Free The Vampire Next Door by Charity Santiago, Evan Hale Page A

movement jarred my injured leg.
     
    Reeve sighed heavily, and in one motion, leaned down and picked me up again. One arm slid behind my back, supporting my torso, and the other one was against the backs of my legs, just above my knees. His fingers gripped my right leg, providing just enough resistance to keep my injured left leg from getting squashed against his body.
     
    I yelped in surprise and grabbed at his chest again- terrible habit, I know- before glaring at him. “Hello? Warning, please. I’m not just some rag doll you can toss around like a…a…”
     
    “A rag doll?” His dark eyes were mischievous.
     
    I looked away, feeling self-conscious. He looked and smelled like heaven, but I’d just woken up, my clothes were rumpled, and I was pretty sure I had crusties in the corners of my eyes. Not to mention, Reeve was still a vampire. Sadly, that had not changed overnight, so the fact that I still found him attractive was annoying me.
     
    He carried me down to the end of the hallway and used one foot to push open a door. He turned sideways so that he could fit me through the doorway without banging my legs, and I looked around curiously at the master bedroom.
     
    Same as the living room, all family photos were gone, but in this room, the frames were stacked on top of the dresser. I felt a slight pang of guilt. I hadn’t known my neighbors very well, and I hadn’t reached out to them when the pandemic had started. Before now, I’d had no idea if they’d been eaten, turned into vampires, or if they’d left town like most other people. With the absence of photographs, it looked like they’d left town.
     
    Reeve set me gently on the bed, and I eased my leg up onto the comforter, grimacing.
     
    “It’s awfully nice of you to lug me around the house,” I said to him as he started opening dresser drawers. “Your mom taught you wonderful manners.”
     
    He didn’t respond at first, but then he turned around, and he was holding a folded article of clothing in a hideous shade of pink. As he shook it out, I realized it was a pair of sweatpants.
     
    “Oh, wow. No,” I said. “There is no way I’m wearing those. They’ll make my ass look like Pink Lake.”
     
    “Pink Lake?” he repeated, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
     
    “Yes, Pink Lake. It’s a lake in Australia, and it’s exactly the same color as those sweats. I will not wear those. I’d rather go naked.”
     
    To his credit, Reeve did not make a lewd reply, even though I’d stupidly set myself up for it. He refolded the sweats and put them back in the drawer. “What about these?” he asked, and held up a pair of jean shorts with an elastic waistband.
     
    “Those will work,” I said. They were old lady shorts, but anything was better than pink sweats.
     
    Reeve carried me back down the hallway after I picked out a thin gray tee shirt from another drawer. I was relieved when he left me alone in the bathroom. It was going to be tough to clean up on my own, but I definitely didn’t want his help.
     
    I started by hopping on one leg to the door and turning the lock. Although the flimsy particle wood wouldn’t hold back a hungry vampire if Reeve suddenly did an about-face, I figured it was better than nothing.
     
    I had to do some creative maneuvering to take my sweats off without bending my leg. My ugly knee, swollen, scraped, and considerably more bruised than it had been yesterday, was a sobering sight. I desperately hoped that nothing was broken, and I felt silly for being so reckless. Other than a mild cold in December, I’d been pretty healthy since the pandemic started. I felt like an idiot for sullying my stellar record this late in the game.
     
    After stripping out of my shirt and bra, I managed to perch myself on the edge of the bathtub so that I could run the water and rinse off the worst of the grime. The shower head was detachable, so I was able to wash my face and hair using a bar of soap. I peeled back