Playing For Keeps (2 page)

It felt odd sleeping less than two
feet away from a woman who thought him less than dirt. During the
summer they both refused to open their windows until the heat
became oppressive, leaving them with no other choice. Forget about
bringing a woman to his bedroom. He’d never been one for PDA’s
never mind having sex in public and having sex in his room would
definitely feel like a public performance.

No matter how many times he tried to
remind himself that they were in separate houses and separated by
more than just a stupid little flower garden he couldn’t bring
himself to allow a woman in his bed. Not that he did that normally.
He never invited a woman to his home. That was one of his top ten
rules of dating. The only time they ever came to his house was to
bitch him out when he moved on and that was done from the
outside.

He never in his entire adult life
shared a bed with a woman. That was too much intimacy and sent the
wrong message. The few times he made the mistake of relaxing in a
woman’s bed after a quick lay proved to be serious mistakes. They
wanted to coddle and always asked the questions that made him
cringe, “What are you thinking?”, “Do you love me?”, “Where do you
see this going?”, “Are you as happy as I am?’, "Why do you keep
calling me by my sister's name?", or his personal favorite “I
wonder what our babies will look like.” No, sex was best kept at a
woman’s house, hotel room or better yet in the backseat of a
car.

Thank god his neighbor seemed to share
the same attitude. He hated the idea of waking up to the sounds of
another man grunting and moaning. With his luck the sounds would
filter into his dream and he would end up having a gay dream.
Thankfully that never happened otherwise he’d be sleeping on his
couch.

It wasn’t as if his beautiful neighbor
was without male attention. He’d seen several losers sniffing
around her in the last five years. She was easily out of their
league, at least physically. Personality wise, well even from afar
he could tell they were all pricks. He wasn’t a prince, not by any
measure, but he found himself eager to deck a few of them over the
years with the way they treated her. They never hit her, otherwise
he would have killed the bastards. He didn’t go for hitting a woman
no matter what. Sometimes he felt like they were using her, or not
treating her right. He didn’t know why he cared, he just
did.

Haley eyed the fence and then the
remaining length of the flower bed. She sighed heavily. “Fine. If I
made a mistake I’m sorry. I replaced the last flower bed with the
tulips.”

He nodded in relief, glad that it was
settled. The damn flowers were out of here and not a moment too
soon. He couldn’t take another night like last night. Besides he
was running out of cornstarch.

“I’ll just move the flowers over into
my five inches of space,” she announced.

His eyes widened with that
announcement. “The hell you will!”

Chapter 2

Haley’s eyes widened in total
disbelief as Jason threw himself back onto the plants, tearing them
up like a man possessed.

“Stop!” she shrieked. He ignored her
and continued to rip the tulips from the ground, making sure those
damn bulbs came with them. He tossed them far onto his property so
she couldn’t get her hands on them to re-plant them.

She squeezed the nozzle, sending a
full blast of cold water on him. Still he continued to tear up the
flowerbed.

“Stop! Please stop!” she cried. He
only slowed down when he reached the tight space between their
houses.

Jason had to shift his shoulders so he
could lodge himself into the tight space. Thankfully she gave up on
squirting him. It might be April, but they were in New England and
that meant a bright sun with a cold breeze. His body shivered
violently as he reached forward to grab handfuls of tulips.
Suddenly something clamped around his ankles.

“What the
hell-
omph
!” He was
pulled off balance, landing face first into the thick mud she
created with her little water meltdown. Before he could push
himself up she was crawling over his back to get to those damn
flowers.

Haley used her small frame to her
advantage. After quickly crawling over Jason she began digging up
as many tulips with her hands as she could and setting them gently,
yet quickly, against the side of her house.

“Hey! Stop that!” he demanded as he
leaned over her to grab her hands.

“Get off of me!” she snapped, digging
faster.

“I wouldn’t be on you if you weren’t
on my damn property!”

She threw back an elbow to dislodge
him. He cursed under his breath as he pushed himself in further
until her entire body was snuggled tightly beneath his. She
instantly froze beneath him. He took advantage of her stunned
reaction and grabbed as many flowers as he could.

“I said get off me, not crush me!” she
clarified. It was all she could do to control her breathing. She
was going to hyperventilate and pass out. No doubt about it. A
large muscular man was on top of her!

Her senses went into overload as she
tried to focus. But all she could think about was how the feel of
his strong hard stomach felt pressed against her back. Suddenly a
shiver shot through her body that had nothing to do with the cold
water seeping through her clothes.

Then realization sank in. A very large
man was on top of her! “That better not be what I think it is,” she
hissed between clenched teeth.

“It’s not.” It was. “Don’t flatter
yourself, sweetheart,” he snapped, trying not to groan or grind
into her. He was a little shocked himself. Not that he ever had a
problem getting it up. He didn’t. Of course these days his interest
in sex had waned a bit. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he
had sex, which in itself was pathetic.

He made a half ass attempt to pull out
more flowers. That seemed to distract her enough from her pert
little ass being snuggled against his lap. His eyes closed as he
nuzzled his face against her neck and inhaled slowly. She didn’t
seem to notice so he did it again. He would swear on his life that
she smelled like blackberries and cream. It was damn
enticing.

She groaned her irritation. “I don’t
know what your problem is. I made a mistake planting them on your
property. Just let me move them over a few inches and everything
will be settled.”

That snapped him out of his daze.
“No!” He reached past her and began ripping flowers out. She swore
under her breath as she crawled out from under him to save whatever
flowers she could. He simply followed her, assuming the same
position each time and frustrating the hell out of her.

“You’re being a jerk! I just want my
bulbs!” she said, trying to not to cry. These were her
Grandmother’s bulbs. Her Grandfather bought them for her after the
war to celebrate the success of their first business.

“No, you’re not going to plant them
here! They can’t stay!” he said, digging faster.

“Why?” she demanded, coming closer and
closer to frustrated tears. “I don’t understand you! You do nothing
with your property at all. Why do you care if there’s a flower bed
here or a few inches over? They’re not hurting you!”
“The hell they’re not!” he snapped, thinking of all the spots on
his back and neck that still throbbed.

She scoffed. “They’re just flowers.
What could they possibly do to aggravate you to this level?” She
heard a buzzing pass her ear and absently waved it off.

“Bees!” he said, trying to back up,
but couldn’t. His large frame was trapped between their
houses.

“Yes, it’s a bee,” she said slowly as
if she were talking to a child.

He groaned as he tried to twist his
large frame loose. When that didn't work he tried to shove
backwards. His arm snaked around her waist, trying to pull her
along with him.

“Hey, get your hands-“

“It’s a fucking nest and we just
disturbed it!” he yelled.

Haley’s eyes shot forward and then
widened. Sure enough, two feet in front of her the end of what
appeared to be a very large ground nest was now poking out of the
ground thanks to the flowers they yanked up. Yellow jackets began
swarming just above the nest. It wouldn’t be long before they
descended on them.

“Move!”

“I can’t!”

Haley clenched her teeth as she
slammed back as hard as she could against him. He groaned low in
her ear, but didn’t stop trying to move back. She moved forward and
slammed back again, and again. Each time was met by a groan and a
gain of a few inches.

“One more time!” he grated
out.

She moved forward and this time when
she slammed back into him she pushed up with her shoulders,
dislodging him. Jason used the momentum to pull them both back
several feet. He kept his arm snaked around her waist as he dragged
her away from the nest.

“They’re swarming!” Haley
cried.

“Shit!” Jason looked frantically
around for a safe place.

“My house!” she said, gesturing wildly
towards her front door.

“Good idea,” he said as he ran towards
the house, dragging her along. The buzzing sound became louder and
louder as the swarm began circling them. Once they reached the
front door he opened it, relieved that she'd left it unlocked, and
they ran inside, slamming the door shut behind them.

“Bees!” Haley cried, gesturing to the
bees that had followed them inside.

He quickly released her and grabbed
two magazines from a small pile on a coffee table and threw one to
her. Without a word they rolled the magazines up and began to
attack the dozen or so bees that managed to follow them inside.
Neither spoke until the last bee was squashed.

“Five nights….in….a….row…..stung…,”
Jason bit out while he tried to catch his breath.

“You knew there were yellow jackets
and you still tore up the flowers?” she asked in disbelief. Her
grandmother had taught her well. A ground nest was not something to
mess with. It could be as small as a stack or quarters or several
feet long.

Jason gestured in the direction of his
house. “I was trying to kill them.”

She shook her head in disbelief. He
knew there was a nest and he didn’t tell her?

“Why didn’t you tell me there was a
nest? You know I work in that flowerbed,” she said, working hard on
keeping her tone even. They could have been killed!

“I did!”

“No, you didn’t!”

He threw his hands up. “I’ve been
trying to tell you for last few weeks, but each time I approached
you, you ran off!”

She opened her mouth to argue, but
shut it as quickly and winced. Yeah, that really did sound like
something she would do where he was concerned. “Oh,” she finally
said.

“Yeah,
oh
,” he snapped. He peeked out the
window and groaned. “They’re still swarming.”
Haley sighed. “They’re going to be a problem for a few hours. We
need to call an exterminator.”

************

Man he was freezing. He was soaked to
the bone and it didn’t look like he was going to be able to go to
his house anytime soon to change. Normally he’d strip down to his
boxers, but his neighbor was already skittish around him. He didn’t
want to give the poor thing a stroke. He looked down at her very
clean and obviously well cared for wood floor and
cringed.

“Shit, maybe I should step out the
back and dry off,” he said as he raised his eyes to look into her
adjoining kitchen. His brows flew up as he watched the windows
darken.

“I don’t think that will be happening
for a while,” Haley said softly as she rubbed her forehead. “Why
don’t you go take a shower and I’ll see if I can find you something
to wear. While you’re taking your shower I’ll call for an
exterminator.”

“If you’re sure,” he said, hoping she
wouldn’t change her mind. He was freezing his balls off. Hell, at
this point he’d squeeze his ass into a dress to get
warm.

She nodded absently as she watched the
bees swarm around her backyard. “Yeah, let me show you where the
bathroom is.”

Ten minutes later the shivering
finally stopped and he was really enjoying his shower. Never in his
life had hot water felt so good. This was the best shower ever. It
didn’t hurt that his little shy neighbor shared his appreciation
for the simple things in life like a normal bar of soap and none of
that overly perfumed expensive shit that never lathered properly
and always left a rash on his skin. It also didn’t hurt that the
bathroom looked like a bathroom and wasn’t covered from head to toe
in lace and makeup. This was a bathroom a man could comfortably use
without worrying about his masculinity.

He was just pulling on the tee shirt
she'd left him when he heard her scream, “No! Don’t do
it!”

Jason was out of the bathroom in less
than a second, running towards her ready to kill whatever bastard
was trying to hurt her. He came to skidding stop in front of
her.

She smiled sweetly as she said, “God,
I love you.”