Free Fire & Brimstone: A Neighbor from Hell by R.L. Mathewson Page B

cry.
    *-*-*-*
                  “Do you want the Coke I brought you?” he asked, noting that she’d tightened her hold over his arms before he had a chance to finish that sentence, letting him know just how much pain she was in.
                  “Do you have to let go in order to get it?” she asked after a slight pause.
                  “Yes.”
                  “Then no,” she said, shifting against him to get more comfortable.
                  He sighed as he glanced over at the alarm clock on the nightstand. He really should be downstairs preparing for the dinner rush and looking into hiring a new waitress, but here he was holding the biggest pain in the ass that he’d ever known. He still wasn’t sure what had possessed him to come up here and check on her in the first place. She wasn’t his responsibility, but for some reason he felt protective of her and he couldn’t quite explain it.
                  “Do you want anything?” he asked, hating to see her in this much pain and wondering what the fuck was wrong with all those doctors that told her that this was all in her head.
                  He wasn’t a fucking doctor and even he could see that there was something wrong. She was always exhausted, sick and in pain. He felt like an ass for even thinking that she was faking. She never tried to get special attention or used it as an excuse to get out of doing something. In fact, she usually got pissed if someone pointed it out and always tried to pretend that she wasn’t sick even when it was more than obvious to everyone around her that she was.
                  “I’m fine,” she said tightly and he knew just like always that she was trying to hide how much pain she was in.
                  God, he was a fucking moron.
                  “Why are you being so nice to me?”
                  Sighing, he shifted behind her so that her head was right beneath his chin and found himself giving her an honest answer. “I don’t know.”
                  “You do realize that you’re ruining your reputation as an asshole, don’t you?”
                  “Not if no one finds out,” he said, hoping to tease a smile or a laugh out of her, but instead she simply yawned.
                  “Your secret’s safe with me,” she said around another yawn as he debated leaving her to nap so that he could get some work done, but the way she wrapped her hand over his had him accepting the fact that he would be here, at least for a little while longer.
                  He’d wait until she fell asleep and then he’d go downstairs and make sure that everything was taken care of so that he could be here when his brother delivered the test results, confirming that he really had been an asshole.

Chapter 11
                  “Rebecca, Dr. Bradford is here,” Melanie announced, sounding amused which she found rather annoying first thing in the...umm, afternoon? Evening? She really had no freaking clue how long she’d been asleep.
                  “What?” she groaned unhappily as she shifted and realized that something very bad had occurred while she’d slept.
                  Was that a hand on her ass?
                  Yes, yes it was, she realized with a resigned sigh as she cracked one eye open and confirmed her suspicions. Not only was she using Lucifer, who was still sound asleep, as a mattress, but at some point while she’d slept she’d apparently felt that it was necessary to snake her hand beneath his shirt and feel up his six pack.
                  Or maybe this should be considered an eight pack? Yeah, definitely an eight pack, she decided, tempted to find out if his muscles dipped into that “V” shape that she was a sucker for, but that would be wrong, very, very wrong.