Delectable (Neighbor from Hell 9)

“Yes,” he said, chuckling as he gave her bottom a gentle pat. “Come on.”

“No,” she said, stubbornly shaking her head, because there was no way in hell that she was getting out of this truck.

In fact, she was never coming to this grocery store again. She didn’t care that she had two hundred and ninety-seven unused gas points or that they automatically applied coupons. She was going to find another grocery store, somewhere far, far away where she wouldn’t have to risk crossing paths with the little old lady that had Reese grinning, ever again.

End. Of. Story.

“Come on, sweetheart.”

“No.”

“I thought you wanted me to cook you dinner and serve you in the manner that you’re determined to become accustomed to?” he asked, blinking and making her scowl at the mimicking bastard!

“Are you going to drive?”

“Are you ashamed of our love?” he countered.

“Yes!” she hissed with a glare when he gave her ass another squeeze that was going to get him killed.

“Are you trying to tell me that you don’t want to go food shopping?” he asked, doing his best to piss her off and it was working, because she was never going to let him touch her again!

“Yes!”

“Oh,” he said, letting his shoulders sag.

“Can we please just go now?” she damn near begged as she leaned up and risked another glance to find the little old lady gone, which meant that she was in the store and now was the time to haul ass and get out of here while they had a chance.

“I guess,” he said with a shrug and a heavy sigh as he put the key back in the ignition and-

“It’s just that I thought you would want to go shopping.”

“I did!” she snapped, wondering why he wasn’t already throwing the truck in reverse and getting them out of there while he still could.

“I just thought that you’d want to go food shopping now that your kitchen was done and all,” he said with another shrug as he threw the truck in reverse and-

She gasped, reached over and threw her door open as she scrambled to sit up. She was out the door a split second later, making a mad dash to the grocery store where she fully planned on putting those automatic coupons to good use.

Chapter 41

Perhaps he should have taken her to a different grocery store? he thought with something close to terror as the manager that he’d promised that he was coming back rolled the carriage filled with all the stuff that he’d picked out yesterday to a stop in front of him with a huge smile.

“I saved your carriage for you, sir,” he said, stepping back and gesturing to the carriage as though he’d somehow just done him a huge favor.

He really hadn’t, Reese thought, praying that wasn’t a blush creeping up his neck as Kasey, smiling hugely like it was Christmas morning and Santa had brought her everything she’d asked for and more, joined him.

“What do we have here, Yummy?” she asked, as she reached into the carriage and absently sorted through everything he’d picked out to make last night perfect.

“Nothing,” he bit out with a glare at the manager, who’d just given the devious woman something to torment him with.

“It doesn’t look like nothing,” she said with that sexy smile that told him just how much she was enjoying this.

“It is,” he said, grabbing the carriage and pushing it towards the produce aisle, but unfortunately for him, he hadn’t moved fast enough.

“Is this the mega pack, Yummy?” the devious woman asked with a shit-eating grin as she held up the box of condoms that he’d planned on using last night.

The box of condoms that they should have used, he thought with a curse.

“I’m clean,” she reassured him with a sigh as she tossed the large box back into the carriage.

“Me, too,” he promised.

“Never would have let you touch me otherwise, Yummy,” she said with a playful wink as she reached into the carriage, grabbed the pastries that he’d picked out last night and returned them to the table.

“Which leaves…” he trailed off, not really sure that the grocery store was the right place for this conversation.

“They didn’t help me last time,” she said with a small smile as she added a large bag of apples to the carriage.

“Mikey hadn’t been planned?” he asked, kind of shocked, because he’d assumed that she had been.

“I was fifteen,” she said with a chuckle as she grabbed a bag of gold potatoes and put them in the carriage.

“You were in love with him,” he said, unable to help but hate the poor kid simply because he hated the idea of anyone else touching her.

“Again,” she said, licking her lips before she stressed with a chuckle, “I was fifteen.”

“What happened?” he asked, adding a bag of russet potatoes to the carriage.

“Well, apparently condoms are only ninety-eight percent effective,” she said with a wink as they strolled through the quiet produce department.

“Smart ass,” he said with a chuckle as he grabbed some barely ripe bananas and put them into the carriage the same time that she grabbed a bunch of over-ripe bananas.

At his questioning look, she said, “Banana bread.” Nodding, because he wasn’t one to turn down banana bread, and he was damn well getting some of that banana bread, he followed her down the next aisle.

“So, Mikey was a surprise,” he mused, seriously wondering how a fifteen-year-old had managed to handle the news, because he probably would have lost it.

She smiled fondly as she picked through the peach display. “You could definitely say that,” she said with a heavy sigh before adding, “it probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise considering everything that I was doing, but…”

“But…” he prompted when she trailed off.

She shrugged as she absently picked through the peaches and added them to the plastic produce bag that he’d grabbed for her. “Before I met Michael, it wouldn’t have thrown me like it had. Even then I was being careful. I was young and stupid, but I knew better than to take risks. If it had happened then I would have understood it, but when I met Michael things changed.”

“How so?” he asked softly, looking around to make sure that they were still alone, knowing that she would hate for anyone else to hear this.

“I don’t know. I really can’t explain it. Before, I didn’t care what happened to me, didn’t expect much and then when I met Michael suddenly everything changed. I started to care what was going to happen to me and I stopped taking chances, stopped doing stupid things, and I’d thought that I’d made better choices,” she said, giving him a self-deprecating smile. “Clearly, I was wrong.”

“It depends on how you look at it,” he murmured as his gaze dropped to her ass simply because he couldn’t help himself.

“Because Mikey probably made me grow up and stopped me from making excuses?” she asked, sounding amused as she pointedly gave her ass a little wiggle that had him groaning. “That was my take on things as well.”

“Something like that,” he said, wondering how quickly they could get this done so that he could take her back home and put that box of condoms to good use.

Maybe he should grab another box? he amended a second later when she bent over to pick something up and he decided that once he got her home, they were never leaving that bed again.

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