Faking It With The Playboy Next Door

Faking It With The Playboy Next Door STACEY KEEN Copyright 2023 by Stacey Keen - All rights reserved. In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved. Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher. CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Epilogue Chapter 1 Ashley I t went on all night long. All. Night.” “No kidding. Sounds like you’re in a hell of a jam.” My brother, Conor, was laughing even as he said it. But the situation wasn’t funny to me. Not one bit. I sighed out of frustration. “I mean it. And last night? The same thing. They just won’t shut up. It’s awful.” “Have you met them?” “Well, no…” I’m basically the poster child for shyness, and rarely take it upon myself to meet new people. And believe me, I’m normally far too weird and awkward to discuss anything about sex with anyone – let alone my brother. “But, I don’t even know if it’s the same people each time.” “How can you tell?” I blushed and cringed with embarrassment. When I explained how I knew, Conor didn’t even reply. He just began wheezing with laughter so hard that he almost fell off his chair. Of course that would be his response. It had been a week since I’d finally found my dream apartment here in Hoboken. Spacious, comfortable, with a beautiful guest room and a gorgeous, open-plan kitchen and bar. It seemed like the perfect place to live when I started work at New Line Marketing in New York. And the best part? It was cheap to rent. I didn’t have to worry about finding a place in Manhattan (or worse, Brooklyn). I was content to be a bridge-and-tunnel girl until I could move my way far enough up the corporate ladder to actually afford the outrageous prices in the city. But only too late did I realize why the apartment was priced the way it was. As I settled in on my first night, after a long day of unpacking and finally crawling into bed to indulge in the trashy book I was reading, I began to hear them. My neighbors were having sex. Not just vanilla, romantic sex. Loud, seemingly aggressive sex. Like, incredibly loud. I tried to ignore it, hoping it wouldn’t last long. Then, I heard a woman’s voice break through with a scream. “Oh yes, God that’s, oh, fuck me!” along with a guy’s name that I couldn’t quite catch. My cheeks were burning, mortified. I jumped up off the bed and banged on the wall with my book. When that didn’t stop them, I used my fists to smack even harder. But nothing seemed to phase them. They just kept going. When the sex finally stopped around midnight, I breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed into bed - exhausted, stressed, and completely embarrassed. I was glad it was over and was cautiously optimistic that it was a one-time performance. But the next night, the noises started again. Only this time, it was a different girl’s voice. * “Look,” Conor mused after I’d given him all the dirty details. “I think you should go over to this guy’s house and tell him what you think.” “I want to,” I contemplated. “But you know me, Conor. I’m way too shy to do that. And what am I going to say? I’ll sound creepy, like I’m purposely eavesdropping on him having sex.” “Want me to do it?” “No!” Conor was 6’4 with a thick beard and a football player’s physique. I’d experienced quite enough of his ‘interventions’ with my boyfriends in college and now that I was single again, my brother had renewed his irritatingly protective persona around me. You see, it wasn’t just the loud sex bothering me. I hadn’t picked up and moved from Rochester to Jersey on a whim. Last year I’d broken up with my fiancé, William, after discovering that his heart wasn’t exactly in the right place. We had already set a date for the wedding (and sunk several thousand dollars of my savings into it). I was miserable and heartbroken, but the worst part was, I was going through it all alone. Because the woman William had fallen in love with was my (now former) best friend, Tonya. And one awful evening, while returning from a business trip, I discovered the two of them together in our apartment. While they made excuses and danced around me, I just stood there, stunned and silent. I guess I could never stick up for myself very well – pathetic, I know. We called off the engagement immediately, and I moved out of the apartment. I quit my job and went to crash with Conor, where I spent a few months nursing my deep wounds until it was time for me to put on my big girl panties and get back to normality. That’s when I’d seen the job come up at New Line Marketing for a copywriter. I sent off my CV, and, to my total surprise, had been given an interview almost immediately. Imagine my shock when two weeks later I found out I was going to be employed by one of the top marketing firms in Manhattan and paid a salary that was almost double what I made in Rochester. But I wasn’t thinking about that now. I was still stewing over the noisy playboy next door, and how to get him to shut up.