“She’s right. I’ll talk to Gabriel and have him set something up.” Samson cast Amaury a determined glance.
“Fine, but under one condition. Nina will not leave my side.” As if to assert his statement, he took her hand again.
“Fine,” Samson agreed.
Was that a smirk on Samson’s face? It seemed so. When she looked at Delilah she saw her, too, suppress a grin. It had to be an inside joke, because Nina could not figure out what the two were finding so funny.
Twenty
“Unacceptable. She’ll be too far away for me to rescue her if something goes wrong.” Amaury let his frustration out on Gabriel and looked up and down the downtown street. Despite the late hour, there was still the odd car about.
“I can take care of myself,” Nina protested.
“Yeah, I’ve seen that the last two nights.” He was in no mood to see her putting herself in danger again.
“You don’t have a choice. If I let you go with her, we won’t be able to tell if Paul recognizes you or her.” Gabriel’s voice had a schoolmaster’s tone to it. Amaury didn’t need a lecture right now. He wanted Nina nowhere near the suspect.
His frustrated grunt only got him a shake of Nina’s head. Did she not realize he was only trying to protect her?
“Okay, in positions then. Quinn is hidden in the doorway at the other end. Nina, you know what to do,” Gabriel instructed.
She nodded and turned to leave.
“Wait.” Amaury couldn’t just let her go. “You can change your mind. You don’t need to do this.”
She spun around, gave him a stern look and flipped him off. A second later she crossed the street.
Amaury felt heat shoot through his veins. Before he could stalk after her to paddle her insolent ass, Gabriel’s hand clamped down on his arm.
“You can teach her manners later. We need her to do this now.”
Gabriel even had the audacity to chuckle. Amaury shot him a displeased glance, but it didn’t deter the New York boss from making yet another disrespectful remark. “Should have wiped her memory when you had the chance, but no, you didn’t listen. Now she’s got the upper hand. Serves you right.”
Served him right?
Where had he heard that before? Yeah, right, Thomas had made the same comment.
Amaury curled his hand into a fist and leveled it at Gabriel. “None of your fucking business.”
“What is it with you and human women anyway?”
“None of your business.” Gabriel was getting downright annoying now.
“Listen, let me give you some advice.”
“I don’t want your advice.”
“Well, you’re gonna get it anyway. A woman like her can get under a man’s skin. I’ve seen it before. Already now she’s got you all worked up, and how long have you known her? A week, a month?”
“Three days, not that it’s any of your fucking business.”
Gabriel’s surprise was evident. “Three days? Oh, boy, you’ve got it bad.”
Didn’t he know it! He needed no colleague to tell him that. And it irked him to no end. The little insolent minx was pushing all his buttons as if he had “fuck me” written all over his forehead. How she had brought out this possessive side in him—a side he thought he didn’t have—was beyond him. Why couldn’t he just fuck her and leave her like he did with all other women?
Already now everybody made fun of him. Samson’s smirk hadn’t escaped his attention. What was it? Schadenfreude? Like everybody was happy about what was coming to him. Could they all tell that he was turning into some pussy-whipped idiot?
He couldn’t go on like this. Tonight, he’d fuck her once more, and then he’d turn her loose, wipe her memory of him and be done with it. He could not allow her to screw with his head like this. And besides, something in her attitude had changed, and he couldn’t figure out what it was.
A sound on the other side of the street had him whip his head around. Somebody was approaching her.
“It’s just a homeless guy,” Gabriel said next to him.
A moment later an airport shuttle approached and came to a halt in front of them, obstructing their view. The din of emotions suddenly hit Amaury and he pressed his hand against his temple. Almost the entire evening he’d felt barely any pain or discomfort from his gift; in fact, he’d barely sensed anybody’s emotions. He attributed it to his extremely satisfying interlude with Nina in the staff room of the club. It seemed that sex with her kept the emotions at bay for longer than any of his previous sexual encounters ever had.