Page 68 of Playing with Fire

Had Quinn hit his head? Had the angel smited him, too? I worried. “Uh, Quinn?”

“What?”

“You’re supposed to hate me when we’re not busy having amazing sex. I’m pretty sure that’s our relationship. We hate each other with moments when we lose all reason and end up in bed together.”

Quinn sighed. “Okay. I see we’re going to have to address this. Yes, Bailey. I hate you so much I need to marry you so our mutual hatred can last the rest of our lives. I heard you, you know. I very clearly heard you. You said, ‘I just haven’t figured out how to get the bastard to marry me.’ I’m calling you out. This is how you get the bastard to marry you. You walk him into that courthouse—in handcuffs, if you really want—and march him in front of that vampire judge. Then the bastard is forced to marry you. If you really want, ask for a gun. I’m sure someone has one you can borrow for a few minutes. Then the bastard will be forced to marry you at gunpoint. Aren’t I helpful?”

Crap. I had said that. Me and my big mouth got me in so much trouble. “Did I really say that?”

“You did. Be responsible, Bailey Gardener. You said it, so you have to marry me. Here. Now. It would make me really happy.”

My mind went blank. Quinn really wanted to marry me? He must have hit his head in the courthouse when the angel had smited my parents and done the scary angel halo thing. I didn’t believe it, not for an instant, but I couldn’t bring myself to call him out on it. “Do I get a real wedding later?”

Stupid mouth. Was there such a thing as a fake wedding? Well, there were bogus marriage certificates used to keep amorous gorgons away. Maybe a fake wedding was a little like one of those. Would I still get to sleep with Quinn if we had a fake wedding?

“Do you want one?”

Good question. Did I want a real wedding? I tried to imagine myself walking down an aisle in a white dress, and my brain promptly fizzled and went blank. To cover my complete inability to handle feminine issues, including the possibility of having a real wedding, I blurted, “I might!”

“If you want a real wedding, we’ll have a real wedding.”

Since that hadn’t been the answer I expected, I floundered again. “Here? Now? Us? Are you serious?”

“Here. Now. I need you to be mine. I never want to let a single gorgon even look at you again without being able to beat the living shit out of him and make him regret he ever saw you.”

Okay. Wow. Clearly Quinn needed to be educated on the reality of the situation. “But me? Why me? Look at me. I wasn’t pretty before a bomb went off in my face. I’m no model. Until earlier today, I scraped pennies to get by, and I didn’t exactly do a stellar job of it, either. You could have any woman in the world. All you’d have to do is smile at her, waggle your finger, and ask. You’re that sexy.”

“There’s only one woman I want, Bailey. You. When I’m an asshole, you tell me so. I’d say you’re afraid of nothing, but my grandfather scared you so much you ran and hid under my blanket. You’re brave, and that scares the shit out of me. When I watched that damned building burn, I was devastated. I had sent you in there, and I thought I’d never see you again. But then there you were, a sodden, shivering mess trapped in the rubble and so miserable, but you were alive. I wanted to take you home, lock you up, and never let you out again so I could keep you safe.”

“That’s crazy.” It was, too.

He made it sound like he actually loved me.

“You do that to me. You drive me crazy, and I love every minute of it. If I had known a woman like you existed, I never would have settled for someone like Audrey in the first place.”

There were so many things wrong with our situation I barely knew where to start addressing them. I went with the easiest one first. “But I’m a bitch, Quinn. I’ve never exactly been nice to you.”

“You’re joking, right? Have you looked at me? An egotistical asshole like me needs a bitch like you. You’re blunt. You’re honest. You’re prickly as hell. You’re a lot of things, but you’re not weak. I don’t scare you one bit. When I fuck up, you let me know. You don’t back down. You don’t let me step on you. Hell, maybe if we stay together long enough, we’ll just be two people with tough jobs trying to make the world a better place.”

“Quinn, the romance section called. They’re looking for their lost stud again.”

He laughed. “Just shut up, stop complaining, and marry me.”

I had been right all along. I was in way too deep. “Well, then. Since you asked so nicely, how could I possibly refuse?”

An angel and an incubus in the same courtroom seemed like the start of a bad joke to me. Once I added the vampire judge, two cops serving as witnesses, and a crowd of mismatched supernatural, I ended up with a wedding.

My wedding.

A gorgon with coral snakes for hair sat in the front row talking with Quinn’s father. The gorgon’s lack of sunglasses or a veil covering his head puzzled me. Why wasn’t anyone a statue yet? The mysterious absence of petrified victims kept me staring at him longer than was socially acceptable. Quinn caught me gawking and chuckled, nudging me with his elbow.

I ignored him. If he wanted me to be polite, he needed to do something about the centaur in the center row; she was playing with the gorgon’s coral snakes, cooing at them and kissing each one in turn. I was pretty sure she had named them and was determined to whisper sweet nothings to them all.

I suspected her genes had somehow contributed to Quinn’s existence, as I struggled to accept someone so beautiful existed in the world and shared the same air I breathed. She also had Quinn’s dark hair and rich brown eyes. A rational explanation surfaced, and I turned to Quinn, tugging on his sleeve. “Quinn?”

“Yes?”

“I think your grandfather smited me. I’m actually in the hospital dying. Again. I need to stop doing that.”