Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance (26 page)

Alejandro’s gun was in his hand almost before he realized he’d drawn it. The wild-eyed man who’d burst into Rose’s house looked deranged. The red-rimmed eyes. The crazy bush of long gray hair. The bare feet.

The pink flamingos embroidered all over his bright green silk pajamas.

“Who the hell are you?” Alejandro demanded, moving to block the intruder’s access to Rose.

“I am Harold, the one who will destroy you,” the man said melodramatically, sneering and doing his best impression of a cartoon villain in one of the TV shows Mac’s nephew liked to watch.

Alejandro, prepared for almost anything else, blinked. “Harold?”

Rose squeezed around Alejandro and stared at the guy. “Why?”

Harold paused, mid-sneer. “Why what?”

“Why are you going to destroy me?” Rose glanced at Alejandro, and she didn’t look nearly worried enough to suit him.

Harold might be loco, but crazy people could still be very dangerous.

“Um. I don’t actually know the answer to that,” Harold said, biting his lip. “I’m under orders. I’m new.”

Rose nodded like she understood, and Alejandro had to fight to keep from being impressed about how calm she was about the whole thing. Unless this kind of thing happened to her all the time? He’d never met a family of witches before, so who the hell knew?

“You need to leave. Now,” Alejandro said, determined to take control of the situation. He was the P-Ops agent, after all. He tried not to think about how Mac would be laughing his ass off if he could see this. Mac’s
stone
ass.

Alejandro gritted his teeth.

Rose gave Alejandro a
look
, and he knew that look. It was the universal female expression that meant “you’re not helping.” He narrowed his eyes at her, and she had the nerve to flash him a smile before turning back to the intruder.

“How about a cup of coffee, Harold?”

Alejandro groaned. “Do you routinely offer refreshment to crazy people who burst into your house and threaten you?”

“I don’t do
anything
routinely,” Rose said, and if it hadn’t been for the threat of destruction, Alejandro almost would have thought she was flirting with him. Which was impossible, because what woman would flirt with a man who had a gun trained on a silk-pajama-clad intruder?

“You’re almost as crazy as he is,” he said, shaking his head, which was suddenly aching. If he spent much more time with Rose, he was going to need a bottle of pain relievers.

Or tequila.

“Hey, I’m not crazy,” Harold interrupted. “I’m misunderstood.”

Alejandro had to laugh. “Really? You can stand there in those clothes and say that with a straight face?”

“Coffee?” Rose held up a mug.

“Yes, please,” Harold said politely. “Do you have artificial sweetener?”

“No, but I have raw sugar,” Rose said to the crazy man who had just
threatened to destroy her.
“Please have a seat.”

Harold sat down.

Alejandro swore under his breath and lowered his gun, beaten but not defeated. “Okay, if we’re going to do this, who the hell are you and why did you burst in here like that? Harold what? Orders from who?”

Rose handed Harold his cup, and the man took a small sip before responding. “Wouldn’t it be ‘orders from whom’? I don’t think ‘orders from who’ is grammatically correct.”

“I. Will. Shoot. You,” Alejandro said slowly, finally understanding the expression “I’m at the end of my rope” that Mac used so often.

“Veeno,” Harold said hastily. “Harold Veeno. I’m not sure who issued the orders. We have an email loop.”

“A what?”

Rose’s façade of calm finally cracked a little. “An email loop. You have an
email loop
,” she said, her voice a little higher than normal. “What’s it called? Assassins Are Us?”

“I’m not an assassin,” Harold said, pouting his lips out a little. Alejandro might have thought the man’s feelings were hurt, if he gave a shit whether or not the man’s feelings were hurt.

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.

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.

Several minutes later, Harold had recovered enough to sit up by the time Sue walked in.

“Why is your door hanging open, and what in the
world
is he wearing?” Rose’s mother stopped dead in her tracks and stared at Harold, who smiled almost bashfully back at her.

“It was the closest thing to villain wear I had handy, since most of my costumes are at the dry cleaners,” he explained, and Alejandro started smacking himself in the forehead, over and over.

“Flamingos?” Sue shook her head. “Not really scary. If you’re into birds, I would have gone with hawks or something.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Hawks? Ravens would be far more frightening.”

“This is the man who threatened your
daughter
,
Senora
Cardinal,” Alejandro said in that low, dangerous tone. “He is lucky to be alive, let alone discussing his clothing choices.”

In a heartbeat, Sue went from cheerful neighbor to terrifying and powerful witch, raising her hands in the air and beginning to chant in a low tone.

Rose knew the cadence of that chant. Harold was about to be very, very sorry. Possibly for the rest of his unexpectedly short life.

“Mom. It was mostly a misunderstanding. Harold is an actor. He’ll tell you all about it. Take him away, so we can make more potion. Please.” Rose put the plea in her voice as well as in her words, praying to the goddess that her mother would listen. She just didn’t have the energy to rehash it all again.

Sue opened her mouth and then shut it. “Fine.” She shot a shrewd glance at Alejandro and then smiled sweetly at Rose. “I’ll just leave you two alone, shall I? Come on, Harold. Let’s discuss how lucky you are to be alive over a cup of tea.”

A befuddled and babbling Harold followed her mother out the door, keeping one fearful eye trained on Alejandro all the way.

“He was sure you would have shot him,” Rose told Alejandro.

“He was right,” Alejandro said. “I’m going to check on Mac again while you start that potion.”

“He’s going to be okay. I promise. I once heard of a person who stayed stone for nearly a year and came out of it just fine. He had a slight eye twitch and a pathological fear of pigeons afterward, but no other side effects,” Rose said, trying to be reassuring.

From the expression on Alejandro’s face when he stalked out the door, she’d failed badly at it.

***

By the time he came back in, she’d put together the potion ingredients, covered the pot, and set it aside to process.

“It will be ready by morning,” she told him, tired but proud of her mastery of the difficult spell. “I really need something to eat. How about you?”

“I’ll eat when Mac can,” he said, scowling out the window. “This is my fault. I should have been more prepared, instead of falling for the initiation nonsense. I’m no untested rookie.”

The meaning behind his gruff declaration struck Rose a little too hard, and her heart thumped in her chest. “You’re used to taking care of everyone, aren’t you?”

He didn’t answer, just shifted restlessly, and she realized she wasn’t the only one who was tired of being trapped in her kitchen.

“That’s it. We’re going for pizza,” she announced. “There’s nothing we can do until tomorrow, and I need food or I’ll fall over.”

“I don’t want to go for pizza,” he growled, suddenly menacing in the fading light of dusk. She hadn’t yet turned on the lights, preferring to work her potion spells in natural light, and she hadn’t realized how dark it was getting until now, when she had a real predator in her kitchen.

Hawks and ravens, nothing. Alejandro was a
dragon
.

Metaphorically speaking.

Wow
. She really was reeling from that kiss.
Time to shake it off, Rose.

So she shrugged, pretending a lightheartedness she was far from feeling. “See you later, then.”

In one long stride, he was blocking her way. “You’re not leaving without me. Basilisks in your yard and crazy actors breaking into your house. No. Forget it.”

A delicious shiver ran through her at his protectiveness, but she hid her reaction to him behind a layer of cheerful defiance. “Come with me or move aside, Buster. Nobody keeps me from my pepperoni and extra cheese.”

Alejandro secured the back door, sent a silent mental apology to his partner, and then led the way through Rose’s house to the front. He gestured for her to stay back while he cleared the yard and was surprised when she actually obeyed.

Obeyed.
Hah
. Not Rose. He already knew that she was a woman who would do something only if she decided it was what she wanted to do. Stubborn, proud, and confident. It was incredibly hot.

She
was incredibly hot. And funny, smart, and loyal to her family.

He was in trouble.

“It’s clear,” he called out. She appeared, framed in the doorway for an instant, and a fierce rush of longing swept through him. If only he could have someone like her. A woman whose life was summer and sunshine; gardens and family. A woman whose most serious problem was an infestation of lizard-chickens, or a no-talent actor.

No, he corrected himself, driven to brutal honesty by her smile. Not
a
woman.

This
woman.

“It’s a short walk,” she said, shaking him out of his ridiculous fantasies of a peaceful life. “Right around the corner. One of the best geographical features of the neighborhood.”

“Pizza?”

“Pizza.”

The little restaurant was bustling, and as soon as Alejandro smelled the tomato-and-cheese-scented air, he knew why.

Rose caught him sniffing the air. “It smells wonderful in here, doesn’t it? Gianni and his family opened the restaurant more than a hundred years ago.”

The restaurant looked like all of the other Italian restaurants that Mac and his other fellow rookies had dragged him to, all candlelight and red-and-white-checked tablecloths, but he’d never smelled anything like it. He wanted to grab a knife and fork and dive into the aromas as an appetizer, even before they got to the actual food. His stomach suddenly rumbled, and Rose laughed.