“If you don’t want to live together, I need these.”
“What does dirty laundry have to do with living together? Since when was that even a possibility?”
“Instinct is pushing me to abduct you. This will ease it for a few days. When your scent fades, I’ll come back for more.”
“Abduction? What the fuck?” I followed him out of the apartment and toward the stairwell. “You willnotcome back for more. You can’t just barge in and rub your ridiculous abs over all my stuff and steal my dirty underwear, Mav!”
One of my neighbors reached the top of the stairs. His eyebrows were raised. He’d obviously heard what I just yelled.
Shit.
When he saw me and my red eyes, the blood drained from his face.
Or maybe that was when he saw Maverick.
Anyone with common sense would be afraid of an Alpha werewolf, regardless of how much laundry he stole.
Maverick took the stairs three at a time. I had to tap into my vampire speed to keep up with his stupidly long legs, and barely managed to get between him and the door of an oversized cherry-red SUV that smelled like him.
I nearly slipped on ice, and my bare feet were freezing along with the rest of me, but the risk was worth it.
“Wait,” I said, holding up a finger.
“I’ll bring them back clean and folded. You won’t have to do any laundry, Bloom. This is a win for both of us.”
“That’s—” I cut myself off.
Actually, it was a pretty good deal. Laundry was my arch nemesis.
“Fine. It’s fine. But I’m keeping the underwear. Being soulmates doesn’t mean anything, remember?”
“You’ve got one minute.”
Leaning heavily on my vampire speed, I managed to get every single pair of my underwear out of the basket before he opened the back door of his SUV and dropped the laundry basket on the seat.
When I leaned into the vehicle to double check, he grabbed me by the waist and spun me away from it, shutting the door before he set me on my feet.
“Damn you,” I grumbled, pushing his arm away from me even though having it around my waist made me feel amazing.
“The bites are finally healing,” he said, as he opened the driver’s side door and ducked inside, closing his door too. “Next week, you can forgo the straw and take it from the source.” He tapped the side of his throat.
“We’re not mates, Maverick. I’m not biting you, and I’m sure as hell not biting your throat. No one does that.”
“Not no one.”
“Yes, no one.” I shoved the thongs in my hands into the pocket of my hoodie so I didn’t look like a crazy person when I walked back up to my apartment. “We’re supposed to be going backto our normal lives, remember? You said that us being fated doesn’t mean anything.”
“I said we technicallycouldgo back to normal, and that it doesn’tnecessarilymean anything. I never said I was going to let you go.”
My lips parted.
Maverick lifted a thong he must’ve snuck out of the clothes pile to his nose, and inhaled deeply. “Did I mention that I fucking love cherries?”
My face flushed. “I swear to god, Maverick, if you even think about jerking off?—”
“Jerking off is the very least of the depraved things I could do with these.” He dragged his tongue over the center of them, winked at me, then drove away.
“Fuck you!” I yelled after him, the response slightly delayed by the intense heat between my thighs.
