“Oh my God. Kayden. That was horrible. I know we have to go to the consulate for my passport, but I could have worked around that with her. And I could have handled it nicely.”
“Gallo will be waiting on us if we go today. We’ll go when his boss can make sure he isn’t around.”
I forget about Giada. “You have that much pull with his boss?”
“Yes, I do. And before you ask, Gallo has no idea just how much.”
“How is that possible, if you don’t work for the police department?”
“I do a few things on the side for them when necessary. This will cost me one of those jobs, but so
be it to keep the relationship and get what we need.” He rolls me onto my back, his arm bracketing my body. “Today we stay here. Just you and me.”
“Don’t expect me to complain about hiding out with you on a rainy day, but you were still mean to Giada.”
“I don’t want her negativity influencing you.”
“I’m my own person, and she needs a positive influence. Actually, Kayden, you lost your family as a minor as well. You could help her. Maybe we could take her to lunch.”
“No,” he says, his tone flat and absolute.
“Kayden—”
“No. End of topic.” He rolls off me and the bed, and is crossing the room and entering the bathroom before I’ve sat up.
I gape in disbelief, but I am not dissuaded from the topic or finding out what the heck is up with him and Giada. I scramble off the bed, quickly crossing to the bathroom, where I find him slathering on shaving cream at the sink. “No?” I demand. “You sound like Gallo. I only take orders in bed. I am not one of your Hunters.”
He sets the brush down and turns to face me. “Is that right?”
“Oh yes. That’s right.”
“You really are a redhead, aren’t you?”
I have a flickering memory of my mother, and my temper deflates. “Yes. I am.”
He drags me to him. “Then you leave me only one option,” he declares, his tone flat.
“And that would be what?”
He kisses me, and I gasp into his mouth as shaving cream smudges all over me. I shove on his chest to free my mouth. “No, you didn’t.”
He grins, and it’s truly sexy and hot in every possible way. “That’s what you get for messing with me, sweetheart.”
I laugh and push to my toes and kiss him again. He cups my head and gives me a long, drugging kiss, and then turns me to the mirror, and I have as much shaving cream on me as he does him. I grab the towel he has sitting on the sink and pat my cheeks.
“Now you know what happens when you argue with me,” he teases, reaching for the brush again.
“I’ll do it,” I say, stepping in front of him and taking the brush from his hand, our laughter in the middle of what could have been a fight feeling right in the same way our comfortable silences are.
He lifts me and sets me on the counter. “Are you as dangerous with a razor as you are with a gun?”
I grin. “Of course, but at least I’m accurate with the gun.”
“You aren’t making me confident about putting a blade in your hand, and how do you know you’re accurate with a gun?”
“My father made me practice. I resented him then, but it’s actually really comforting to know I can handle myself.”
“You will get no argument from me on that. What else do you remember?”