Read Thresh: Alpha One Security: Book 2 for Free Online Page B

vowed years ago to never use the elevator and that’s a vow I’ve kept.  
    By the time I reached my door, I was already looking forward to stripping off, taking a shower, pouring a bottle of wine into my favorite holds-a-whole-bottle wine glass, and watching stupid TV. I was sweating again, because I just carried six loads of laundry up three flights of stairs, and the strap of my tank top was coming off my shoulder, leaving pretty much my entire left breast exposed. I was juggling the laundry basket and my purse, trying to get my keys out without setting down the basket, not really looking where I was going, because why would I? My door was at the end of the hallway, so there wouldn’t ever be anyone coming toward me.  
    I bumped into something, bounced away, dropping my laundry basket, my purse, and my keys. My laundry exploded, everything unfolding and scattering all over the fucking floor, panties, bras, shirts, pants, dresses, skirts, blouses, all over the place. And my purse…upended. All my shit rolled over the floor. Tampons, pads, keys, wallet, gum, receipts, sunglasses, all the shit a woman keeps in her purse.  
    And me? I landed on my ass on the floor, stunned, confused, and pissed.
    When I looked up and saw Thresh leaning back against my door, arm in a sling across his body, good hand stuffed into the hip pocket of a pair of dark blue jeans, that hair of his in the ridiculous, amazing fucking mohawk, eyes like ice chips glinting amusement, and a black polo stretched across his chest and around his arms…god…dressed casually but so fucking sexy, almost preppy for a guy like him.  
    I just gaped at him for several seconds, staring, mouth working, brain spasming, trying and failing rather significantly to come up with something to say, some kind of appropriate response.
    He beat me to it. “Evenin’, Doc.” He said this with a cocky grin, as if he knew exactly the effect he was having on me.  
    Bastard.
    That got my cylinders all firing again. “What the fuck, Thresh?”
    He had a massive watch on his wrist, a huge black rubber-encased thing, expensive looking, some kind of fancy tactical military chronograph, probably. “Just shy of six, and it’s Friday. We have a date.”  
    My mouth flapped open and closed a couple times. “No. We don’t.”
    “Yes, we do. I told you before you left my room the other day that I’d pick you up today at six.”  
    I finally stood up, brushed my butt off, and then stomped over to stand in front of Thresh, staring up at him angrily. “That’s not how asking a girl out works, Thresh. You don’t tell her you’re going out. You ask, politely, and if she says yes, then you have a date. You gave orders, and I declined to respond. That means we don’t have a date.”  
    He just stared down at me, holding his ground, unperturbed. “You didn’t say no. You didn’t answer, and don’t make it out like you did that shit on purpose. You ran off like a skittish pony. Couldn’t handle the intensity of the moment.”  
    Fuck him and his truth.  
    I turned away, knelt down and started replacing the contents of my purse. “I didn’t—I wasn’t—” I cut myself off with an angry huff, and then started over again. “So I’m a horse, now?”  
    “What I said was ‘like a skittish pony’, actually, which isn’t the same. But if you want to take it that way, sure.”  
    I stood up abruptly, whirling to face him, ready to deck him, foot of height difference and hundred and fifty pounds of muscle difference be damned. “Are you fucking serious?” I even went to slap him, but missed, on account of the fact that he was crouched a couple feet away, re-folding my clothes and putting them in the basket.  
    His big, rough, callused, powerful paws—clean, albeit, and yes, I noticed that his hands were clean—were all over my clothes. Rolling my size twelve panties into messy balls, stuffing one cup of my bra inside out and folding it in half…but not before