with love and compassion, but it always made my heart ache to see them hurting.

I gave a tight nod. Well, do you, um, need help?

Will glanced down at his boots, and a tiny smile crossed his lips. Not a good idea if you’re tired. You might smash your thumb with a hammer.

Or cut off my fingers.

He huffed a little laugh. Right.

We stared at each other a minute. My new neighbor had shallow laugh lines and the first hints of crow’s feet. Close to my age or a little older, then.

I’m Emma, I said, finally extending my hand.

Will’s fingers were warm and a little scratchy, marked with a few cuts and calluses. Well, Emma, I’ll find something else to do for a few hours. How does that sound?

It’s fine. I’ll go sleep in Lola and Maggie’s room. Which I should have done in the first place, except that Lo hadn’t quite gotten out of the habit of hiding her nighttime accidents, and there’s nothing worse than crawling into a neatly made bed and landing in a cold, wet spot.

He shook his head. Really, it’s okay. I have a lot of unpacking left to do.

We stared at each other a moment longer. He had brown eyes. Brown eyes that matched his hair.

It was nice to meet you, Will, I said in an octave lower than my usual voice. Clearly, I was in no condition to interact with other humans.

Will bit his bottom lip and looked a heartbeat from cackling. Go get some rest, huh?

I glanced back after I closed the door, once I’d shuffled halfway through the kitchen. Will hadn’t moved on to unpacking boxes. In fact, he hadn’t moved at all. He just stood staring at my house, a small, puzzled smile plastered to his lips.

Chapter Two

Almost a week later, I’d only seen my neighbor a handful of times, and always from a distance. He’d kept