How to Elude a Vampire (VRC Vampire Related Crimes #2) - Alice Winters Page 0,106
say as I rush over to hunt them down. The dogs, who were busy sniffing every inch of the place, have to come over and stuff their noses into each cupboard as they help me look. Thankfully, I find a bag that’s only a little bit expired and rush right back outside where I let the dogs run loose.
Marcus follows me over to the fire pit where I start tossing stuff into it.
“You have to make a tepee with the wood to get the fire to start,” he explains as I dump more shit in a pile.
“Is that how you did it in your caveman days?” I ask.
“It’s so the air can flow under it. You’ll never get it started like that.”
“Well… let’s see who can start a fire the quickest then. I’ll remove my stuff and we’ll start at the same time,” I decide.
“Deal,” Marcus says, always the confident man. So as he tears up his little pieces of paper into shreds, I toss a whole newspaper into the fire and toss more wood on top of it.
Marcus snickers to himself as he creates a little wood tepee, determined to laugh in my face when my fire does nothing. As he’s perfecting his ancient wood building art, I rush over to the shed, grab a container of lighter fluid and soak everything in it before clicking the striker and watching it burst into flames.
“How’s it going over there?” I look over at him as he glares at me.
“I wasn’t aware there were cheaters in our midst,” Marcus grumbles.
“Where? I’ll get them with my fire!”
“Why won’t you ever let me look sexy and cool?” Marcus asks as I start laughing.
And that’s the moment the flames eat up the rest of the lighter fluid and go out.
“Shit.”
Marcus lights his paper on fire and just beams at me as the wood begins to burn without any help while mine smolders and smokes. “Did that turn you on?”
“Kind of,” I mumble.
He laughs as he drags me to him and pulls me into a hug. “Just let me be better at some things, Finn. You can’t be amazing at everything. If you are then there’s nothing left for me.”
“Of course there is. You look absolutely sexy no matter what you do. Cleaning the counters? Immediate hard-on. Making the bed? I can’t even take it.”
“Why’s it all just cleaning?”
“Because I hate cleaning and thought if I bragged about you doing it, you’d just do it all.”
“No,” he says as he looks around before sitting on the ground and pulling me onto his lap just as I find the perfect marshmallow stick. I fire up the tip to kill off any germs, like germs would be the thing that would murder me out of everything that’s happened.
“Tomorrow, we’re going to get in the rowboat and go out onto the lake. Can you walk on water?” I ask.
Marcus seems confused. “I’m not Jesus.”
“Run. Like are you fast enough to run on water?”
“Want to have another competition?”
“No! Because I have to take off my leg for that competition and I sure as hell know I’ll sink if I go hopping across the lake with one leg!”
He snickers before kissing my cheek. “I wouldn’t let you sink. I’d try to find a stick for you to use first.”
“You wouldn’t let me sink after all I’ve put you through?” I watch the dogs gallop around. I think that even they had caught my depression and are happy to get away. Or maybe it was because I was constantly moping around and using them as pillows that they’d been rather quiet this past week.
“Nope.”
“Huh. You’re such a better man than me,” I say as my marshmallow lights on fire. “Shit! Now it’s burnt! Want a burned one?” I blow on it before aiming it at him. He pulls it off and pops it into his mouth. “How stale does it taste?”
“How stale is it?”
“Two months expired.”
“Tastes as disgusting as every other marshmallow I’ve ever eaten.”
“Then what’d you eat it for?” I ask.
“Because you looked cute handing it to me.”
“What if I bled on it a bit?”
“I could handle that.”
“So bite me.”
“Then we’ll just jump into sex like every other time. You know we have no control.”
“The problem?” I ask, not hearing it.
“I thought you wanted to roast marshmallows.”
I pop a warmed one in my mouth. “There, I ate it. Done.”
He snickers as he stands up with me in his arms. He puts the dogs inside then stands in the middle of