Forbidden Neighbor: A Contemporary Romance Boxset (Forbidden Saga Book 2)

by Summer Brooks

  I wonder if she was feeling guilty in the moment, thinking about our phone sex last night.

  But for me, one look at her and I would forget all about the potential consequences. I would forget about how to distinguish between right or wrong. That meant disaster, and I could already feel it.

  She and I together could cook up a storm and I wouldn't even want to stop it, even to keep it from devastating those around us.

  Matthew waved his arm at me, asking me to come say hi, just when I was about to turn around and avoid the encounter.

  "Son," he patted my back when I reluctantly made my way over to them. "Say your goodbyes. I'm sure you two will miss each other."

  Freya smirked, shrugged a shoulder and offered a hug.

  The hug ended within half a second and my gaze flicked to Jaz immediately after that. She looked away just as quickly.

  I helped load Freya’s suitcases in the SUV and waved her goodbye with the rest of her family.

  Ruby cleared her throat. Her cheeks were red, and I imagined that she was fighting the urge to shed a tear.

  Regardless of all the drama within this family, it always became clear to me that they cared for one another deeply. Especially, Jaz and Freya.

  Family meant everything to those two, just like it did to me.

  I understood the bond between siblings all too well.

  After I lost my older brother, who died battling fire in Chicago four years ago, the sibling bond started to make that much more sense to me. I didn't want to take it for granted anymore, because his death showed me that everything can be gone in an instant.

  It was the reason my sister Amy and I were so close now. We wanted to make the most of the time we had together. We appreciated each other's presence, and knew we were lucky to have it.

  Thankfully, Jaz hadn't gone through something like that, but she was equally close to Freya. Maybe more.

  The last thing I wanted was to end up creating a rift between them, the kind of rift that would leave a permanent scar in their relationship, even if it could ever be healed.

  Matthew threw his arm around me. "I think you should come by the store today."

  "For?" Jaz cut in, then moved her gaze to the ground.

  "Because," he began. "This young man is going to join us as a manager."

  "Oh, I haven't...," I shook my head. "I haven't really made a decision yet."

  "I know what you'll decide. Besides, I think coming by the store will help you decide."

  I wasn't sure why I was making excuses because I knew I was going to say yes to the incredible opportunity that Matthew was offering to me.

  "Sure," I said, and noticed a frown on Jaz's face.

  It was adorable, but also worrisome.

  "You have a shift today?" Ruby asked her and she nodded. "Good. At least you're working hard."

  The word "at least" was likely to have pierced through her heart. I secretly wished that Ruby would stop being so hard on Jaz.

  Freya had told me on multiple occasions that Ruby considered Jasmine's job at the store to not be respectable enough. She wanted Jaz to have a career like Freya did. Sometimes, it was obvious she wanted Jaz to look more like her older sister, too.

  It wasn't fair to her, in my opinion — to be constantly compared to someone else.

  Besides, I already knew Jaz to be an incredible woman even before I found myself secretly fantasizing about her.

  I wanted to tell her that she was one of a kind, so gorgeous, and so damn smart.

  Well, there were so many things that I wanted to tell her and do to her. I just hoped that those wishes wouldn't just remain buried in my heart forever.

  Matthew and I drove to Green Apple together. It was absolutely incredible how persistent the man could be. During the ten minute drive to the store, he kept telling me the reasons why he thought it would be a perfect "side job" for me.

  "The job of a grocery store manager isn't all that different from that of a fire lieutenant" was one of his reasons.

  First, I thought to laugh and call him out on his obvious joke.

  Turns out, he wasn't joking.

  The more he explained his point, the more I understood where that statement was coming from.

  "You're going to help me recruit staff, ensure that the safety policies are implemented. You know, all of those kinds of things."

  "Hey Matthew, can I ask you a question?"

  He punched the side of my arm after parallel parking the car outside the store.

  "Sure, boy."

  "Why me?"

  "Why? Because you're mature and I trust you."

  "Why not Jasmine?"

  He pondered over my question, rubbing his chin and staring inside the store through the glass door. He was looking at his daughter scanning a bunch of items at checkout.

  "Jaz isn't going to stay here long. She's going to move on to something else. This is just a... filler job for her. I know that eventually she'll want to follow in her sister's footsteps and move to the city. The girl is too smart to waste away her life in a small town like Hinsdale."

  Even though, he was technically speaking to me, it appeared as if he was saying those things to himself. He was trying to make them sound true to him.

  "And like I said, if it's not my own flesh and blood, then it's you. I trust you."

  The word "trust" was haunting me like no other word had before.

  I didn't want Matthew to trust me. I almost felt guilty that he did.

  I was grateful that my breakup with Freya hadn't soured anything in our old relationship.

  It was exactly the way it was in the beginning -- fun and easy. But what would happen if he found out that I was insanely attracted to his younger daughter? The one who was ten years younger than me?

  "Come on, let's go in."

  Jaz passed each of us a hesitant smile when we entered. Matthew took me straight to his office to talk things over. He began to explain to me all the tasks that I would be responsible for, should I agree to take the position.

  I kept turning around every chance I got, just so I could catch a peek of her.

  I was starting to weird myself out.

  I recognized obsession when I felt it.

  7

  Jasmine

  There had been many instances when my father had pissed me off to the point where I wanted to never see his face again.

  Today was one of those times, though I knew that this wasn't exactly his fault.

  Having Blake work at the store would make it that much harder for me to resist him.

  To get him out of my head for good.

  And much harder to pretend like last night never happened.

  My cheeks flushed and the air squeezed out of my lungs when I remembered it.

  The way his voice sounded over the phone, the way he was commanding me to do things that he knew I was already dying to do.

  There was so much desperation in his voice that I was soaking wet before I even got to the good part.

  I noticed my female colleagues checking him out when he entered the store. It was crazy -- the way he was able to turn heads like that.

  I wondered what it must feel like to be the center of attention everywhere you went.

  I wouldn't be able to handle that kind of attention or popularity, not that there was a chance that I might ever experience that problem.

  Although, I probably would if these drooling faces were to find out that Blake and I were having a... thing.

  "I'm out of here," Dad announced, adjusting his pants over his waist. I always hated when he did that. "Blake here wants to buy a few things. Take good care of him. He's going to be the new store manager."

  I heard gasps from behind me and saw tilted heads.

  Well, fuck.

  "Okay," I shrugged slightly, pretending to arrange the magazines in the checkout aisle.

  The store was fairly empty right now because it was still early in the morning. It's why I liked working during the early hours on weeken
ds. If I was going to drag myself out of bed on a Saturday, I may as well make use of the fact that other people would still be curled under their blankets and not coming out to grocery shop at such a ridiculous hour.

  Blake smiled though tight lips and I couldn't get myself to raise my eyes until he pulled out a cart and walked away.

  "Breakfast and cereal needs rearranging," my supervisor, Emelia, said, snatching a magazine from my grasp. "This section doesn't."

  "I'll get right to it."

  I stood outside the aisle that I was supposed to take care of, then turned around to check if Emelia would notice that I’d taken a detour.

  I wanted to cross paths with Blake and I'd been keeping tabs on where he was in the store.

  So, I sneaked into the frozen foods section, pretending to do my own thing when I saw him.

  My plan was to keep walking after making a short, indifferent eye contact with him.

  Of course, in my gut, I knew that wouldn't work out so well.

  Blake stopped in his tracks when he saw me, his gaze fixed on me like he was undressing me with his eyes after the initial weird moment passed.

  I continued walking past him till his fingers curled around my wrist and he pulled me closer.

  Our eyes met and it was the first time that I'd been so close to him, in a way that wasn't strictly friendly.

  It was strange. It was intoxicating to watch the lust appear on his face. It told me everything I needed to know.

  He wanted me.

  I wanted him.

  Maybe it was time for me to lose my virginity, after all.

  I shook my head when that thought crossed my mind. No, not with my sister's ex. No, no, no.

  But Blake was still lost in his thoughts.

  "Meet me someplace private," he whispered.

  I twisted my hand and stepped away. I didn't respond, not sure what he was expecting me to say.

  A yes, of course, anything you desire? He wasn't going to get that. Not so easily.

  Surely, I still had some kind of self-control left in me, right?

  "No," I said, my voice low and cautious. I speed-walked toward the aisle that I promised my boss I would work on.

  I swallowed, resting my back against the very cereal boxes that I was supposed to arrange.

  "Blake Henderson," I mumbled to myself. "You're driving me mad."

  Coming home after a work shift never felt so lonely. When I unlocked the main door to my house and pushed it open, my first instinct was to yell my sister's name.

  She used to always get home around the same time. We coordinated our schedules that way. My heart sank when I remembered that I was by myself. The sinking feeling, that pit in my stomach, became heavier when I strolled around in the small house. At least, it had seemed small when Freya and I lived here together, always fighting over who was taking up too much space. Now, it just seemed way too big for me to live in all alone.

  There were three bedrooms, and only one of them was occupied -- mine.

  I plopped myself on the couch, my lips tipping downward as I aimlessly surfed through channels on the television.

  I wasn't paying attention to anything on the screen, though. My mind was on my sister and how I was ever going to cope with not having her here. I should be happy for her, finally getting out of the town that she felt was tying her down and cramping her style all this time.

  But without her around, I was going to have to start fending for myself, and if I was being honest with myself, that was a scary prospect. Freya had been looking out for me practically since birth. Of course, I don't remember being a baby, but for all I knew, Freya was the reason I was even alive. I couldn’t imagine my mother really doing anything for me beyond the minimum amount of care that wouldn't get her thrown in jail for neglect.

  I remembered the first time that I could recall my mother being horrible to me. I was three years old and I thought I was helping her by taking it upon myself to fold a pile of laundry that was sitting in a basket by the dryer. Of course, being three, I didn't do a very good job at folding. I had almost made it to the bottom of the basket, gleefully doing my domestic duty, toddler-style, and piling my handiwork on the floor around me where I sat. When my mother came in and saw what I had done, instead of praising me, she screamed at the top of her lungs, telling me I had ruined all the laundry by putting it on the dirty floor, and now she had to wash everything all over again.

  Of course, I burst into tears, and I remembered Freya coming to my rescue. She scooped me up off the floor and brought me to her room where she brushed my hair and told me stories to make me laugh. My mother asked her why she was always picking me up like that, and told her that she was going to spoil me if she kept doing it, but Freya didn't care.

  Then, when we got a little older and were both in school, my mother would never let me wear my hair the way I wanted - pulled back in a straight pony tail. She insisted that I wear my hair down every day, even though I hated it and it always got tangled and got in my face. My mom told me that my ears were too big and there was no way that I was leaving the house with a ponytail that showed off my ugly ears. Nobody else had ever told me my ears were too big, nobody was making fun of me at school or anything like that. It was just her.

  When I told Freya that our mom wouldn't let me wear ponytails, we developed a routine where after we were out of the house and on our way to the bus stop, Freya was tasked with walking me to my own stop every morning. She would put my hair up in a high ponytail for me, as long as I promised to let it down before I got home so Mom wouldn't know.

  Freya always had my back. I probably wouldn’t have even survived my childhood without her. But now, I was no longer a child, and I should have known that I wouldn't have her around forever to fight my fights for me. The second she left me alone, I had already started to make shitty decisions. Why was I kidding myself that I could ever make it without her? Why was I kidding myself that I could make it with her ex-boyfriend?

  Freya was literally all I had when it came to family. My parents, especially my mother, would have likely disowned me entirely by now if I was their only kid and they didn't have her too. They knew that they had to be nice to me or Freya would probably cut them off. At the very least, she would never stand for it.

  Yet, here I was going behind her back with the man that was hers. No, I never stole him from her, but I knew better than to think she would be happy about this. Who would be? After all she had done for me, the least I could do was stop this nonsense with Blake - for her sake. She had done too much for me in my life for me to ever lie to her about anything.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I had to tell Blake to never speak to me again. I had to. There was no other way to keep my relationship with my sister, and she was the most important to me.

  Yet, whenever I thought about actually calling Blake and telling him that we had to stop this, I felt so much resistance. I felt something for Blake, and it was more than just lust. Any warm-blooded woman could look at him and see he was handsome, and I had always acknowledged that much, ever since I met him. My attraction to him now wasn't just about his looks, or his smile, or his muscles. It was about that spark that I had seen in him for the first time that night when we walked in the park. I had seen him for the first time for the man that he truly was, and it was a beautiful thing. I couldn't easily just tell him that I didn't want to walk to him anymore. There was a deep attraction growing, and denying it would be like denying my own need for food and drink in order to live.

  If he was nothing but a pretty face, this would be easy. But he wasn't just that, and this wasn't going to be easy.

  The doorbell rang, snapping me out of my reverie, and I nearly jumped out of my seat. It couldn't be my parents. They wouldn't bother to knock.

  Could it be Blake?

  "Yes?" I yelled.

  "It's us!" I heard Mom's voice. "I can't find my damn keys. Can you open the door, already?"

  I groaned and twisted the doorknob, then moved out of my w
ay as my grumpy mother continued to sort through her purse.

  "How was your day at the store?" Dad asked.

  I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall. "Fine. What are you guys doing here?"

  "We thought you'd be lonely," Mom turned around, looking like I'd said something offensive.

  "And you thought to be nice to me?" I raised a brow. "How... unusual."

  "I told you, didn't I, Matthew?" She ranted. "We can never catch a break from their offensive tone."

  I rolled my eyes and sat on the floor.

  "I'm fine. Thanks for worrying about me and coming by. I actually have plans tonight."

  "You have plans?" Dad laughed, putting his feet up on the coffee table. "Now that is unusual."

  I couldn't argue with that.

  I wasn't the kind to ever have plans, not even on a Saturday. My favorite thing to do used to be hanging out with my sister, bitching about our mother, and feeling sorry for our father. But that wasn't an option anymore.

  And as lonely as I was feeling, I still preferred that over spending the remaining evening with my parents.

  Especially today.

  My mind was a mess.

  My heart was an even bigger mess.

  Don't even get me started on my lady parts.

  My body was aching for Blake. I would get breathless just remembering every second that I spent talking to him, or even being near him.

  I needed to be alone. I could use the time to think things through.

  My phone buzzed just when Dad stopped laughing, and he fixed his attention on the salami sandwiches that Mom was preparing in the kitchen.

  Blake: Meet me at M.K. Residency in fifteen minutes. I'll text you the room number.

  My eyes widened and I gasped.

  Neither of them could see my phone or the text that had just appeared over the screen, and yet I quickly slid the phone into my pocket out of sheer nervousness.

  "Who was that?" Mom asked.

  "Eva," I blurted out.

  She didn't question it further and I was happy that my best friend's name had come in handy.