Fire & Brimstone: A Neighbor from Hell (26 page)

 
Chapter 49

              “Your turn,” he said with a satisfied sigh as he watched her pout turn to confusion.

              “Are you forgetting something?” she asked with an expectant tone.

              “No,” he simply said as he waited for her to get on with it.

              “You haven’t proved that I was wrong yet,” she stubbornly pointed out.

              “I wasn’t aware that was part of the game,” he murmured absently when she shifted on the bed, causing the tee shirt to pull up just enough so that he was rewarded with a flash of pink panties.

              “You should have been,” she said as she gestured for him to get on with it. “Well?”

              “Well, what?” he asked, shifting as discretely as possible in the hopes that he would be able to get a better view of-

              “Ouch! What the hell was that for?” he snapped, rubbing his knee where the crazed woman had just flicked him.

              “I’m going to need you to focus here,” she said, reminding him that she took games seriously, very seriously. “Why does everyone call you Lucifer?”

              “Besides the fact that I’d kill them if they didn’t?”

              She rolled her eyes with a nod. “Yes, besides that.”

              He shrugged and admitted, “Because of Aidan.”

              Apparently that wasn’t what she’d expected, because she sat there, staring at him. “Yeah, that really didn’t answer my question.”

              “Didn’t it though?” he asked innocently, loving the way her eyes narrowed dangerously on him.

              He really wished that he’d realized just how much fun it was to torment her sooner. All that wasted time…

              “No, no it did not.”

              “Would you like to me to go into more detail?” he asked around a mouthful of Kisses.

              “That would be nice,” she bit out, clearly struggling not to tear the bag of Hershey Kisses out of his hands so that she could beat the shit out of him with it.

              “Fine,” he said, sighing heavily as he took his time unwrapping another handful of Hershey Kisses, well aware that she was sitting there watching him with something close to homicidal rage.

              It probably made him a sick bastard to enjoy tormenting her like this, but he really didn’t care, not when it brought him this much joy. Sighing heavily, just to annoy her, he popped the freshly unwrapped Kisses in his mouth and took his time savoring them.

             
“Well?”
she snapped, making him chuckle, which by the look on her face she also didn’t appreciate.

              “Aidan had a speech impediment when he was a kid,” he answered with a shrug as he grabbed another handful of Kisses.

              She watched him expectantly while he sat there, contemplating getting off his ass and grabbing a Coke to wash the chocolate down and maybe a steak. He could really go for a steak, he thought as he shifted his attention towards the kitchen. He could probably whip up a few steaks, creamy mashed potatoes and corn in a half hour.

              He should probably see if she wanted something too, he decided since it was the polite thing to-

              “What exactly does Aidan’s speech impediment have to do with your terrifying nickname?” she asked, clearly not satisfied with his answer, which was a lot more than he told most people.

              “God, you’re demanding,” he said, shaking his head as he shifted his attention back on her.

              “You already knew this,” she said impatiently as she gestured for him to get on with it.

              “It’s not a big deal.”

              “Uh huh.”

              “When we were kids he couldn’t say my name correctly. It came out as a mangled Lucifer. The other kids heard him call me that and got on his case about it. Since it didn’t bother me, I beat the shit out of the other kids and started calling myself Lucifer to make it easier for him,” he said with a shrug as his mind wandered back to those beautiful steaks just waiting for him.

              “Huh,” she said, drawing his attention to find her sitting there, nibbling her bottom lip and appearing lost in thought.

              “What?” he asked, reaching over and pushing a strand of hair out of her face.

              “Nothing,” she said, seeming a little sad.

              He watched her for a moment before he narrowed his eyes suspiciously on her and said, “You have a bet going over my name, don’t you?”

              “Yeah,” she said with the saddest sigh that he’d ever heard.

              “You lost, didn’t you?” he guessed, shaking his head in disgust.

              “Well, I wouldn’t have if you’d been named Lucifer for your young, misguided love for all things evil,” she pointed out with a little pout that had him chuckling.

              “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he teased, leaning in and pressed a kiss against her forehead.

              “No, you’re really not.”

              “You’re right. I’m not,” he said, leaning back against the headboard. “All right, your turn,” he said, getting comfortable as he waited for her question.

              “Fine,” she said, getting back in the game, “what’s my favorite song?”

              “That’s too easy,” he said with a pitying shake of his head, because he’d seriously thought that she would give him something of a challenge.

              “Then you should have no problem answering it,” she said, folding her arms over her breasts as she waited for his answer.

              Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he said, “Sam Hunt’s,
Take Your Time
.”

              “Are you sure?” she asked, cocking a brow in question, clearly trying to throw him off when they both knew that he’d nailed it.

              “Positive.”

              “You guessed,” she said accusingly.

              “Yeah, that’s it,” he said, laughing when she grabbed a pillow and threw it at his head.

              “You cheated!”

              “Sure did,” he said, smiling as he reached for her and pulled her onto his lap.

              “Then how did you know?” she asked, carefully straddling his lap as she placed her arms around his shoulders.

              “Because every time it comes on you get this cute smile on your face,” he said, tracing her beautiful pink lips with the pad of his thumb, “and you sing along under your breath while you work.”

              “Hmm,” she said, shifting to get more comfortable on his lap. “Fine. I’ll give you that one.”

              “Because I got it right?” he asked, chuckling when shot him a mocking glare.

              “Because I’m that generous,” she said with a sniff as she tried to bite back a smile.

              “Then I guess it’s my turn,” he said, reaching up to push her hair back so that he could run his fingers through her soft hair, enjoying the way each strand slid between his fingers before falling back in waves around her beautiful face.

              “Ask away,” she said as she leaned into his touch.

              “How many siblings do I have?”

              “Two?’

              “Nope.”

              “Three?”

              “Try again.”

              “Four?”

              “Not even close.”

              “How many more guesses do I get?” she asked, looking a little panicked and for good reason.

              “At least four more,” he said, loving the calculating expression on her face as she worked it out.

              “Eight?”

              When he nodded, she repeated it as though she didn’t quite believe him. “Eight? Seriously?”

              “Mmmhmm,” he said, placing his hands on her knees and ran them over her thighs.

              “God, your poor mother,” she said, shaking her head in wonder.

              “She wanted a big family,” he said absently as he watched his hands push the hem of her tee shirt up her legs and over her hips, revealing those pink panties that he was going to be thinking about for the next week.

              “Apparently,” she murmured in agreement as she grabbed the hem of her shirt and in one move, had it off and tossed over her head so that she was left sitting on his lap wearing only those pink panties and that devious little smile that he loved so much.

              “So, I guess it’s time to claim my prize,” he said, deciding that he’d use his prize for something other than making her return to the Fire & Brimstone since she’d be back on her own in a matter of weeks anyway.

              As he ran his eyes over the large beautiful breasts and down between her legs, he decided that it was definitely time to claim his prize.

Chapter 50

              “What are you doing here?” Melanie asked when Rebecca slammed the door shut behind her.

              “Planning Lucifer’s murder,” she bit out, still shocked that he would do something like this to her.

              When he’d suggested winner’s choice, she’d assumed that he would either use the game to make her return to the Fire & Brimstone or for sex. She would have been fine with either one, but had he demanded that she return to work or even drop to her knees and give him a blowjob?

              No.

              Instead the sick bastard wanted…he wanted…

              God, she couldn’t even think about what he wanted without feeling sick to her stomach. She just couldn’t believe that he would take things this far.

              “What did he do?” Melanie asked, sounding a little distracted, but that was most likely because she was lost in her own little world of computer code, Hostess pies and a cocoon of blankets.

              “The bastard cheated!” she snapped, which apparently was enough to grab Melanie’s attention, because she looked up from her computer and frowned.

              “He cheated on you?” she asked, looking really confused, probably because Lucifer wasn’t the type of asshole that cheated.

              “No,” she said, shaking her head as she pushed away from the door. “He didn’t cheat on me. He cheated at a game.”

              “What kind of game?” Melanie asked, setting aside her laptop.

              Rebecca gestured lazily towards the door. “A game to see which one of us knew more about the other,” she explained with a shrug as she walked over to the refrigerator to grab a Coke.

              For some reason that made Melanie’s frown deepen. “You asked each other questions?”

              “Yup, and that bastard cheated,” she said, grabbing a Coke and not really caring that she’d just walked out on Lucifer without a word.

              “So, in order to win this game,” Melanie said, obviously having a difficult time wrapping her mind around the concept of the game that she’d just played with the cheater, “you had to know more about him than he did about you?”

              “That just about sums it up,” she said, still kicking herself for giving him such an easy question.

              “So, you played a game in which you had to know more than someone with questionable OCD?” Melanie asked, kind of making her feel like a moron, because she really should have thought about that before she’d agreed to play with him.

              Still…

              “It was anyone’s game,” she said as she popped the top off her soda, trying not to think about how incredibly stupid she was.

              “A game of chance with someone that notices every detail about pretty much everything?” Melanie asked, looking at her as though she just couldn’t believe that she was that stupid to go along with something like this.

              She’d never had a chance, she realized with a pathetic groan as she took a sip of her soda. When she was done, she tossed the empty can in the sink and leaned back against the counter, in absolutely no rush to follow through with this bet.

              “How are you feeling?” she asked Melanie, wondering how she was holding up with everything.

              “I’m good,” Melanie said, shooting her a smile as she picked up her computer and placed it back on her lap.

              Curious, but having absolutely no idea how to ask her, Rebecca walked over and sat down on a chair, thankful that Mojo was there so that she could buy herself some time by scratching behind his ears. While she’d freaked out and panicked over just the mere possibility that she might be pregnant, here Melanie was, the definition of calm as she continued to type away at her computer.

              “Are you okay with this?” she asked as nonchalantly as she could manage, hoping that it wouldn’t freak Melanie out.

              “With you letting your foolish pride talk you into playing a game that you never had a chance of winning or quitting a job that you love? Because, I’m seriously concerned about the first and wondering when you’re going to suck it up for the second.”

              Glaring at the betraying bitch that should know better than to point out the stupid things that she did, she said, “I meant about the baby.”

              Melanie shrugged as she reached for a Hostess pie. “I’m nervous, but I know that everything will work out.”

              Worrying her bottom lip, she studied her best friend for several minutes, unable to ignore the fact that Melanie actually looked happy about this. It was in her eyes and the way that her lips curled up in the corners ever so slightly. She was definitely happy, Rebecca decided, happy for her best friend. Rebecca would be there for her, helping her along the way with anything she needed.

              Except for diapers.

              Melanie was definitely on her own when it came to changing diapers, she decided as she gave Mojo one last scratch behind the ears, stood up and carefully stepped over the large dog.

              “What did Lucifer win?” Melanie asked her, reminding her about Lucifer’s terrifying request.

              “I don’t want to talk about it,” she muttered miserably as she headed towards her bedroom.

              “That bad?” Melanie called after her.

              “I said that I don’t want to talk about it!” she yelled over her shoulder.

              “You could have just said that instead of being a bitch!”

              “I just did!” she snapped as she walked in her room, shut the door behind her, dropped down on her bed, buried her head beneath the pillow and decided that yes, yes she was going to hide here like the coward that she was, because there was no way that she was going to be able to come to terms with the fact that Lucifer Bradford had just proposed to her.

              Well, demanded might be a better term, she mused only to end up shaking her head a few seconds later when she decided that blurting best described the terrifying suggestion that had sent her running.

*-*-*-*

              “So, what did you do to scare off our little Rebecca?” Melanie asked when he finally managed to make it across the hallway without his knees threatening to give out on him.

              “Nothing,” he said, swallowing hard as he stumbled into their kitchen, threw the refrigerator door open and grabbed the first thing that he saw, which just happened to be a can of frosting.

              “Umm, what are you doing?” Melanie asked, sounding somewhat amused.

              “I don’t know!” he admitted, grabbing a spoon from the drawer and viciously stabbed it into the can of frosting.

              As he shoved a large spoonful of frosting in his mouth, Melanie sat there, staring at him. “Should I go get Rebecca?” she finally offered when it became clear that he’d lost his fucking mind, again.

              He’d already figured out that he’d lost his fucking mind when he’d opened his mouth to suggest that Rebecca should serve him dinner, naked and on her knees only to hear himself demand that she marry him. It definitely hadn’t been intentional and it sure as hell hadn’t been pretty since he’d sort of shouted at her.

              When he’d spotted that pregnancy test in her hand this morning his mind had automatically clicked into gear, knowing exactly what he needed to do and what was expected of him. He’d been raised to believe that getting a woman pregnant meant a trip up to New Hampshire to make things right. It might not be the way things were done anymore, but he didn’t a damn. He was raised to take of his family and he would have done just that if she’d been pregnant.

              It had actually scared him at just how easily he’d accepted what needed to be done. Marrying Rebecca hadn’t seemed like a punishment, a chore or even an obligation. It had just felt…right, if that made sense. When his brother had walked into the exam room and explained that she wasn’t pregnant, had left him feeling…confused.

              It took him a bit to realize that he was actually disappointed that he didn’t have to make a quick trip up to New Hampshire to make things right. He’d tried to resign himself to the fact that it wasn’t meant to be, that it was too soon, and that there was plenty of time, but no matter how much bullshit he’d told himself or how hard he tried not to think about it, dragging her up to New Hampshire to make her legally his had been at the back of his mind all day.

              He wanted her, needed her, and the idea that he could have her had been fucking intoxicating. When he’d made the bet with her, using it to get her to marry him had been the last thing on his mind, but when he thought about making her his, he just couldn’t help himself.

              He’d blurted it out in a half shout, which he would be the first to admit had been a terrifying moment and then sat there, staring at her as he tried to remember how to breathe. Rebecca for the most part had stared back, looking as though she was trying to make sense out of what he’d shouted at her.

              When it had become clear that he wasn’t taking it back, she’d stood up, shook her head, muttered, “Unbelievable,” and walked away leaving him there, trying to figure out what had just happened. He was still trying to figure it out, which was probably why he shouldn’t be here right now. Not until he figured out a way to do this right, he realized, because blurting it out definitely wasn’t the right way to propose to the woman that you loved.

              “I’m gonna go now so I can fix this,” he said hollowly, nodding in agreement at his own words as he hugged the can of frosting to his chest and stumbled out of the apartment, telling himself with every half-stumbled step that everything was going to be okay.