Which he didn’t.
And he still wanted to shoot him.
“Then what are you? And what was that ‘destroy you’ crap about?” Alejandro said, at the end of his patience. “And why the hell are you wearing that?”
Rose put a hand on Alejandro’s arm, and he inhaled a long, deep breath.
“Start again. Make sense this time. Or I will shoot you,” he told Harold.
The man turned a little pale and cleared his throat. “My name is Harold Veeno. I’m an actor. I have my SAM-G card.”
Alejandro didn’t know the acronym. “SAM-G?”
“Screen Actors with Magic Guild,” Rose said.
Harold beamed. “Yes! It’s the highest honor in my craft. Would you like to see it?” He started patting his pants, probably for the wallet that wasn’t there, since he didn’t have any pockets.
“Another time,” Alejandro gritted out.
“Right. Well, we got a request from PETMA—but I don’t know from whom at PETMA--that somebody put a scare in the Cardinal witches to make them stop hurting the basilisks,” Harold blurted out all in a rush, darting a smirk at Alejandro during the “from whom” bit.
“I might shoot you just for fun,” Alejandro said, aiming his widest smile at the man, who promptly fell off his chair.
“Now look what you did,” Rose scolded, rushing over to the fallen psycho actor. “He fainted. You actually made him faint.”
“What I did? This lunatic was threatening you for somebody he didn’t even know for--” he paused. “What is PETMA?”
“People for the Ethical Treatment of Magical Animals,” Rose told him as she checked Harold’s pulse. “I can’t believe you made a man pass out just from smiling at him.”
Alejandro couldn’t believe it, either. It usually took the careful application of fists or shotgun shells to put a man down. But Rose was acting like he was in the wrong, instead of the crazy man on her floor.
“You can’t? How about this smile?” Alejandro put his gun back in its holster, circled her wrist with one hand, and pulled her up to stand in front of him. He smiled down at her and put every ounce of the combined frustration and attraction he was feeling into it. “Does this make you want to pass out?”
Heat flared in Rose’s cheeks, and her beautiful blue eyes widened.
“It makes me want to kiss you,” she admitted.
“I would never refuse a lady.” He brushed his lips against hers, a gentle touch, meaning to do just that much and no more. But she tasted of sunlight and sweetness, and he went back in, deeper, harder, and took her mouth like his suddenly ragingly hard cock wanted to take her body.
Except they were in the kitchen. With a crazed lunatic, possibly assassin, out cold on the floor. The thought was more powerful than a cold shower, and he abruptly released her. He stepped back, trying to control his breathing, but then he realized that Rose was breathing hard, too.
“I must be the worst P-Ops agent in history,” he said ruefully.
“It’s probably a matter of practice,” Harold offered from the floor, startling them both.
“I warned you,” Alejandro said, and then he pulled out his gun and fired.
Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance by Jennifer Ashley, Alyssa Day, Felicity Heaton, Erin Kellison, Laurie London, Erin Quinn, Bonnie Vanak and Caris Roane#p#分页标题#e#
CHAPTER 9
Rose yelped, which was just as undignified as it sounded, and jumped away from Alejandro. “You shot Harold! Are you insane?”
Alejandro pointed at the still-open kitchen door. “No. I shot a warning shot over the head of the basilisk that was trying to sneak into the house. Harold’s fine.”
They both looked at Harold, who was unconscious again.
“He doesn’t really have the stomach for this job, does he?” Rose murmured, almost fond of Harold at this point. So he was crazy, and he’d threatened her. So what? If he hadn’t stormed into her kitchen, then maybe the Kiss That Rocked Rose’s World never would have happened.
And that would be a tragedy.
Alejandro sighed. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she said, suddenly feeling shy. “I think we need to at least explore this attraction, um, this . . . whatever this is between us.”
“I meant about Harold. But definitely yes to the exploring.” His smile faded as he looked at the door. “Once we fix Mac.”
“Right. I’m calling my mom to deal with Harold, and then we’ll start brewing more potion.” Rose made the call, and for once her mother didn’t ask seven million questions.