Page 19 of Defensive Zone

He slipped Elise from her arms before she could protest and handed her a bottle of water, which she’d needed but wasn’t going to tell him.

He brought out the child in her and not in a good way. It was the childish side of her that she’d thought was shoved away years ago. The pettiness and one-upping were maddening, yet she’d never been able to ignore it.

“Don’t wake Elise up. Ava needs her sleep,” she said. “I bet your beard is too scratchy for her.”

“She’s fine, Gabi. What are we watching?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. There’s a new episode of my favorite British bake-off show that I wanted to watch.”

“Or we could watch NHL News,” he said.

“Nope. You have the baby. I have the remote,” she said, starting to scroll through the channels.

“Harry Potter?” he asked when she paused on the channel that always had Harry Potter marathons.

“Really? You don’t strike me as a Potter fan.”

“Anyone ever tell you that making assumptions is a bad idea?” he said, keeping his voice low as Elise stirred against him. He murmured soft words to the baby. Elise pursed her lips and settled right back down without opening her eyes.

Gabi’s belly fluttered again.

Stop it.

“Are you really a Potter fan?” she asked.

“Yep. Even know what house I would’ve been sorted in. Hufflepuff, if you must know.”

“Are you sure you weren’t sorted into Slytherin? You’re good at slithering in.”

“Why, Gabi; how inappropriate. Although I have had more than one woman make that comment.”

Then he wiggled his damn eyebrows at her.

“Oh my god. I did not mean it that way. Ugh, you’re such a pain in the ass. I mean you’re always sidling up and being infuriating. You would turn it sexual.”

And now she was thinking about it that way and willing her blush to slither right the hell away. Why had her mind instantly gone there?

“Calm down, Gabster. You’ll wake the baby.”

She huffed, wishing she could scream. “How are you not black and blue all the time? You are so damn maddening and people must itch to punch you all the time.”

“Violence and sexual jokes. Not my thing, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Didn’t know you had it in you, Gabster,”

She cut him off. “If you call me Gabster one more time, I’m going to. Ugh, I can’t punch you right now, you’re holding Elise, but it’ll happen eventually.”

He chuckled. “You’re cute all riled up.”

“And you’re annoying.”

“I believe the phrase you’re looking for is charming.”

He batted his eyes at her, and she couldn’t stop her laugh. He was insane.

“I also have a Potter tattoo.”

“Really? I bet it’s the ‘up to no good’ quote,” she said, wondering if he actually had a literary tattoo on his body.

The man was a walking contradiction if he did.

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