***

The building’s laundromat beneath our apartment is nothing to write home about. Panels of fluorescent lights cast a harsh light over faded robin’s egg blue concrete floors. A floral scent barely masks the musky odor lingering in the air. The machines are at least fifteen years old, and they’ll probably do more damage than good to our clothes. But there’s not a cob web or a piece of lint anywhere.

I shove all our sheets and blankets into two machines, cursing the world for making us sleep in secondhand bedding in the first place. I’m buying new bedding with my first pay check, I commit to myself. Dumping in a mixture of bleach and detergent, I set the water to its hottest setting, wishing it was labeled, “boil the hell out of any living organism.” That would make me feel marginally better.

The machines need six quarters per load. I hate paid laundry machines. Earlier, Livie and I accosted strangers at the mall with our dimes and nickels, asking for a trade. I have just enough in my stash, I realize, as I begin sliding them into their designated slots.

“Any free machines?” A deep male voice calls out directly behind me, surprising me enough that I yelp and throw the last three quarters in the air. Luckily, I have cat-like reflexes and I catch two coins midair. My eyeballs glue on to the last one as it hits the ground and rolls toward the washer. Dropping to my hands and knees, I dive for it.

But I’m too slow.

“Dammit!” The side of my face hits the cold pavement as I peer under the machine, searching for a glint of silver. My fingers can just fit underneath …

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Now I’m pissed. Who sneaks up on a female in an underground laundromat, other than a psycho or a rapist? Maybe he is one of the two. Maybe I’m supposed to be quivering in my sandals right now. I’m not though. I don’t scare easily and, frankly, I’m too damn annoyed right now to be anything else. Let him try to attack me. He’ll be in for the shock of a lifetime. “Why is that?” I force out between clenched teeth, trying to remain calm. Keep thy peace, Tanner warned us. No doubt he sensed something about me.

“Because we’re in a cool, damp underground laundromat in Miami. Creepy eight-legged things and things that slither and crawl hide out in places like this.

I recoil as I fight the shiver from running through my body, envisioning my hand re-emerging from underneath with a quarter and a bonus snake. Few things freak me out. Beady eyeballs and a writhing body is one of them. “Funny, I’ve heard creepy two-legged things lurk in these places too. They’re called Creeps. A plague, one might say.” Leaning far over in my short black shorts, he’s got to be getting a nice view of my ass right about now. Go ahead, perv. Enjoy it ’cause that’s all you’re getting. And if I sense so much as a brush against my skin, I’ll take you out at the knee caps.

He answers with a throaty laugh. “Well played. How about you get up off your knees?” The hairs on my neck prickle with his words. There’s something decidedly sexual in his tone. I hear the sound of metal against metal as he adds, “this creep has an extra quarter.”

“Well, then, you’re my favorite kind of—” I start to say, reaching for the top of the machine as I stand to meet this asshole face to face. Of course the open bottle of detergent is right there. Of course my hand knocks it clean off. Of course it splatters all over the machine and the floor.

“Dammit!” I curse, dropping to my knees again as I watch the sticky green soap ooze everywhere. “Tanner’s gonna evict me.”

Creep’s voice drops low. “What’s it worth to you for me to keep quiet?” Footsteps approach.

On instinct, I adjust my position so I can dislocate his joint with a kick and make him crumble in agony, just like I’d learned in my sparring sessions. My spine tingles as a white sheet sails down to cover the floor in front of me. Sucking in a breath, I wait patiently as Creep passes my left side and crouches.

The air leaves my lungs in a swoosh, and I’m left staring at a set of deep dimples and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen—cobalt rings with light blue on the inside. I squint. Do they have turquoise flecks inside them? Yes! My God! The blue floors, the rusty old machines, the walls, everything around me vanishes under the weight of his gaze as it strips me of my protective bitch coat, yanking it clean off my body, leaving me bare and vulnerable in seconds.

“We can soak it up with this. I needed detergent anyway,” he murmurs with a boyish amused grin as he drags his sheet around to saturate the spilled liquid.

“Wait, you don’t have to …” My voice fades, the weakness in it making me nauseous. Suddenly I’m feeling all kinds of wrong for labeling him creepy. He can’t be a creep. He’s too beautiful and too nice. I’m the idiot throwing quarters all over the place and now he’s sopping up my detergent off this dirty floor with his sheets to help me!

I can’t seem to form words. Not while I’m gawking at Not Creep’s ripped forearms, feeling heat ripple into my lower belly. In a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled and the top buttons undone, he’s exposing the beginnings of a killer upper body to me.

“See something that interests you?” he asks, his taunt snapping my eyes back to his smirking face, blood rushing to my cheeks. Damn this guy. He seems to flip flop from Good Samaritan to Evil Tempter with each new sentence out of his mouth. Worse, he caught me ogling his body. Me! Ogling! I’m around first-class bodies every day at the gym and they don’t faze me. Somehow, I’m not immune to him.

“I just moved in. 1D. My name’s Trent.” He looks up at me from under impossibly long lashes, his shaggy, golden brown hair framing his face beautifully.

“Kacey,” I force out. So, this guy is the new tenant; our neighbor. He lives on the other side of my living room wall! Gah!

“Kacey,” he repeats. I love the shape of his lips when he says my name. My attention lingers there, staring at that mouth, at his set of perfectly straight, white teeth, until I feel my face explode with a third wave of heat. Dammit! Kacey Cleary blushes for no one!

“I’d shake your hand, Kacey, but—” Trent says with a teasing smile, holding up detergent covered palms.

There. That does it. The idea of touching those hands slaps me across the cheek, breaking whatever temporary haze this Trent man has confused me with, pushing me back to reality.

I can think straight again. With a deep inhale, I struggle to reactivate my shields, to form a barrier from this Godlike creature, to end all reaction to him so I can just live my life and keep it untangled from his issues. It’s so much easier. And that’s all this is, Kacey. A reaction. A strange, uncharacteristic reaction because of a guy. An incredibly hot guy but, in the end, nothing you want to get mixed up in.

“Thanks for the quarter,” I say coolly, standing and sliding the pro-offered coin into the slot. I start the washer.

“It’s the least I could do for scaring the crap out of you.” He’s up and shoving his sheets into the machine beside mine. “If Tanner says anything, I’ll tell him I did it. It’s partially my fault anyway.”

“Partially?”

He chuckles as he shakes his head. We’re standing close now, so close that our shoulders almost touch. Too close.

I take a few steps back to give myself space. I end up staring at his back, admiring how his blue checkered shirt stretches across his broad shoulders, how his dark blue jeans fit his ass perfectly.

He stops what he’s doing to glance over his shoulder, blazing eyes leveling me with a look that makes me want to do things to him, for him, with him. His attention drags down the length of my body, unashamed. This guy is a contradiction. One second sweet, the next second brazen. A mind-blowing hot contradiction.