by Deanna Lee
“Sounds promising,” Jonah said and shifted closer. “What about your friend? The one who spent ten minutes longer than necessary putting on your sun block?”
“Scott?” Della shook her head. “He’s just Jana’s brother.”
“He wants you,” Jonah said bluntly. “He’s probably figuring out right now how much time he’s going to allow us to be alone together before he interrupts.”
“I’m not interested in him.” Della lifted her chin when he raised an eyebrow. “He’s her baby brother. I’d break him and she’d hate me. I mean, he just graduated college.”
“What about me?” Jonah questioned. “You aren’t afraid you’ll break me?”
She laughed and grinned slyly. “I’m sure you can handle yourself in a challenge, Commander.”
“I tend to approach challenges hard and fast,” Jonah murmured.
Della’s eyes widened briefly, and she sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Jonah shifted closer, and his eyes darkened. “I’m not sure a man like me has any business with a woman like you—soft and unspoiled.” His fingers drifted light and teasing down her arm.
“I’m plenty spoiled,” Della protested softly. “Totally spoiled. No field has been left unplowed.”
“Unspoiled,” Jonah said again. “I’ve spent most of my adult life at war. It doesn’t make me the kind of man most deserve.”
The back door opened with a squeak, and Jonah moved away from her. It was all she could do not to outright glare at Scott. She closed the lid on the cooler, stepped back so Jonah could take it outside, and sighed as he left the kitchen.
“We’re out of chips,” Scott said, putting a large empty bowl on the counter.
“I have some pretzels.” Della pulled a couple of bags out of the cabinet and haphazardly dumped them in the bowl.
“That guy…” Scott trailed off with a flush when Della looked his way. “He’s a thug, Del. I mean, guys like him…Special Forces guys…they aren’t going to stick around for the long haul. Hell, the fact that he’s never been married at his age says a lot about his ability to commit.”
Della rolled her eyes. “He’s only five years older than me, Scott.”
The younger man frowned. “Seriously, he isn’t the kind of guy…”
“He’s a mature, responsible, career Navy man, and he’s very attractive. He’s practically perfect, Scotty.” Della popped a piece of pretzel in her mouth. “I wanna climb him like a tree.”
Scott huffed. “Yeah, that’s obvious based on your Facebook wall. You could stand to be a little more discreet about it.”
Della glared at him. “Yeah, well, if I thought it would get me laid, I would friend him so he could get a complete picture of my total lack of discretion! Mind your own business.”
He grabbed her arm when she started past him. “Look, I’m just trying to look out for you. You deserve more than to be a fling for that guy.”
She pulled her arm free with a mild glare. “I’m so serious about you minding your own business, Scotty.” She snagged the bowl of pretzels and left the kitchen before she cursed her best friend’s baby brother out.
She carried the bowl to Jana who was on a double lounge chair on the far side of the pool. Della dropped down beside her with a little huff and glared openly at Scott when he left the house.
“What did my darling sibling do this time?” Jana asked, sparkling green eyes accessing Della over a pair of oversized sunglasses.
“He’s a total cock block,” Della snapped and blushed when Jana raised an eyebrow. “Seriously.”
Jana laughed and plucked off her sunglasses. “Hey, Scotty!”
Della slapped her friend’s arm. “Hush.”
Jana shrugged and waved her brother off. “I’m totally prepared to tell him to stop harshing your groove thing at completely alarming decibels.”
“Fuck you,” Della muttered and grabbed a fistful of pretzels as Jana confiscated the bowl. “I think being an asshole is hardwired into your DNA.”
Jana nodded seriously. “I have two brothers, three cousins, one aunt, and four uncles that totally prove your hypothesis.”
“There is too much man candy in my yard for me to be in such a foul mood,” Della declared.
“Agreed.” Jana rummaged through the cooler on the ground beside her and pulled out a beer. “Here, drink and be merry.”
Della accepted the beer, though she wasn’t much of a drinker. Being surrounded by alcohol all day or night at the bar had quickly rubbed the shine off any kind of fun that came out of a bottle. After a few minutes, Jana joined the others in the pool and Jonah strolled around to her side. He dropped onto the lounger beside her with more grace than a man his size had to right to.
“Did your little friend tell you that I’m bad for you?” Jonah questioned.
Della laughed. “He implied that men like you weren’t interested in anything more than sex and seemed quite put out when I told him to mind his own business.”
“Well, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like sex,” Jonah mused.
“Fucking is fundamental,” Della said seriously and smirked when he laughed.
“You’re not at all what I expected,” he admitted. “I’ve seen you around and stuff. Thought you were quite entertaining at the Neighborhood Watch meeting.”
“I stand by what I said,” Della exclaimed. “I can’t see how anyone in this entire neighborhood is more intimidating than Lula Ferguson. She’s vicious when crossed and carries a 9mm.”
“It’s pink,” Jonah said with no small amount of disdain.
“It is.” Della nodded. “Now, imagine yourself a criminal. Would you really want to go to jail and have to admit that you were caught by a seventy-year-old woman wielding a hot pink 9mm? The criminals of this city will avoid our neighborhood like the plague due to the mere threat of that kind of damage to their street cred.”
“The best part was how she agreed with your plan,” Jonah confided. “I nearly hurt myself to keep from laughing.”
“I live to amuse.” Della crossed her arms, but her lips quirked up in a grin.
Chapter Three
Della had updated her Facebook wall thirty-eight times in the seven cock-free days after her pool party, bitching about the futility of Operation: Bang My Hot Neighbor. Jonah had come and gone, mowed his lawn again, conversed with the guy who mowed her lawn, had another small cookout with a bunch of hot Navy guys that had half the women in the neighborhood encouraging their husbands to make friends with Lt. Commander Armstrong. So far, the man’s badassness was still very much a deterrent, which would probably last until football season when the men on the street realized the Commander had a sixty-inch television and no wife to complain about the games.
The upside to all of her Facebook bitching was that her mother had unfriended her by Wednesday due to her mortification. Three different cousins had called the house, asking if it was true Della was going into treatment for sex addiction. Saying yes to that particular question was never going to not be amusing.
She picked up her phone and dialed the bar’s number without much thought. Jana picked up after the third ring.
“Hey, boss lady.”
“Hey, caller ID has ruined many a surprise,” Della said and leaned against her counter. “He ran this morning—but he wore sweats and a T-shirt. More than one person on this street was bitterly disappointed.”
“You’ve got twenty pictures of that guy practically naked by your pool.”
Della huffed. “Four. I have four pictures, and I didn’t even put them on Facebook!”
“We all applaud your restraint,” Jana said dryly. “The place is cool. We have a decent crowd. Nothing much to report.”
“Good.” Della walked over to the breakfast counter where her laptop was plugged in. “I was thinking about coming down there.”
“Tonight is your night off,” Jana reminded. “Geez, veg out in front of the TV and eat too much junk like a normal person. I gotta run. I
promised to give Gerry a break from the bar.”
“Right. Fine.” Della huffed. “I’ll go eat half a gallon of ice cream.”
“If your ass gets any bigger, I’m keeping those jeans I borrowed,” Jana declared cheerfully and hung up before Della could think of an appropriately vicious comeback. She tossed the phone on the counter and frowned at her computer for a few minutes before her doorbell rang.
She wasn’t expecting anyone, but her friends and family made a habit of showing up uninvited whenever they felt like it. Riley met her at the door more out of curiosity than any desire whatsoever to play guard dog. The animal couldn’t meet a stranger. She opened the door and found Jana’s little brother standing on her porch.
She frowned at Scott. “Hey.”
“Can I come in?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Della leaned on her door and looked him over. “I’m supposed to be vegging in front of the TV with junk food. Jana had some pretty specific instructions.”
“Well, I figured you might be tired of waiting on your neighbor to get a clue,” Scott said with a little smirk.
She raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Come on, let me in, Del. I’ve got nothing to do and you’re obviously a little…”
“A little what?” Della demanded.
“Horny?”
She huffed. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
He sighed and shrugged. “Come on, now, Della, everyone knows you’re hard up right now.”
Her left eyebrow started twitching. She pressed two fingers to it and took a deep breath to calm herself. “I tell you what, Scotty. You’re going to take yourself off my front porch, and I’m going to shut this door. We’re going to forget we had this conversation, you insensitive little prick.”
“Christ, I’m sorry. You’ve never taken me seriously. I figured I’d come at you from a different angle.” Then he added quietly, “Della, I really like you.”
Riley wiggled past her and bounded off the porch around the same time she caught sight of Jonah. She glanced once more at Scott before she offered the Navy man a smile that was entirely sincere. “Hey there, Sailor. You ready to watch that movie?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jonah nodded his head as he came up onto the porch with an easy, confident stride and without pause said, “Thanks for the invite.”
Relieved that he’d gone along without a single second of awkward hesitation, she stepped back and said nothing as he slid past Scott with a little wave and disappeared into her house. Riley trotted in after him. By the time she’d returned her attention to Scott, he’d gone from trying to look sincere to glaring.
“I think we’re done here, Scotty.”
“Just Scott. Stop calling me Scotty like I’m still twelve years old, for fuck’s sake.”
“I used to baby sit you,” Della returned evenly. “You’re just…always going to be Scotty to me. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize this was…” She waved a hand in defeat. “People said some things, but I thought it was just a little crush that you’d get over.”
“I think I deserve a chance to change your mind,” he said stubbornly.
“I think that you’re entirely concerned with your own feelings and have absolutely no regard for the fact that I’m not interested in you that way,” Della said quietly. “You can’t force someone to want you back. That’s not how the world works. I’m sorry that I didn’t realize what this was from the very beginning. If you felt like I encouraged you, then I can only apologize for that.” She stepped back so she could close the door. “I have a guest…so…”
Scott’s jaw clenched, and he looked away from her. “Right. A guest. Good night, Del.”
She nodded and bit down on her bottom lip as she watched him walk away. “Fuck.” Shutting the door, she leaned on it and closed her eyes.
“Good thing I’m not the kind of man to say ‘I told you so,’” Jonah said dryly from his place just down the hall from the front door.
She was both amused and kind of horrified he’d stuck around to listen to the conversation. “Yeah, good thing. I think I’d probably pick a fight with you if you were.”
Jonah laughed. “I’d probably let you win.”
“You keep telling yourself you’d have to let me.” Della waved her finger at him. “I’m pretty badass myself.”
“Sure, sure.” He nodded his agreement.
She huffed and crossed her arms in mock defense. “What did you want anyways?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “There are so many inappropriate ways to answer that question that it boggles my mind.” Jonah grinned. “But I actually came over to tell you that the gate leading into your backyard was open. I checked the pool to make sure none of the neighborhood kids had snuck in. I went ahead and locked it.”
“Thanks,” Della said with a frown. “I haven’t actually used that gate in days.”
Jonah hummed under his breath. “Let me check out the backyard a little more thoroughly then. I only checked to make sure the pool was empty.” He walked down the hall and entered the kitchen, Riley attentive on his heel. “But this guy isn’t all that interested in the backyard and they usually have good instincts for that kind of thing.”
“Did you want me to turn on the flood lights?” Della asked as she approached the back door with him.
“Yeah, but stay in the house.” He stared at her until she nodded her agreement.
It was a little too alpha male for her tastes, but what surprised her most was that his instruction hadn’t particularly pissed her off. She stood where she was until he returned. Maybe it was because he was so pretty, she thought a little meanly as he shut and locked the door.
“Well?”
“You’ve got two large ground-level windows.”
“Yeah, my bedroom is downstairs in the half-basement.” She waved toward the door that led downstairs. “I’ve lived there since I moved in and didn’t feel like moving when Granddad died. I’m in the process of redecorating the rest of the house anyways.”
“I noticed the bed,” Jonah said bluntly. “Looks like someone was standing out there looking in your windows.”
“Someone,” Della repeated. “You mean Scott, right?”
“I didn’t see him,” he admitted. “But he parked across the street from us instead of in your driveway or even in front of your house, and your gate wasn’t open after the lawn guy left this afternoon.”
“I saw you two chatting,” Della admitted.
Jonah shrugged. “I have some plans for landscaping.” He paused. “Well, I have some ideas for landscaping. I like what he’s done with your yard, and I wanted to hire him to do some planting for me.” He sighed. “I heard what he said.”
“About what?” Della asked and prayed like hell he hadn’t heard the entire conversation. She wondered briefly how long it would take her to delete all the posts she’d made about her hot neighbor to Facebook and Twitter. The thought was rather daunting actually.
“He said you were hard up,” Jonah said with a little laugh. “If he said anything worse before that then I feel I must apologize on behalf of my entire sex.”
Her face heat up, and she averted her gaze. “Right. He was kind of an asshole.”
“Granted, but he can’t honestly think that bullshit. Women…well, beautiful women like you are only alone because they choose to be.” He leaned against the counter. “I don’t know any straight, single men that would say no to whatever you wanted if it meant he got to get his hands on you. Half the guys at the Navy Yard have tried to get an invite to my house because Morgan spread it around that I had, in his words, a ‘fine ass neighbor.’”
“Is that why you had another barbeque?” Della asked with a laugh.
Jonah grinned. “I was bribed into it. They supplied everything and were exceedingly disappointed that you weren’t out in your pool in a barely-there bikini.”
“Were you disappointed?”
“There are two ways to answer that question,” Jonah murmured. “I cou
ld tell you that I always want to see you in that tiny bikini. But I could also tell you that I was relieved that none of those randy bastards got to ogle you from my deck like they had planned.”
“Both are great answers,” Della allowed. She glanced at her laptop when it dinged.
Jonah hummed under his breath and reached out slowly as if he was giving her time to move out of his reach before he cupped one big hand against her hip and reeled her in. She sucked in a deep breath as his free hand slid down her side and cupped her ass just as he lowered his head and took her mouth.
Not one to let an opportunity go unexplored, she slid her arms around his neck and groaned against his lips as his tongue dipped into her mouth. The kiss went hot and fierce in seconds, and Della nodded her eager agreement when he cupped her ass with both hands and picked her up.
Jonah set her on the kitchen island and let his mouth trail along her jaw line. “You really do it for me,” he whispered before sucking gently at her skin. He settled between her legs and pulled their bodies flush. “I wouldn’t want you to believe otherwise.”
“What makes you think…” She trailed off with a soft gasp as his teeth grazed her collarbone. He pushed the strap of her tank top down her arm. “…that I’m worried about that?”
Jonah laughed softly. “Did you know that my friend Morgan has been hooking up with your sister and her husband?”
Della stiffened briefly and reared back a little. “What?”
He planted his hands on either side of her body and stared at her, his expression free of any emotion she could discern. “Apparently, you and half the women you know think I’m…what was that…oh, yes, cock-stingy. I have to say that I was a little at a loss as I’ve never ever been anything but generous with my past sex partners.”
“I…hmm… I mean…” She huffed and turned her head so she didn’t have to look at his stupid, pretty face. “Did you read my Facebook timeline?”
