The Promise (Neighbor from Hell, #10)(44)

“You’re such a good man, Mr. Bradford,” Mrs. MacArthur said with a warm smile as she put the phone down.

“He really is,” Joey said, nodding solemnly with a watery smile that had him narrowing his eyes on her.

“Have a good weekend, Mrs. MacArthur,” Reed said, following Joey to the front doors.

“What happened when you tried to start it?” he asked, placing his hand against the small of her back as he led her over to his truck, somehow resisting the urge to slide his hand down and cup her ass, something that he’d been thinking about doing all day.

“Nothing. It didn’t start. Nothing came on,” Joey said with a small sigh.

Nodding, he opened the passenger side door and gestured for her to get in. “Sounds like it’s the battery. I’ll take you home and grab some jumper cables.”

“It was working fine this morning,” Joey said with an adorable frown as she reluctantly climbed inside his truck.

“It’s probably nothing,” Reed said, wanting to reassure her so that she didn’t spend the rest of the night worrying, especially since he already knew what was wrong with her car.

“Are you sure? Maybe I should call a tow truck,” she said, worrying her bottom lip.

“I’m sure,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said, giving him a grateful smile.

“You’re welcome,” Reed said as he closed her door and headed around the truck. By the time he’d climbed in, she was already lost in a book on Pompeii and completely fucking oblivious to the world around her.

She didn’t look up from her book when he pulled out of the parking lot, when he took the back roads, or when he pulled onto the old dirt road that cut through his woods that he hadn’t used in years. As he drove down the old road that he’d put to good use back when he was in high school, he glanced over to find Joey still lost in her own little world, completely oblivious to the fact that he was about to-

“So, you stole the spark plugs out of my car and disconnected the battery,” she said, making him chuckle as he carefully pulled the truck out of the woods and onto the grassy banks of the lake his family had lived on for more than a hundred and fifty years.

“Yes, I did,” he said, barely finished putting the truck into park when she climbed onto his lap.

“And why would you do that?” she asked as she settled on his lap, making sure that her skirt was out of the way.

“It was the only way that I could get you alone,” he said, cupping her hips so that he could run his hands over that generous ass that he’d been thinking about all day.

“And why would you want to get me alone at Base Camp?” she asked, making him wince at the moronic name that they used to call this place when they’d planned on bringing a girl here to-

“Tell me that Jackson didn’t tell you why we called it that,” he said with a wince, deeply disturbed by the idea of Joey, twelve and too fucking curious for her own good, finding out why they used to beg to borrow a pickup truck every weekend.

“I figured it out,” she said with a sexy little smile that had him giving her ass another squeeze as she reached up and slowly began to unbutton her blouse, revealing an incredibly sexy black bra edged in lace.

“And how did you do that?” Reed asked, licking his lips hungrily as he pushed her shirt open so that he could cup her breast.

“By hiding in the back of his truck,” Joey said as he ran his fingertips along the edge of the lace over one large breast as his other hand gave her bottom another squeeze.

“And why did you do that?” he asked as he ran his fingers along the edge of her other breast.

“Because I overheard him promising Kelly Stevens that she’d see stars,” she said, making his lips twitch as he hooked his fingertips behind the lace trimmed cup and pulled it down until the large pink nipple was freed.

“And you wanted to see the stars,” he guessed as he traced the large nipple that had his cock trying to push its way free.

“I really did,” she readily agreed.

“What happened?” Reed asked as he trailed his fingertips over to her other breast and pulled her bra down.

“I learned what it means to strike out,” she said with a pitying shake of her head and a sigh as he cupped her breasts.

“Poor bastard,” he said, chuckling as he leaned in so that he could brush his lips against hers.

“That’s what I thought until he chased me up a tree,” she said as she took off her blouse and dropped it on the floor.

Lips twitching, he asked, “How long did you stay in the tree?”

“Until I realized that it was covered in poison sumac,” she said with a sad shake of her head before adding, “It was my first and only experience parking.”

“No one ever took you parking, Joey?” he asked, having a hard time imagining any guy being able to resist the urge to pull over and-

“I was twelve,” she reminded him with an amused twist of her lips as she reached back and unhooked her bra. “Besides, once the hives went away I did a little research on the matter.”

“I’m sure you did,” he said dryly.

“Mmmhmm, you’d be surprised what you can learn when you’re hiding under the bleachers,” she said as he slid her bra down her arms.