Fire & Brimstone (Neighbor from Hell #8) - R.L. Mathewson Page 0,53

killed.

Sighing heavily, he pressed one last kiss against her lips before he pulled back. “We shouldn’t be doing this when you’re not feeling good.”

She opened her mouth to explain that him touching her would make her feel really good, but one look at the stubborn bastard’s face told her that she’d be wasting her time. As he grabbed the remote and raised the volume so that they wouldn’t miss a single growl and scream as zombies tore humans apart, she couldn’t help but wonder if he knew just how close she was to beating him to death with a pillow for leaving her this frustrated.

Maybe he really was an asshole?

Chapter 26

Maybe she had a life insurance policy on him and she was trying to collect? he absently wondered as he watched that generous ass of hers sway back and forth…back and forth…as she wiped down another table.

Or maybe she was trying to get back at him for all those times that he’d tried to fire her?

Whatever it was, it was fucking killing him.

It had been almost two weeks since he’d last touched her and he wasn’t sure that he was going to survive one more day without gripping that beautiful ass of hers as he slid inside her. For the past week he’d somehow found the willpower to keep his hands to himself, but that all ended today.

Or at least, it should have.

She was feeling better today, which meant that he could touch her without feeling like a complete asshole, but there was a problem. One that he would happily get out of if he could, but he knew that if he even tried to get out of going tonight that his mother would kill him since he’d skipped the last three family dinners.

Four times a month his mother made a huge family dinner and unless you were dying or had a really good fucking reason, you were expected to be there. She usually checked in with everyone before she planned a family dinner so that she could pick a day and time that worked for everyone. Thanks to some of his employees quitting, he’d been forced to find and train their replacements he’d been able to get out of going, but not tonight.

Tonight his mother expected him there and to start answering some questions courtesy of his fucking cousins and their big fucking mouths. Now everyone in his family wanted to know about Rebecca. They were probably expecting him to bring her tonight, but he wouldn’t do that to her until it was absolutely necessary and right now, it wasn’t necessary.

“Are you aware that you’re drooling?” Melanie, his newly self-appointed sidekick, whispered conspiratorially as she sat down on the stool next to him.

“Go away,” he said, forcing himself to look around the busy dinning area to make sure that everything was going smoothly when all he wanted to do was watch Rebecca as she moved, bent over and scrubbed her little heart out.

Actually, what he really wanted to do was-

“I can’t believe they did this to her,” Melanie said, looking seriously pissed off while she sat there, looking at Rebecca with something close to pity.

He didn’t like that look, especially since it was directed at Rebecca.

“What’s going on?” he asked, trying to go for casual, but he was an asshole so casual really didn’t work for him.

Just like that, the pissed expression was wiped clean from her face and in its place was a mixture of pure shock and curiosity, which he also really didn’t appreciate.

“She didn’t tell you?” she asked with a calculating expression on her face that was going to get her killed.

“No,” he bit out with a glare that should have told her that he wasn’t in the mood for any bullshit today, but this was Melanie that he was dealing with here and she didn’t seem to have any sense of self-preservation when it came to pissing him off.

“Really?”

“Melanie.”

“Fine!” she snapped with an over-the-top sigh, reminding him why she was Rebecca’s best friend. “Her parents are having a huge thirtieth anniversary party tonight and they didn’t invite Rebecca.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, glancing at Rebecca to find her smiling at Mr. Jenkins, one of their favorite lunchtime regulars.

If she was upset, she wasn’t showing it, but then again…

“Does she know?” he asked, immediately realizing it was a stupid question. Of course she knew. If his annoying sidekick that wouldn’t leave him alone knew about it, then she did as well since