turned a sensible woman senseless.
Heat flushed her chest and she turned her attention to Lilah, who looked like she’d been turned to salt for staring at Sodom. When it came to good-looking men, Lilah wasn’t sensible and was prone to sins of biblical proportions, and ever since Lilah read Fifty Shades of Grey , she overshared the details of her kinky sex life.
Natalie turned her attention to her neighbor and his hard eyes staring into hers. She had bigger concerns right now than Lilah and her Ben Wa balls. More pressing questions, like why her neighbor was in her place of business after yesterday’s unpleasant encounter. And more importantly, just how much of her and Lilah’s conversation had he overheard?
She licked her dry lips and pushed up the corners into her best business smile. “Can I help you?”
“I need to pick up my prints.” He glanced up at the red and pink banner tacked to the ceiling above his head. “This is Glamour Snaps and Prints?” He returned his gaze to hers. Cold. Stony. No humor or hint that he might have overheard her and Lilah’s discussion of Frankie’s mammoth wiener.
“Yes.” She moved to the front counter and looked across at him. “Your name?”
“Blake Junger.”
He’d lived next to her for over a week now, but she hadn’t met him until yesterday. Hadn’t known his name, neither first nor last, but neither suited her image of him. Both sounded a little too nice for a guy who swore at little girls. Too soft for a guy so hard. She pulled open the big drawer beneath the counter and searched the Y file folder. This guy looked more suited to a name like Rock Stone. Or Buck Knife. Or Raging Asshole.
“J,” he said. “Junger with a J.”
She glanced up as she shut the drawer and moved a few feet to her right. Junger with a J . She remembered prints from Junger with a J. He’d ordered them online last night and Natalie had placed them in a print wallet and order envelope this morning. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed the address. She opened another drawer and flipped past Jackson, Jensen, and Jones to Junger. She pulled out the envelope with her logo printed on the front and reached inside for the paper photo wallet. He’d paid with a Visa and given a local P.O. box as his mailing address. That’s why she hadn’t connected him to his photos.
“Please look these over carefully before you take them.” Thinking about it now though, she should have recognized his bottle of Johnnie Walker.
He opened the paper flap and quickly fanned through his pictures.
Usually she tried to sell frames, photo books, and other services. Or at the very least, a greeting card from the row behind him. The longer she could get a customer to stay in her shop, the more money he was likely to spend. Not this time. Not with this man. She hated to admit it, but he rattled her nerves. Everything about him was just . . . too. He was too big. Too handsome. His presence was too dominant to ignore. He was too big a jerk, too.
He closed the flap. “They look fine.”
“Great.” She reached into a drawer beneath the cash register and pulled out a customer loyalty card. “Every fifth order is half price and every tenth is free.” She punched a hole in the first square and handed it to him. His knuckles brushed hers, predictably rough, surprisingly warm. She looked up into his cold gray eyes staring back at her, and she pulled her hand away first. “Thanks for your business, Mr. Junger.” This time, she slid the order envelope and receipt across the counter toward him.
“It’s Blake.” He flashed such a perfect white smile, she could practically see a silver glint on his perfect incisor. “Your raging asshole neighbor.”
Natalie raised a brow. “Yes. I remember you.”
“No one’s ever called me a raging asshole.”
“Maybe not to your face.”
He chuckled, a warm sound deep in his chest, and Natalie was saved from a response by Lilah, who had apparently recovered from