“But that creature was tiny--I thought--” he began, and then his mind flashed back to the supervisor who’d assigned them this case. He’d kept coughing until finally Mac had asked him if he needed a cough drop, which had made the man turn red in the face, silently hand over the file, and rush out of the room.
Realization hit, and Alejandro muttered a few choice words under his breath in both Spanish and English. The supervisor hadn’t been coughing.
He’d been laughing. At Alejandro and Mac, as they discussed all the weapons they’d need for the task. Basilisks apparently weren’t huge, man-eating monsters, as he and Mac had thought. They were the size of a chicken.
“Initiation rites for the new guys,” he said, half admiringly, half-disgustedly, as he lowered his shotgun.
He turned to Rose. “You called P-Ops for a lizard-chicken?”
She raised her chin defiantly and then nodded her head toward Mac. “Actually, my mother called you. I’d have been happy to deal with this myself. And since it’s your partner who’s turned into stone, and I’m the one with the remedy, maybe you should be a little nicer to me.”
She was right, which annoyed him even more, so he deliberately swept his gaze up her body from her feet to the top of her head before answering.
“Oh, trust me, Sunshine. I’d like to be very nice to you.”
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
CHAPTER 4
Rose stalked back into the house, very deliberately not slamming the door behind her. Arrogant, pompous, sexist excuse for a law enforcement officer. Although, from what she’d seen in her very limited experience, those qualities were the norm, not the exception, in men carrying badges and guns. Look at the stupid sheriff.
She calmed down inside the kitchen, and her innate sense of fairness started to kick in. The officers who’d come to the house and told them about Daddy’s car accident couldn’t have been nicer or more considerate. One of the men--Officer Engel, she’d always remember his name, though she’d only been twelve at the time--he’d sat and held her mother’s hand while she cried.
Okay. Fine. Then only Alejandro and the Garden City sheriff were arrogant asses. Although, speaking of asses, Alejandro’s was really something to behold. Not that she’d looked on purpose, but it had been hard to miss when he’d run outside to find his partner.
“Why am I even thinking about this, Bob?” she rhetorically asked her stone cat, who naturally didn’t answer.
She didn’t need the cat’s response to figure it out, though. Agent Tall, Dark, and Dangerously Hot was too sexy for his own good—and far too sexy for her balance to remain steady. He was ridiculously good looking, as if Hollywood had cast him in the role of action hero. Muscled in all the right places, silky black hair that was just a hint too long, and dark eyes that looked at her as if she were an especially juicy piece of fruit he’d like to suck between those sexy lips.
Rose stumbled over her own feet when a surge of heat whipped through her at the thought of him sucking on any juicy parts of hers.
“Oh, goddess, I’m in trouble here. Focus, Rose,” she whispered to the empty room, more proof that she was losing it, as if she’d needed evidence.
Focus. Right. She crossed to the refrigerator and retrieved another vial. At this rate, if they didn’t get rid of the basilisks soon, she’d have to make another batch. Not to mention she didn’t know if the potion was strong enough to rescue a grown man. The paperboy had been a close one, not that she’d admitted it to anyone. He’d taken longer to transform back from stone to human than she’d hoped.
Plus, he’d refused to deliver their paper ever again.
Ungrateful little monster.
Alejandro walked in, and the air in the room changed and grew heated; charged as if the electric potential of a summer storm had centered itself over her kitchen counter. The skin on the back of her neck tingled with a delicious feeling of anticipation.
Stupid neck.
“Fix him. Now,” he ordered.
She threw her best ice-cold glare at him, but he didn’t even flinch. Huh. He must be tougher than most people. That glare had scared off one mugger, seven door-to-door solicitors, and three mall product testers.
Rose realized she was mentally rambling, and she shook her head to clear it of distractions like tall, muscular, terrific-smelling P-Ops agents who heated her up in all the dangerous places.#p#分页标题#e#