Christmas from Hell (Neighbor from Hell 7)

she didn’t accidentally clue the waitress into the fact that there was a kidnapping going on under her nose and unnecessarily frightening her.

Calm and relaxed, Necie reminded herself as she kept that smile forced on her face and waited for the answer that would save her.

With a putout sigh that she really didn’t appreciate, the waitress pointed towards the bottom of the menu that Necie had been holding like a shield for the past twenty minutes.

“Now, are you ready to order?” the woman asked, deciding to ignore Necie and focus all of her attention on Duncan, who had the balls to look amused.

“We’ll have six of my usual cheeseburgers and two Cokes,” he said, keeping his bemused eyes locked on her as he reached over, plucked the menu that she’d been using to protect herself and handed it over to the annoyed looking waitress.

The address!

“Wait!” she said, desperate for the address that was printed on the bottom of the menu.

“Ma’am? Ma’am?” the emergency dispatcher waiting for the information that they would need in order to save her, said, trying to get her attention. “Do you know where you are yet?”

Sighing heavily, Duncan reached over, plucked the phone out of her hands and ruined her call for help. “Hey, Jim,” Duncan said, sounding bored as he settled back against bench. “She’s at Roxie’s Dinner.”

Her eyes narrowed on him as she pulled her foot up and slammed it down on his booted food, but he simply continued to sit there, chatting it up with the man whose job it was to help her. Instead, they were talking about the game, Jim’s wife, his kids and an upcoming class that they both had to take. When he was done and the bottom of her foot was starting to hurt from trying to beat the bastard into submission, he ended the call and placed the cellphone on the table next to her.

“I’m sure that if you called your grandfather that he’d probably come save you from me,” he said with a chuckle and a devilish wink that almost earned him another kick beneath the table.

“I’m fine,” she bit out, refusing to call her grandfather since her foot was too sore to kick the old bastard right now.

He’d actually had the nerve to hire someone to watch her every move, she thought as she angrily ripped apart a napkin even as she tried to remind herself that she would get her revenge later and that right now she needed to focus on how to escape.

“I have to use the bathroom,” she said evenly, slowly sliding towards the end of the bench so that she didn’t alert him of her plans.

“To the back and then to the right,” he said calmly, clearly not aware that she was seconds away from making her escape and very possibly changing her identity, moving out of town and joining the Witness Protection program.

“You’ll never make it,” he said calmly, even adding a shrug as he sat back as the first wave of cheeseburger platters were placed in front of him.

She blinked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, struggling against the urge to seek out the exit sign and calculate her chances of making it to the door before-

“Damn, how the hell did I miss that before?” he asked in an awed tone that drew her attention back to him.

“Miss what?” she asked, not even trying to hide her confusion.

Locking his emerald eyes on her, he said, “Just how beautiful you are.”

“I see,” she mumbled uncomfortably, licking her suddenly dry lips as she turned around and inadvertently helped the waitress deliver the cokes to Duncan’s groin when she accidentally tripped the woman and sent her flying.

Chapter 23

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” Necie said as she grabbed the stack of napkins held loosely in his hand as he struggled against the need to groan.

God, did she have any idea what she was fucking doing to him? he wondered as he licked his lips and somehow resisted the urge to push up against her hand. He shouldn’t be allowing her to do this, normally he would never let a woman that he was trying to apologize to, inadvertently give him a hand job as she was nervously dabbing at his crotch, trying her best to dry his pants after she’d helped dump about a half gallon of Coke on his lap.

“Did I hurt you?” innocent gray eyes looked up and met his as she stopped what she was doing. She looked so fucking adorable in the moonlight.

“No,” he groaned, unable to help himself as he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers.

He shouldn’t be doing this.

He should have just dropped her off at her grandfather’s house when she’d asked him to bring her home. Hell, he should have handed her over to her grandfather back at the parking lot when the bastard had demanded that he get his fucking hands off her, but he hadn’t done any of those things. He’d been so fucking determined to do right by her that he’d dragged her across town to his favorite diner, made sure that it was too fucking cold for her to walk home and had sat there like a moron trying think about anything but the way it had felt sliding inside her the other night.

He should have just apologized to her, drove her home and left, but somewhere along the line he’d turned into a greedy bastard who hadn’t wanted to let her go. He wanted to kill a few lonely hours with her, which was funny, because whenever he was around her, he never felt lonely, wondered why he couldn’t find the one, or felt like he’d lose his fucking mind if he stopped or slowed down his fucked up life. It kept him sane, kept him whole, and that was the real reason why he never said no to anybody.

He needed them just as much as they needed him if not more.

Christ, he was so fucking pathetic, he thought as he tilted his head to the side, used his lips to push her lips open and attacked, kissing her with everything he had. She felt so fucking right in his arms, so fucking good and it terrified him at just how good she felt in his arms.

He’d been with a lot of women, probably too many woman, always hoping that one of them would comfort him, soothe the thing inside him that drove him out of his fucking mind and told him that there was something missing in his life.

It had been her.

It had always been her and that fucking terrified him, because she wasn’t right for him. They had absolutely nothing in common and to add insult to misery, for the past year he’d hated her, hated every fucking thing about her and if he ever found himself watching her a little too closely, thinking about her a little too long, it only made him hate her more.

This was so fucking wrong, he told himself as she hesitantly returned his kiss, so shyly and sweetly that it nearly drove him out of his fucking mind. She felt so good, too fucking good, but he knew that sliding inside her and losing himself would feel so much better. He wanted to lay her back across his bench seat, rip her pants off and slide her panties off while he slipped a finger inside her to see how wet she was before deciding that she wasn’t wet enough and lowered his head between her legs and licked her slit, making her cry and beg for more as she tried to ride his tongue.

Thinking about licking her pussy clean had his already painful cock hardening even further and demanding that he take it out and let it play with her. Maybe she’d take it in her small hand and stroke him as he pulled back and fucked her with his finger. Maybe he’d take his cock out of her hands, sit back and slowly jerk himself off as he watched his finger disappear inside her wet pussy or maybe even that would be too much for her.

She’d sit up, lean over and wrap her lips around his cock and-

Fucking cry himself to sleep tonight, he realized when his emergency line went off, interrupting what had been a very promising night. The good news was that his suspension was most likely over. The bad news was that he was probably going to spend the rest of the night fantasizing about the adorable little klutz that was driving him out of his fucking mind.

*-*-*-*

Friday, December 11th.

Maybe she should call in sick, she pondered as she rolled over onto her side and stared at her alarm clock as another minute rolled by, bringing the last time that she saw Duncan c

loser to the forty-eight hour mark.

Well, this was depressing, she decided yet again, but then again, what wasn’t depressing about this situation? In the past couple of weeks she’d unintentionally crashed her van, set her favorite apron on fire, ran over the guy she’d been crushing on with a serving cart, she was pretty sure that she’d kneed him in the balls on more than one occasion, but that was after she’d lost her virginity to him, announced that she was in love with him and got to see that lovely look of horror on his face as her words sank in.

After that he became distant then somehow stalkerish, bossy and she wasn’t sure, but she thought that she may have given him a hand job, she still wasn’t sure about that one, received the hottest kiss of her life and then…

And then he’d stopped kissing her, picked her up, put her on the opposite side of his truck, started the truck, drove her home, walked her to her door, turned around and walked stiffly next door, slamming the front door behind him.

That was just about two days ago and since then she hadn’t seen or heard from him. Not that he could call her since she’d never given him her phone number, mostly because he’d never asked for it. But, he knew where she lived and worked, so if he’d wanted to see her then he could have easily found a way to do it.

Granted, from what she’d heard from her grandfather, who for some reason had been cleaning every gun that he owned for the past two days, Duncan was still banned from the bakery and if he tried to come onto the property her grandfather was going to find out if his sharpshooting days were long gone.

She should probably be a bit concerned about that, she thought mildly with a heavy sigh as she rolled over and faced the wall, deciding that staring at the clock wasn’t exactly helpful. Now, stealing all of the bullets in the house and making a few calls to prevent her grandfather from getting anymore for a few months probably had been the best way to go.

Unfortunately, she’d forgotten all about his bayonet and knife collection. She’d spent a few hours every day looking for the key to lock them all back up, but the only thing she’d found so far was three boxes of Twinkies, a bag of peanut butter cups, the remains of a pizza, and a half pack of Coke. After she’d finished off the last of the Coke and Twinkies she’d searched the house again, but damn if he wasn’t getting better about hiding the keys to his weapons.

If only he’d used that level of skill to hide his sweets, because before she’d called it a night she’d found a fresh box of donuts from the bakery. She’d eaten half the box of donuts with a large glass of chocolate milk while she’d pathetically stared out the kitchen window, waiting to see him.

Duncan never showed up, but her grandfather had. So, just because she needed to teach him a lesson, and definitely not because she was hungry because at that point she felt sick to her stomach and just the thought of eating another sugary treat had her stomach rebelling, she’d refilled her glass and taken a large, unsatisfying bite of that delicious donut while he’d sat across from her with a plate of rice cakes and glowered at her. She would have to admit that she became a tad concerned when he had that butter knife in a death grip.

Not wanting to push her luck, she’d finished her milk, tossed the rest of the donuts in the trash and just to make sure that he wouldn’t go digging for a donut, she’d swept the floor and threw all that dust, dirt and rock salt brought in on their shoes into the trashcan, directly on top of the donuts she’d baked yesterday morning.

After he’d announced that he was no longer speaking with her, and she informed him about the loss of his stash, she’d ran to her room screaming for mercy for old time’s sake as her grandfather turned that murderous rage on her and for old time sake, promised to tan her hide. The moment that she’d made it safely into her room she’d flipped the lock and breathed a sigh of relief, which only went to remind her that she’d foolishly pigged out and was probably going to die.

Her grandfather on the other hand stood outside her door for a good thirty minutes. She didn’t open the door or peek under the door like some amateur, but simply listened to the grinding of his teeth as he waited for her to foolishly open that bedroom door so that he could throttle her.

Since he hadn’t raised a moron, she’d stayed in her room, soaking in a hot bath and downing three Advils for her stomachache while she tried not to think about Duncan and that kiss. She’d failed miserably and gave up on trying not to think of him and simply tried to remember all the reasons why she wanted nothing to do with him anymore.

Every time she remembered his words after she’d foolishly declared her love to him like some pathetic schoolgirl with a crush and finally got good and mad at him, she would remember the way that he’d kissed her and just like that, she couldn’t stay mad at him.

Why couldn’t she hate him? she wondered as she threw back the covers and finally said the hell with it and dragged her ass off to work.