Delectable (Neighbor from Hell 9)

that I never asked for,” he said, chuckling as he appeased her with another kiss.

“You probably should have started off with that,” she said with a sigh, relaxing back in his arms now that she no longer felt morally obligated to beat him with the towel rack.

“Probably,” he easily admitted as he took her hands in his and entwined their fingers before wrapping his arms back around her.

When he didn’t say anything else she cleared her throat, which thankfully did the trick. “It was also because of Haley,” he said, chuckling when she playfully elbowed him.

“You’re on thin ice here, Yummy,” she told him with a smile as she shifted so that she was lounging more comfortably against him.

“I’ll try to remember that,” he said, chuckling against her neck as he kissed her again.

“See that you do,” she said with a sniff, shifting again just for the hell of it and smiling when the move teased the large part of him nestled against her back. “Now, you were saying?” she asked innocently with another wiggle of her hips.

With a groan, he tightened his hold on her to stop the wiggling and she allowed it, for now. “It wasn’t really one thing, but a combination of things.”

“And what was that combination?” she asked, pulling her hands free so that she could run her fingers over his arms.

“I wasn’t ready to deal with what could happen,” he said slowly as though he was testing the words or trying not to upset her.

Understanding dawned.

“You knew a girl who got pregnant,” she said, as she traced circles on his arm.

“Several, but only one taught me a life lesson that I would never forget. I’d been dating this girl since I was fourteen and I’d thought that she was the sweetest girl alive, but it turned out that I didn’t know her at all. We’d done a lot of things, but we never took it to that point.”

“Why?”

“My father had a rule. It was pretty simple, but it was enough to make me think twice about having sex before I was ready. Until I was ready to support myself, a wife, and a baby I wasn’t ready for sex. It was that simple. When I found out that my girlfriend was pregnant I decided that was a damn good rule.”

“And it wasn’t yours,” she guessed.

“No, it wasn’t,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I don’t think I’d ever been so happy to be a virgin than I was at that moment,” he said, chuckling.

“I bet,” she murmured, wondering what he would think if he knew about her past and all the things that she’d done, because it could have just as easily been her. Well, it could have been if she’d ever been the type to cheat and try to lie about a pregnancy, which she could honestly say she never would have done.

“After that, I decided to wait until I found what my brother and so many of the men in my family had,” he said, taking her hand back into his.

“Why me?” she had to ask, because for the life of her, she couldn’t think of a single reason why after all this time that he would settle for someone like her.

He turned his head so that he could kiss the side of her neck. “Probably for the same reason that you’re here with me,” he said with another kiss.

“That’s not really answering my question there, Yummy,” she said, closing her eyes as she laid her head back against his chest.

“Because you drive me out of my fucking mind,” he growled as he shifted her on his lap and made that bath a little more interesting.

Chapter 39

“I’m starving,” the naked woman currently draped over him grumbled, reminding him that they hadn’t had a chance to eat last night.

“Me, too,” he said, struggling to find the energy to get up and do something about it.

Nine times, he thought with a smile before frowning.

Or was it ten?

Deciding that it didn’t matter, he reached over and grabbed her cellphone off the nightstand and checked the time. It was after eight o’clock in the morning, he was starving, exhausted, and more than okay with passing out and sleeping away the rest of the day, but the demanding woman on his back was apparently having none of that.

With a groan, she rolled off his back and-

“Ouch.”

Kept on rolling until she landed on the floor on that beautiful ass that he couldn’t seem to get enough of. Smiling, he opened one eye to watch her as she stood up, gently rubbing her bottom as she dragged herself towards the bedroom door, pulling on one of his shirts along the way. Deciding that he needed to conserve his energy in case she needed help, he closed his eyes and groaned when she came back a minute later and flopped herself back down on top of him with a sigh.

“The snack box is empty,” she mumbled, which really didn’t surprise him.

“Trevor and Jason must have come over to work on the kitchen,” he mumbled, not bothering to open his eyes.

“That would explain why they’re outside getting out their tools,” she said, squirming on top of him to get comfortable.

“We’re almost done,” he mumbled, already starting to fall asleep again.

“This doesn’t solve my most pressing issue at the moment, Yummy,” she grumbled as she continued to squirm.

“And what’s that?”

“You need to feed me.”

“I wish I’d known you were high maintenance before I let you have your way with me,” he said on a heavy sigh as though this somehow pained him.

“Live and learn, Yummy. Live and learn,” she said, pressing a kiss against his shoulder that had him smiling.

When he didn’t respond, she squirmed again to get his attention. “Are you going to feed me?”

“Do I have to?” he asked, making sure to sound putout.

“Yes, yes you do.”

“I’m going to need a shower first.”

“That really went without saying, Yummy,” she said, pressing another kiss against his shoulder before she rolled off him, more carefully this time.

“And you’re going to let me have my way with you in the shower?”

“Again, that just went without saying,” she said, making him smile as he rolled off the bed and followed her into the shower where he put that faded tiled wall that needed to be replaced to good use.

*-*-*-*

“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind, Yummy,” she said, biting back a yawn as she picked up her menu and stared at the picture of a stack of pancakes that would really hit the spot right about now.

“And what exactly did you have in mind?” he asked, reaching over the table and taking her hand into his as she struggled to keep her eyes open.

“Breakfast in bed served to me by an incredibly hot man determined to see to all my needs?” she said, smiling when he chuckled.

“And I probably would have done just that if my cousins hadn’t eaten everything in sight,” he said, gently caressing the back of her hand with his thumb as he looked over his menu.

“Now we’ll never know, will we, Yummy?” she asked with a sigh as she took a sip of her orange juice.

“Next time,” he promised her with a wink and a look that told her there would definitely be a next time.

Most likely smiling like an idiot, she cleared her throat and shifted her attention back to the menu. “Will I be expected to put out to pay for my breakfast?”

“That really went without saying, sweetheart,” he said with a slow caress of his thumb that had her biting back a groan and a suggestion that they wrap this up and go home.