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All I could comprehend was the heat of his big hands and how gently they touched me. The sudden scent of him. Citrus and the hints of cinnamon he must have put in his coffee.
“It’s my absolute pleasure,” he confided.
Gray, what the hell are you doing?
Regaining my common sense, I shoved at him. The blush overtook my cheeks and roared through my body. “Oh, and one more thing. No unexpected touching. None! You really need to work on respecting people’s physical space.”
The door opened, and Azra rushed in. The hair on the back of my neck tingled, sensing the furious energy pluming from her.
She maneuvered in front of me, fingers spread and tipped in gleaming claws.
Razai blurted, “When I get excited, I hug people.” He wore a wide-eyed, soft-mouthed expression, brows inched high in surprise. The asshole looked genuinely innocent.
He’s good at acting. That’s worrying.
The growl in Azra’s throat paused, though.
He continued, “Gray said something that made me happy, and so I hugged her. Then, she screamed at me. Which is fair. My mistake. I just get so excited.”
Azra looked over her shoulder at me. Her leopard eyes were wide with what-the-fuck energy.
I shook my head. “Kitten, I literally don’t know. Zero answers. He’s weird.”
Razai nodded happily. “Exactly. Which is why yesterday, when you accidentally dropped your keys on the sidewalk, I also got excited and snatched them for you. I considered giving them to you, but then I worried that Gray would yell at me for following her again, and I definitely didn’t want to freak you out and knock on your apartment door. So, I made sure to get here early and open up like a good, supportive neighbor. Citizen. Fellow compatriot? Anyway, next time, should I leave them on the sidewalk? Would that be better?”
I narrowed my eyes. Was he seriously this erratic? Did he drink coffee all night? He was just so animated. So absurdly sincere that it didn’t seem real.
Archangels were supposedly domineering assholes. The ones who have all the control and twice the ego they deserve.
This man was not any of those things.
Azra crossed her arms and cocked a hip.
Oh no.
“That’s a load of bullshit and we both know it.”
Razai chuckled and relaxed. “Sorry, I wanted to see if that would work. You did drop your keys, and I did manage to get them before someone else picked them up randomly, but I had zero intention of returning them. Waiting for you in the cafe was much more dramatic. So, Gray, did I pass? When can you start? Shall we go gather your things for our little adventure?”
Azra whirled on me, practically spitting fire. “Start what, Gray?”
Razai’s wicked grin told me he knew what he’d just done, and he had zero sympathy for me.
Well, shit.
Chapter Ten
“I’m going to kill him,” I mumbled. Telling Azra upsetting things was an art form, not a skydive.
Azra was a puzzle herself. Maybe that’s why we got along so well. Place the pieces in the perfect connections and optimal order, and you might pass on without your ears bleeding from her scolding.
Get it wrong, and… well…
“There’s no way to say this correctly,” I admitted. “I’m not sure I have anything that will make this make sense to you. In all honestly, it doesn’t make sense to me, but I’m taking the job.”
She reeled back, her fury temporarily stunned. “What’s gotten into you?”
“I don’t know,” I returned. “I just… I want to do it. I think I can.”
