Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
bloom
We sat on the couch with our pasta after we put the groceries away together, since we were allergic to eating at the table. Comfortable chairs and delicious food together made life better. We usually watched Is It Cake reruns while we ate. We were basically cake connoisseurs at that point.
“So, do you want me to hide when he shows up, or meet him?” Harper checked, twirling her fork in her garlicky pasta.
She was curled up in a ball in the corner of the couch, so I had my legs sprawled over the cushion between us.
Her pasta was balanced precariously on her knees.
“I could do the threatening best friend thing.”
“My family already threatened to kill him, so I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“Whimsy?”
“And my mom,” I confirmed.
Harper sighed. “I wish I’d seen that.”
“It was terrible.”
“I’m sure.” She patted my leg, not apologetic at all.
“I’ll meet him in the hallway to end it quickly, so you probably won’t need to meet him. If you do, just act normal. If he finds out you’re a vampire now…”
“He can’t,” she agreed, her humor fading.
She wasn’t acknowledging it either, but she understood the situation just as well as I did.
You couldn’t grow up in the Guild without hearing most of the same stories the vampires did. You definitely couldn’t grow up as Neve’s daughter without hearing them.
“Have you talked to your mom?”
“God, no. That woman will see right through me the moment I look her in the eyes.”
I grimaced. “She’s going to get suspicious after a while.”
“I know.” Harper forced a smile as she loaded another bite of pasta. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this actually has too much garlic in it.”
“Eat it anyway. If Maverick smells himself on you, he’s going to know you drank his blood.”
She attempted a dramatic sigh. Her stress made it sound more sad than anything else. “You’re mean to me.”
“I do it out of love.” I patted her leg like she had mine, and her grin was genuine.
There was a knock at the door.
Harper looked at it.
I looked at the clock. “He’s more than an hour early.”
“He probably wants to catch you before you have time to shower.”
“I seriously hope he’s not that devious.” I set my takeout container down on the ottoman and walked to the door.
When I opened it, I couldn’t help but take in a sharp breath as I saw—and smelled—the Alpha. Six and a half feet of deliciousness in both scent and form.
And this time, he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
Good lord, he was going to be the death of me.
He lifted an eyebrow.
Shit. I’d been staring.
Nope, I wasn’t commenting on that. Or the lack of shirt. Or the fascinating way his tattoo sleeves curved over his shoulders and pectorals, kind of looking like branches and… cherry blossoms?
“I forgot how gigantic you are.” I leaned against the doorway. Mostly to stop myself from trying to touch him. “I’m in the middle of dinner. Just sniff me so we can get on with our lives.”
He pushed the door open wider and stepped past me. My arm brushed his chest, and goosebumps broke out all over my skin.
“I don’t remember inviting you in, Mav.”
“You didn’t.”
I sighed, closing the door behind both of us.
He walked around the kitchen, looking at everything and sniffing the air as he went. He even checked the trash can.
“Drinking blood through a straw?” He looked over at me with a raised eyebrow.
“All the cool people are doing it.”
He stalked into the living room and lifted my blanket off the couch and up to his nose.
“Hi.” Harper lifted a hand.
He winked at her before dropping it back on the couch.
I tried to ignore the flare of jealousy that arose with that damn wink. “At this point, I’m sure you can smell that there hasn’t been a man in this apartment for literal years.”
Timber and I met at his place on the rare occasion that we hooked up.
“It doesn’t hurt to double check,” Maverick said.
Harper coughed, “Asshole.”
I coughed, “Major asshole.”
He prowled down the hallway.
“You do not have permission to go into my room,” Harper called over her shoulder.
I mouthed, “Sorry.”
She mouthed back, “Not your fault.”
There was a lot of that going around.
I headed after the Alpha as he ducked into the bathroom. He dragged his hand over my ancient blue bathrobe, but didn’t touch Harper’s fluffy towels.
“What are you looking for in here? Used condoms?” I asked.
“Now I am.” He lifted the trash can and sniffed it.
I wrinkled my nose. “You’re disgusting.”
“I’m literally an animal, Sugar.”
He was back with that infuriating nickname, apparently. “Aren’t all humans?”
“They’re civilized animals. We only pretend to be civilized when we need them to like us.”
He stepped past me and went straight for my bedroom. Much like I had in his room, he stopped abruptly in the doorway and inhaled deeply.
His chest rumbled.
His body tensed.
“You okay, big guy?” I eyed him.
“Fine,” he gritted out.
“Too many cherries?”
“You fucking wish.”
“I do, actually.”
He let out a slow breath to stabilize himself and went deeper into my room.
I watched from the doorway as he went through just about every item I owned, sniffing and touching all of it.
“What’s he doing?” Harper whispered, as she came up behind me and peered over my shoulder. I didn’t think he even noticed.
“I think it might be a territory marking thing.”
“Gross.”
“Yeah.”
“He just seems to get more possessive. Should we be glad he’s not peeing all over everything?” she asked.
“We should indeed.”
“Do you think he can even hear us? He’s totally in the zone.”
“He can,” Maverick rumbled.
Harper sent me a YIKES look.
I bit back a grin. When I looked over at him again, I found him opening my underwear drawer. “My thongs are off limits.”
“I can’t believe you wear those. So uncomfortable,” Harper muttered, shaking her head.
“Some of us hate panty lines.”
“Some of us prefer panty lines over constant wedgies.”
“Some of us—” I cut myself off when he picked up a thin strip of black fabric, met my eyes, and lifted it to his mouth. “Don’t.”
His lips curved wickedly.
He opened the fabric and dragged his tongue slowly over the entirety of one of the strips. It was clean, so he was just scent-marking it, but still.
“I’m washing that,” I said.
I wasn’t going to question why he wanted that particular part of me to smell like him.
“That would’ve been a lot sexier if he’d picked the dirty ones,” Harper remarked. “It’s a miracle you even have a pair of clean ones, considering your aversion to doing laundry.”
I glared at her and pointed toward her bedroom. “Out.”
She grinned and strode down the hall.
At least she was acting normal for the moment. Being turned hadn’t completely wrecked her.
I turned my glare back to Maverick and pointed toward the hallway. “You too.”
He put the thong back in my drawer and closed it. It was definitely the only clean one I had at the moment.
When he opened the rest of the drawers, he found all of them empty.
Yes, I’d even worn every single piece of old lounge clothing I possessed. Hence the overflowing laundry basket next to the dresser.
I rushed across the room as he turned toward the dirty laundry, and blocked the hamper with my body. “No. There are boundaries.”
“Fuck boundaries.”
“You can’t just—aghh.” I made a noise of complaint as he grabbed me by the waist, lifted me off my feet, and set me down behind him.
Then grabbed the entire basket of my laundry.
And strode back into the hallway, heading toward the door with basically all of my clothes.
“What the hell?” I hurried after him.
“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 will not come 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.”