Delectable (Neighbor from Hell 9)

He should stop smiling.

He really should, especially since the woman squeezed in tightly against him didn’t seem to appreciate it. Not that he could blame her, not after it became painfully obvious with that sly little grin she’d tried to hide when she’d announced that they were just going to have to bring Mikey with them that she’d thought she’d found a safeguard against whatever it was that was going on between them only to have her plans ruined in a blink of an eye.

If Sara hadn’t filled him in on the woman that was currently glaring at the windshield, he probably would have shrugged off his curiosity, accepted the fact that she wasn’t interested, and moved on, but sadly for her, everything she did or said was now taken as a challenge. Not that he hadn’t been disappointed when he’d realized that his plans to spend the day alone with her had been ruined, but that had quickly changed when Kasey’s plans had backfired.

“Can we stop, Uncle Reese? I’m kind of hungry,” Sebastian, who was the reason why Kasey’s plan had backfired, asked, as he shifted to make more room for Mikey, who was sharing the passenger seat with him.

“I’m thirsty,” Mikey added with a sheepish smile and a shrug as she continued to roll a baseball between her hands.

When Reese shifted to get a little more comfortable, which caused his leg to touch hers, Kasey sat up straight and said, “We should definitely stop!” with a panicked little squeak that he found fucking adorable.

Deciding to take pity on her, he pulled off the highway at the next exit and followed the signs towards a gas station and a couple of promising restaurants. He’d barely managed to pull into the parking lot and throw the truck in park when Kasey started urging the kids to climb out of the truck with a somewhat desperate smile.

Shaking his head and wondering when she was going to learn, he climbed out of the truck, turned around and wrapped his arms around her just as she was about to shift to the other end of the bench so that she could climb out of the truck after the kids. Smiling, he pulled her towards him until she was sitting at the end of the bench and facing him. Noting the beautiful blush crawling up her neck and staining her cheeks, he bit back a groan as he stepped closer until he was standing between her legs and all he wanted to do was to lean in and press his lips against her neck where that beautiful blush started.

“I’m starving!” came the reminder that they weren’t alone.

“We’re coming,” he said, unable to stop himself from brushing his knuckles across her jaw as he took in the way her short hair swooped forward, matching his own, the way her beautiful blue eyes hungrily searched his for an answer that he didn’t have, the way that she worried her beautiful plump bottom lip between her teeth, and he was absolutely…fucking…lost.

Chapter 22

“No! Mikey, get back here!” Kasey whispered somewhat hysterically as her ten-year-old daughter ignored her and ran off with Sebastian towards what Reese had sworn was the best tree house in the state.

“They’ll be fine,” Reese, the man that she needed to get a little distance from so that she could think clearly, said softly as he reached past her and closed the driver’s side door.

“Okay,” she said, because that was apparently all she was capable of saying right now.

“Do you want to go inside?” he asked, stepping back only to place his hand on the small of her back and gestured towards the large two story Victorian house that she assumed belonged to his parents.

“Okay,” she said, immediately feeling like an idiot as she allowed him to lead her towards the front door while she tried to get her mind off the fact that for a moment there, she’d actually thought that he was going to kiss her.

When he stepped back and broke whatever spell he had over her, she should have been relieved, but instead she was…

Confused.

“My father’s at work, but my mother should be here,” he said, opening the front door and gestured for her to go inside.

“What does your father do?” she asked, proud that she’d managed a whole sentence, especially since he was now running his thumb back and forth over the small of her back in a gentle caress and making it hard to think about anything else but him and just how close he was.

Back and forth…

Back. And. Forth.

“He’s a doctor,” he said, keeping his touch soft while he continued caressing her back as he led her inside the incredibly beautiful house.

“What about your mother?” she asked, deciding that she needed to put a stop to this before it went any further.

But, in another minute.

Her back was just so sore from that four-hour drive and if she was going to be any use to him, she was going to have to suck it up and enjoy this. The things she did to help others, she thought with a sigh, wishing that she wasn’t so damn giving even as she paused in the foyer so that he could continue attending to her sore back.

“She’s the boss,” he said with a warm smile as his hand slid across her back and settled on her hip, and before she could start freaking out, he dropped his hand away and gestured towards the back of the house, “and she’s most likely in the kitchen.”

“Lead the way,” she said with a smile as she shoved her trembling hands in her pockets.

With a wink, he did just that, leading the way and giving her a chance to…

Well, since she had no idea what she was supposed to say or do, she settled for following him, promising herself that she’d figure this whole thing out later. Telling herself that everything was going to be fine, because apparently she was still lying to herself, she followed him as he walked into the kitchen and-

Slammed into his back when he suddenly stopped and that’s when things really got interesting.

“Reese!”

“Shit!”

“Oh, my god!” this one came from Reese as he stumbled back, forcing her to jump out of the way, which gave her a view of an incredibly handsome man, definitely older and definitely Reese’s father judging by the uncanny resemblance, leaning over a woman that she really hoped was his wife, in a desperate attempt to shield her.

Sadly, the attempt only made what they’d just been doing more obvious.

Well, that and the fact that his pants were down around his ankles, he was pressed up tightly against the woman that he had bent over the table and…

Sighs, he had a really nice ass, she noted, shifting her gaze to Reese’s and couldn’t help but wonder if he took after his father. Probably, she thought with a wistful sigh and a tilt of her head, but before she could make a more informed decision, she found herself being herded back out of the kitchen.

“Maybe you should have called first?” she asked with an innocent smile.

“We never speak of this again,” he bit out as he rushed her back down the hallway towards the front door.

“Speak of what? The lovely kitchen table that your father had your mother bent over? Or the special exam that your father was giving her? Are those the things that we’re not supposed to speak of?” she asked, blinking up at the man scowling down at her.

“You’re evil, did you know that?”

Sighing heavily, she nodded solemnly and said, “Yes, yes, I did.”

*-*-*-*

“Do you want the drop cloths?” his father asked.

Still. Fucking. Smiling.

“Yes,” Reese bit out with a glare as he grabbed the stack of drop cloths from his father and placed them next to the large stack of tools that was never going to be able to fit in the back of his truck.

“So,” his father said, shoving his hands in his pockets as he rocked back on his heels, “what do you need all this equipment for?”

“I took a job to keep busy,” he said, checking the blade of his utility knife before placing it bac

k in his toolbox and moving on to check the rest of the tools in the toolbox.

“What kind of job?” his father asked, picking up the circular saw and looking it over for him while Reese shot a glance towards the kitchen door, wondering how Kasey was holding up with his mother.