Page 41 of Thrown into the Mob

Madd peppered my mouth with kisses. “Ahhh, you’re a grocery-store virgin.”

A hot flush smothered my face, and I glanced down at our bare feet, but Madd put a finger under my chin and made me look at him.

“I’m guessing not looking someone in the eye is an ingrained habit from years of being ignored.”

I shrugged because I’d never given it any thought.

“Here with me, you’ll always have my attention.” He slapped my butt. “But we need to get going before the supermarket gets busy.”

We should have gone to one of those twenty-four-hour grocery stores in the middle of the night, but we showered and dressed in the limited clothes available. Rudy had grabbed our clothes from the apartment and bundled them in with the sweats and a few other things. But his fashion sense was different from mine, and we looked lopsided in bright bottoms and somber tops that didn’t quite fit.

Madd took one look at me and laughed. “I love our looks. I wish we could take a pic for Rudy.”

“We look like we're on the run.” I eyed us in the dusty mirror.

“We are.” He kissed my cheek.

“Right. But we could try not to advertise it.”

The large supermarket was four blocks away. As I stood outside, me and my dragon studied it, checking the exits, and where any threats would likely come from.

“Hey.” Madd grabbed my arm. “Let’s forget about Evander and the other dragons. Your beast and mine will scent any trouble.”

I raised a brow. “How’d that work out when Father’s men kidnapped you?”

He rolled his eyes and dragged me into the grocery store.

Inside, the only threats were a woman with a shopping cart she couldn't steer and a screaming child. But the sheer volume of choice was disorienting. An entire aisle of cereal, seventeen types of pasta, and a wall of cheese that stretched farther than the compound's armory.

“Why are there so many?” I was looking at the pasta.

“Because people like different shapes.”

“They taste the same.”

“They hold the sauce differently.” Madd pulled some boxes off the shelf and put them in the cart. “Grandpa would give you a forty-minute lecture on this. Consider yourself lucky.”

We bought enough food and supplies for a week. Madd added chocolate and a bag of something called cheese puffs that I looked at with suspicion.

“These are non-negotiable,” he said.

At the checkout, a woman scanned our items and asked if we had a loyalty card.

“No,” Madd replied. “We're new to the area.”

"Welcome." She smiled and continued scanning.

As we headed back to the apartment and with Madd beside me, I noted the weight of the bags and the sun on the back of my neck. Nobody was watching or expecting me to be anywhere or do anything.

“What do we do now?” Madd asked after we’d put everything away.

We’d picked up a few magazines at the supermarket and stopped at a secondhand bookstore downstairs. I grabbed one of the books, but my mate pushed it away.

“Not today, but you know, forever.” He grabbed me by the waist and tugged me closer.

“I haven’t thought that far ahead but kissing and cuddling I can do right now.” We smooched, and I contemplated doing nothing but that for the rest of my life.

“Do you want to go back to the dragons when this is over?”