Page 79 of When He Defends

She is driving me crazy.

His jaw was locked tight. He kicked the door closed. Marched for the bed. Dropped her on it, and that breezy skirt of hers flew up over her thighs. She looked sexy. Beautiful.Delicate.And she’d just taunted a serial killer. Even crooked her finger. She might as well have been wearing a neon sign that said, “Hey, come try to kill me!” Since she’d been standing in the blue light cast from the pool, the womanhadpractically been glowing.

Sonofabitch.

His hands went to his hips as he glared down at her. “What the actual fuck, Emerson?” Gray snarled.

She tossed hair out of her eyes. “What the actual fuck, Gray? You can’t just throw me over your shoulder and toss me onto the bed!”

His teeth snapped together. “What on earth possessed you…to say, ‘Come and get me’ to that prick?”

“I said it to you. Not him.”

“Bullshit. And the finger-crooking bit?”

Her head tilted to the side. She played with a lock of hair. “Again, to you.”

He surged forward until his legs hit the mattress. “Bullshit,” he called a second time.

She stopped playing with the hair. “What’s the problem, Gray? Isn’t that what you wanted? For him to pick me?”

“No! I did not want you to taunt the killer!”

Her brows lowered. “You wanted him to come after me.”

“I wanted his attention on me. Me.” He slapped his chest. “I didn’t want you waving yourself at him like a red flag!” Hell. Dammit. Hell.Dammit.

“Then why didn’t you say something when I went out in my bright skirt and top? You were all dark and blending with the shadows, but I stuck out. I thought youwantedme to catch his attention. I thought that was the whole point of us parading out there.”

He hadn’t been parading. He’d been skulking. Gray kept glaring at her. “I didn’t say anything because you looked—lookpretty in the outfit. There was no sense in you changing.”

She stared at him as if he had two heads.

“AndIwas going to blend with the dark—thus the dark clothes. But you were supposed to look normal. Touristy. Honeymoony. So your outfit was fine.” He grabbed his phone. Dialed Malik.

She tried to sidle off the bed.

“Don’t even think about it. We are not done.”Crooked her finger? Told the killer to come and get her?His temples throbbed. Gray was surprised that smoke wasn’t billowing from him.

“Someone is grumpy,” she muttered. Then she brushed off her arms. Sand fell onto the bed. “Was the kiss in the sand really necessary?”

“Yes,” he hissed.

“Yo,” Malik said in his ear at the same time.

“We have a situation,” Gray told him.

She brushed off more sand. Wrinkled her nose. “I probably need to shower,” Emerson whispered.

He sucked in a breath and held onto his patience with all of his might. “Someone has their own video security system set up on the island. Tiny cameras. You have to know what you’re looking for, but once you spot them…” He let the words trail off.

Emerson had just pulled her blouse a few inches away from her chest and was peering down her shirt.

Looking for sand.

Fuck.

“Emerson,” he snapped.