Page 95 of Finders Reapers

Maddox kept his eyes on mine and didn’t look down. “You’re the only one in this house that would actually wake up, and we all agreed that we wouldn’t take any jaunts alone, remember?”

Oh. Yeah. The purgers. I remembered. Instead of acknowledging his words, I said. “Jaunt? I keep forgetting you’re old.”

He chuffed a laugh, exhaling through his nose. “Old? I’m immortal.”

I rolled my eyes.

Maddox kicked something on the ground, and for the first time since I had woken up, I looked down.

“Those are my clothes,” I said dumbly.

Maddox hummed. “Uh-huh.”

My nostrils flared. “You could have let me change under the covers!” My voice lifted, and Fletcher wriggled in his sleep. I quickly modulated my voice. “Pervert,” I hissed.

Maddox quirked a brow. He said nothing.

Trying not to pout, I snatched the bag and got dressed as quickly as I was able to, unable to make eye contact. Annoyance prickled my skin, and my beautiful afterglow and delicious ache were replaced by the desire to whack Maddox Pierce over the head with a lamp.

Once I was ready, Maddox palmed his keys, and he led us through the kitchen and down two steps to the garage.

The mustard yellow Camaro sat, gleaming with its two black lines running down the car's center like Pepé Le Pew’s stripes.

“How’s you get the car back from the multistory on the strip?” I asked.

“Company car,” Maddox grunted as he rounded the hood towards the driver's side.

I wrenched open the passenger door and sat down, noticing that the car had been tidied since I last used it—I was sure that I’d left some taco bell wrappers in the footwell. I didn’t remember cleaning them up.

I was not a tidy person—a fact that hadn’t changed, even after my death.

Once we were comfortable, Maddox adjusted the mirrors and took out the garage door opener from the glove box. He seemed entirely unaffected as he reached across the console and grabbed the little device. He was unaware that he had reached between my legs, and his arm brushed against my bare skin.

I both regretted and rejoiced that I was wearing cut-offs.

I wasn’t sure what it was, but my octopussy was trying to hook her tentacles around my coworkers. My fellow Reapers.My Grim.

The weird soul connection was definitely causing a spike in my libido. Usually, my vagina was much more discerning.

Cody and I had been speaking for over a year before we became a couple (Snapchat, Insta DMs, with an almost constant swapping of meme gifs), and we had been friends before we became something more.

With Fletcher, Jamal, Maddox, and Rome, it was different. Like they were a limb, not a separate people.

Maddox pulled up the speaker at the Starbucks drive-thru, and I shook my head to clear it. I had been so deep in thought that I hadn’t even noticed that we had left the suburb and driven into the town of Needles proper.

Maddox ordered an Americano, and before I could dive in with my order, he asked the speaker for an iced caramel macchiato.

He must have noticed my skeeved expression because he rolled his eyes after paying for our drinks. “You left a crumpled-up receipt in the passenger's seat,” Maddox explained. “I assumed it was your drink order. We can go back around if you wanted something else.”

“No,” I murmured. “That’s alright.”

Damn. My heart couldn’t take it. Cody and I had been together two years, and he hadn’t remembered my Starbucks order.

My chest fluttered, and I clasped my hand into a fist and pressed it into my sternum.

If Maddox was weirded out by my behavior, he didn’t show it. He grabbed our drinks from the window, asking if I wanted sugar or Splenda.

We pulled away from the drive-thru and had passed the Needles town sign before realization dawned on me. “We didn’t get anything for the others,” I said, shifting in my seat to look out the rear window.