Page 7 of Love Bites (Timber Creek #2)

CHAPTER 7

SUMMER

Max frowned at me. “That’s not my middle name.”

“Dang. What a missed opportunity. You’re straight out of a Mafia romance, so it seemed fitting. Like an Italian Don, laundering money in the back of a mediocre restaurant. Makes me want a meatball.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a long sigh before he looked up at me again. “This isn’t one of your books, Summer. We won’t be fake dating because there is no we here, and it’s not dating vampires care about but marriage — no rings means you’re still on the literal table. We’re not even going to approach the den — just see if we can find it and then I’ll go back alone after I bring you back here. I will not be responsible for mixing West Larkin’s little sister in vampire business.”

Simmering started somewhere in my gut, because fuck that. West Larkin’s little sister? Like I hadn’t heard that my whole life. My eyes flashed to my wolf’s, and Max startled at the sight. My wolf paced in my mind, ready to bare her teeth, but unlike Alpha wolves, there was no fight for dominance between her and I — I was in control of my own mind. We were two souls living peacefully together, equally pissed off by his comment.

“You know, I’m actually a full-grown adult,” I said coolly, trying my best not to let the rejection get to me. “And I’m more than aware of the differences between fiction and reality, and capable of making my own decisions. So, how about you never say anything like that again, I’ll go pack for Boston, and when we regroup in two hours we can pretend this part never happened. Capisci ?”

Okay, maybe I was a tiny bit hurt he was so appalled by the idea of dating me — or marrying if that’s what it took — even if it was for show. But I was sick of everyone in my life viewing me as the sweet little Larkin sister, of everyone being afraid to come anywhere near me for fear of my brothers, of this whole town continually underestimating me. I was a low-ranking wolf in the pack dynamic, a little sister, and a woman — a hell of a combination in shifter society that lead to way too much babying — but I was not about to be dismissed because of those things I had no control over.

Indi was right — there was no time like the present to start setting boundaries and living for me , instead of everyone else. I did have control over that.

I wanted to do this.

I wanted to go to wherever it was we were going and do whatever it was we were doing, even if I knew almost none of the plan. It sounded dangerous. It sounded different. It sounded fun.

To his credit, Max looked a little chagrined about his outburst. “You know Italian?”

“I know a lot of things about a lot of things. I took classes for a year but then I got bored and switched to French, which wasn’t nearly as romantic as everyone says. All that throat clearing. It’s got nothing on Italian.”

A slow smirk crept over Max’s face. “ Sono d'accordo, fiore .”

I hustled right the hell out of there before my panties could set themselves on fire, but those words in his sultry voice seared themselves into my brain, replaying all the way down the stairs to my apartment.

An hour and a half later, I lay on my lavender suitcase with white daisies, squishing the two sides of the case together as much as I could to get the zipper to close.

Sure, Max said he’d bring me back after this one little test, but who was he kidding? After 24 hours, he’d be putty in my hands, and forget all about that little send me home part of his plan. We’d be gallivanting across the globe, finding vampire dens at every turn, in no time flat.

And, boy was I prepared. I packed for everything — sundresses, sandals, a parka, my favorite poncho, overalls, wool socks, hiking boots, swimsuit, little black dress, shorts, pants, tees, 16 pairs of underwear — I stopped mid-zip.

Did I need my ren-faire dress?

No. I kept zipping.

Unless —

I shook my head. No, if I needed a ren-faire dress at short notice, I could run to a thrift store and improvise.

Thus assured, I finished zipping my suitcase closed with some effort and wheeled it out to my living room. Then I squinted down at my current outfit and went to change.

Twenty minutes later, I burst out of the stairwell door back onto the roof where we’d agreed to meet, lugging my suitcase behind me.

Max’s eyes darted to it immediately — couldn’t blame him, Betsy was beautiful — then back to me, tracing over my appearance. His lip twitched.

“First of all, no ” — he pointed to the suitcase — “and second of all, what are you wearing?”

I gestured between us. “What, I thought this was the uniform? It screams undercover, which is kind of against the point but who am I to argue with a professional such as yourself.”

In a last-ditch effort to match Max’s aesthetic, I’d raided my sister Aspen’s clothes she left behind in my guest room for black jeans, black Vans, and a black hoodie. Aspen was almost color averse.

He gave me a flat stare. “And what did you tell West, exactly?”

“Just that Max Russo, infamous Dark Angel bad boy and ex-con, is whisking me off to corrupt my innocence and feed me mercilessly to a den of hedonistic blood-suckers. Why?”

His face paled before he caught on and cursed under his breath.

“You’re not actually scared of my brother, are you?”

“Scared? No,” he scoffed. “But I don’t need the headache of dealing with an Alpha tantrum right now.”

The truth was, I hadn’t known what to tell West, since I wasn’t sure when we’d be back and Max seemed to want to keep this under wraps. For now, I told him I was headed east — not a lie — to source apple orchards for some bakery items. That wasn’t entirely implausible as I did occasionally travel to source the good stuff myself, just never as far as the East Coast. He probably assumed I meant Denver, but that was on him for assuming.

He only had to buy it long enough for me to convince Max that this partnership of ours did not need to be a dirty little secret.

Max leaned forward to take my suitcase from my hands, peering down at me. “Have you traveled by flicker before?”

I nodded. Flickering was how demons essentially teleported, and Indi had taken me with her a few times. It was horrible.

“Well, this is worse.” Max slipped an arm around my waist, my stomach fluttering at his nearness. I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze, my chin all but resting on his chest, his sandalwood scent and warmth intoxicating. “Buckle up, buttercup.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist a heartbeat before darkness enveloped us, swirling like an arctic breeze as the ground fell away. Vertigo scrambled my brain, and I slammed my eyes shut. Cold sank into my bones until my teeth chattered, and I pressed my face into his chest just for the warmth as my veins turned to ice. Air and static rushed through my ears, silent and deafening, but my grip on Max’s shirt never wavered, nor did the feel of his hand on the small of my back.

Slowly, the cold receded, and my feet met solid ground again, my breaths sawing out of me like I’d just run a marathon.

As I fought to catch my breath, I pried one eye open, but darkness still surrounded us.

My fingers still dug into Max’s shirt, holding on for dear life, and our entire fronts were pressed together.

“Max?” I breathed, not quite sure why I was whispering.

“Yeah?”

“Is it supposed to still be dark?”

He leaned down, lips trailing over my ear sending a shiver down my spine for an entirely different reason than a moment before. “Have you heard of shadows ?”

I smacked his chest, and the low chuckle that responded nearly made my knees buckle.

I stepped back, straightening up and getting my hormones under control. Hopefully.

With a deep breath that didn’t help clear his scent from my nose at all, I took in our surroundings as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, then shot Max a look.

“Are we trolls?” We’d landed under a bridge, large enough that where we stood it was almost dark as night and littered with all manner of trash.

“Would you rather land in the middle of Copley Square? Might defeat the whole staying hidden thing we’ve been going for, but I’m always up for making a scene if you are.” He jerked his head towards the far end of the bridge as he took off. “This will be a pretty brief partnership if a little city grime offends you, principessa .”

I elbowed him in the kidney, eliciting a satisfying umph , and reached for my suitcase. He jerked it out of reach.

“I can carry my own.”

“Really? This thing weighs as much as you do.”

I tilted up my chin. “I’m going to take that as a compliment to my legendary packing abilities.”

“What the hell is even in here?”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. Now.” I skipped a little as we emerged from under the bridge, and the city appeared in front of us, the lit-up Boston skyline rising above the river. “Where to?”

“What do you mean, there’s only one bed?” Max all but snarled at the receptionist when we arrived at a hotel several blocks away. “I specifically requested two when I booked this room just a few hours ago.”

“I’m sorry, sir, there must have been a mix up,” the flustered man responded, clicking around his screen. “Our only remaining room is a single King.” He glanced between the two of us, then added, “Big concert at Fenway this weekend.”

My eyes widened. “Really? Who? Please say Taylor Swift.”

Before the receptionist could respond, Max cut in, “Let’s just find another hotel. There’s a thousand in this city.”

The man cleared his throat. “I think you’ll find much the same situation anywhere else, sir. The whole city is booked up.”

I put a reassuring hand on Max’s arm, though it seemed to have the opposite effect as his jaw tightened. “It’s fine, we’ll take the room. My fiancé here is just old fashioned, you understand.” I shot the guy a wink, and Max went red under his tanned skin.

We finished checking in, and made our way all the way up to our room before Max held out a hand to stop me.

“Fiancé? And what exactly do you want to do about this one bed situation? Just so you know, unlike what the lore says, I don’t actually sleep in a coffin.”

The door beeped as I held out the key and pushed it open, walking inside the small room.

“One, yes, fiancé. If the only thing keeping you from bringing me along on this quest is a marriage of convenience, then we might as well start practicing, hm? Engaged can be our trial run. And two, we’ll do what one always does in a one bed situation —”

“I’ll sleep on the floor.”

I held up my hands, shaking my head. “The readers will riot.”

“Readers?” Max muttered as he shut the door behind us, one hand still on the handle as that muscle in his jaw flexed.

I plopped down on the white duvet, running my hands over the smooth fabric as I tried not to focus on how chiseled his jawline was, and how badly I suddenly wanted to lick it. “Sleeping on the floor is the absolute worst outcome in a one bed trope, which you’ll know soon enough now that you’re becoming a book boyfriend. We’ll share.”

“Book boyfriend? If you expect me to ravish you with three other dudes, think again, wolf.”

I cocked my head, ignoring his comments. “You don’t turn into a bat or anything, right? I’m not going to wake up with you suspended from the ceiling above me?”

The scowl. I bit my lip.

“If it’ll make you feel more comfortable, we can pillow-barrier it up. But that guy was right — we’d probably find the same situation in every hotel in this city, so we might as well save our time and our feet and just suck it up.” I chuckled, then winced. “Bad choice of words.”

Max sighed, flipped the lock on the door, and in two long strides he stood between my knees, deep blue eyes locked on mine. A strand of his black hair fell across his face, and my hand twitched with the need to brush it away.

“This never gets back to your brothers. Capisci ?”

If I wasn’t mistaken, maybe Max was a little scared of West. I patted his chest reassuringly.

“Maxy, believe it or not, I rarely talk about my sleepovers with my bros. Now, are you a left side of the bed or a right side guy?”