Fire & Brimstone

But, she wasn’t biting back a smile now.

Right now she looked like she was seconds away from screaming or crying. Hadn’t he fixed her, he wondered with a frown, because he was pretty sure that he’d just fixed her. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t help but wonder why she wasn’t cooking him a home cooked dinner or quitting and promising never to bother him again as a thank you. Some groveling and worshiping him as her personal savior wouldn’t go amiss either.

“Get out!” he snapped as he tossed the application that he was holding on his desk, barely aware that he’d startled the woman that he was supposed to be interviewing and not really caring. After he’d almost seriously fucked up everything the other night, the last thing that he wanted to do was to see her vulnerable like this.

“Fine,” Rebecca said, sighing heavily as she reluctantly sat up, grabbed a badly abused grocery bag and headed for the door, all without arguing with him or trying to screw with his head.

He should just let her walk out the door and go pout somewhere else. He should, but something about the way that she’d given in so easily didn’t sit well with him. Calling himself a fucking idiot, he reached out and placed his hand on her arm to stop her.

“What’s going on?” he asked more softly as he forced himself to ignore how good it felt to run his fingertips over her baby soft skin.

“Nothing. It’s fine,” she said, giving him a forced smile that told him everything that he needed to know.

His normally chipper and annoying tenant/employee was anything but fine, because she was usually better at bullshiting him than this. Keeping his eyes on her, he reached back and threw the door closed.

“Hey! Wait!” someone cried as the door slammed shut.

Rebecca’s fake smile shifted to a frown. “Umm, who was that?” she asked, gesturing towards the door.

“Who was who?” he said, wondering what she was talking about.

This time when she smiled, it was real, beautiful and made him feel like an idiot, because he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. “The woman that was with you,” she explained, nervously chewing on her bottom lip as he stood there, trying to make sense out of what she was saying.

Frowning, he glanced back over his shoulder at the door and shrugged. He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about and really didn’t have time to play any games with her today.

“You going to tell me what’s going on or do I have to go upstairs and ask the other pain in the ass what’s going on?” he asked, hoping like hell that she didn’t make him go upstairs and talk to Melanie, especially after he’d been forced to listen to Aidan, his normally sane brother, bitch up a storm about her last night.

Who knew that his brother was capable of getting that angry? He’d barely had a chance to tell his brother to fuck off so that he could hang up on the whinny little bastard.

“It’s nothing,” Rebecca said, shaking her head as she stepped away from him and headed for the door. “Don’t worry about it.”

He should just let her go, but…

Fucking hell!

He was truly a fucking moron, he decided as he reached back and pushed the door shut before she could walk out. When she opened her mouth, no doubt to continue bullshiting him, he decided that he’d had enough bullshit to last a lifetime and snatched the bag away from her.

“Hey!” the little pain in the ass said in indignation as she tried to take the bag back, but he just ignored her, opened the bag and-

“Carrots and chocolate?” he said, completely at a loss, which wasn’t exactly something new when it came to her.

“Yes!” she hissed as she took back her bag. “It’s my dinner tonight,” she snapped defensively as she pushed past him, threw the door open and stormed out of the room, leaving him standing there, hating himself because he knew that there was no way that he was going to be able to let her walk away like this.

Sighing, and wishing that she didn’t have this effect on him, he went after her, forced to glare at some woman standing in the hallway until she moved out of his way. Once she’d moved, and God, people were so fucking rude, he was jogging to catch up with the little demon. He caught up to her before she could punch in the final number of her security code.

“Seriously?” she demanded on a tired sigh when he threw her over his shoulder and brought her back to his office, thankful that the inconsiderate woman loitering in the hallway jumped out of his way this time.

“Wouldn’t have to do this if you’d stopped fucking with my head and just told me what was going on,” he pointed out as he deposited her back on his couch.

“It’s none of your business,” she said, grabbing the bag of baby carrots and ripped it open with a pathetic little sigh.

“What’s going on?” he asked, not bothering to argue with her, because she was right. This wasn’t his business, but for some seriously fucked up reason he kept trying to make it his business even when he knew that it was time to step away.

“Rebecca?” he said, reminding her that he didn’t have all day as he was forced to snatch the carrot out of her hand when she took a bite and immediately gagged, apparently forgetting that she had a sensitive gag reflex and that raw vegetables were not her friend.

“God, that’s gross,” she said, reaching desperately for the bag and grabbed a candy bar to chase the taste of carrot away.

“Then why are you eating it?” he asked, tossing the carrot aside.

She groaned pathetically as she took a bite of chocolate and let her shoulders drop in defeat. “It’s the only thing that I can eat,” she mumbled, sounding crushed as she took another bite of chocolate.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, slightly confused because according to the internet there was still a lot of choices out there for her.

“I couldn’t find anything,” she admitted on a mumble as she placed another piece of chocolate in her mouth and sighed dejectedly.

Reaching over, he helped himself to a piece of her chocolate. “Did you ask for help?” he asked, wondering why she’d had so much trouble when there were plenty of gluten free options available now.

“They told me that I would have to check the packages,” she said with a shrug.

“Why didn’t you buy some fruit at least?” he asked, already knowing that fruit and vegetables were completely safe for her.