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“We’ll see about that,” Alex calls, bounding after me.
I squeal as he hauls ass, his long legs quickly catching up to me, and as I hit the stairs, I grip the railing and fling myself down two at a time, positive I’m about to fall. Something flashes out the corner of my eyes, and I gape, realizing Alex just launched his hamper right over the edge of the staircase. With a slack jaw, I watch as he grips the railing and launches his body right over the side. Only, unlike his hamper that fell the full three floors, Alex’s big body drops down only one flight of stairs, easily putting himself in the lead.
Fucker.
Hell, he’s given himself enough time to stop and glance back at me with a wicked grin. “Gonna have to be faster than that, Mace,” he teases, and with that, he takes off like a bat out of hell.
A thrill shoots through me at the way he calls me Mace, but I don’t get a chance to linger on it as I fly down the stairs after him. Though I don’t know why I’m bothering, it’s clear I can’t win this one. But playing along? Shit, I don’t want to miss this for the world.
Hitting the basement floor, I sail right through to the laundry room to find Alex hovering over one of the washers, in the middle of dumping his clothes in, not bothering to separate the colors, but I’m not one to talk. I’ve never separated the colors, and so far, I’ve lived to tell the tale. “Shit, where have you been?” Alex smirks, making a show of glancing at his watchless wrist. “Stop for a break along the way, did ya?”
I blow out a breath, hardly able to talk as I move in beside him to the second washer, hating how out of breath I am while Mr. Parkour beside me looks as though those acrobatics were nothing but a Sunday morning stroll to him. “I underestimated you,” I say with a grin, a giddiness creeping through my veins. “But don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”
Alex outright laughs, and the sound has something trembling inside my chest. “Fuck, I should have run into you ages ago,” he says, a boyish grin pulling at his lips as he watches me out the corner of his eye, making my cheeks flush again. “What do you do, Mace?”
“I’m a tattoo artist,” I tell him as I pull all of my clothes out of the hamper and dump them into the washer.
“No shit,” he says, reaching over the washer to adjust the cycle settings before dumping way too much detergent in. “I’ve always thought about getting a tattoo but could never figure out what to get.”
I smile. I must hear that comment at least a million times a day. My gaze drops to his chest and abs, my mind already spinning with endless designs, and damn, each and every one of them would look amazing on him. “Hmmm, all the things I could do to you.”
Alex arches a brow, and my eyes bug out of my head, realizing how that came across. “Oh. Shit. No, I didn’t mean like that,” I rush out. “I meant tattoos, as in all the ink I could give you. Crap. That sounded bad. It’s just, you’re like the perfect blank canvas, and now I’m rambling, so please feel free to shut me up any minute now.”
“No, no,” he laughs. “By all means, keep going. Don’t let me stop you. This is the best entertainment I’ve ever had.”
I roll my eyes, trying to recover as I finish filling my washer, and just as Alex had done, I set my wash cycle before taking my special detergent and pouring in the perfect amount. “You need to put on a shirt,” I tell him. “You’re turning me into a frazzled mess, and that says a lot for a girl who spends her days hunched over half-naked people.”
“You know what?” Alex murmurs. “I might just walk around like this all the time now.”
Just great.
Leaving the hampers in the laundry room, Alex and I make our way back to the stairs. “So, what do you do?” I ask, recovering from my earlier rambling as we prove that we can act like adults on the stairs.
“Military,” he says, not offering much more, and considering it’s absolutely none of my business, I don’t pry. He glances toward me as we pass the first floor and head to the second. “How come I haven’t seen you around?”
I scoff. “Because when a hot guy moves into the building, I make it a general rule to avoid him like the plague.”
His dark eyes dance with laughter. “Why?”
“Because I will end up sleeping with you and then it’s awkward because you’ll get attached and then when we run into each other in the hallway, it’s going be that weirdoh shit, we’ve seen each other naked and I know exactly how you tastething, and I don’t want that, especially at home. And in case you haven’t noticed, you live directly across from me.”
“Ahh, so you think just because you’re hot, that automatically means I’m going to fuck you.”
I grin. “You’re telling me if I asked you to take me right here on the stairs, you’d say no?”
“Hell no, Mace,” he says, almost offended by the suggestion. “You wanna bend over right now? I’ll fuck you until you cry. But you should be warned, I don’t play gently.”
Good God.
This man is going to get me in trouble.
We pass the second floor and hit the third, walking down our hallway toward our apartments. “I’m taking you out on Saturday night,” he tells me.
“Like hell you are,” I tell him. “Did you not hear my whole explanation about why I don’t get involved with guys I live near, or do I need to start over?”
“Nah, I heard you, Mace. I just think it’s bullshit,” he says as we reach our doors. He opens his, hovering in the doorway as I shove my key into my lock and give it a firm twist, the mechanism being a little bitch as usual. “I’ll pick you up at eight, and this time, make sure you’re wearing a bra. If I have to look at you all night with those pretty nipples peeking through your tank, it’s going to fucking kill me.”
My gaze drops to my chest, and I gasp, my eyes widening in horror, realizing that my tits are on full display through this flimsy tank. Hell, it’s even a little see-through, and my nipples . . . well, shit. They’re more than happy to see him.
