Page 37 of Perfect Liar
He was strangling me.
Will charged, something like a roar ripping out of his throat, his feet leaving the ground. His blade came down on the man’s arms and then he threw me toward the shore.
Freeing waves swept me in to the beach, to the men waiting for me, running at me.
I forced my exhausted body up on my hands and knees. I clawed through stones and seaweed until I collapsed on dry sand.
My lungs purged seawater and filled with air at the same time. I lay there on my back, gasping, choking, closer to death than I’d ever been.
John turned me onto my side.
Voices, so distant.
I vomited.
Ben wrapped a blanket around my body.
Then my confused mind let go, giving in to darkness.
CHAPTER 11
I woke on the living room sofa with John watching over me. So close, he was just so close, waiting as if he expected something more from me.
I trembled with cold and shock, but I had nothing else to give in that moment.
Male voices rumbled, pushing away the fog inside my head.
Will’s voice.
I kicked off the blankets and ran to him in the kitchen. He caught me and lifted me into his arms. He rested his warm lips on my temple in a soft, unending kiss.
My heart raced.
Will’s mouth, his rough whisper, swept over my ear.
“Are you all right, baby? Did he hurt you?”
“No, I’m okay.”
I swallowed against the intense pain in my throat, lying.
“Never do that to me again, Elle.”
He pressed his lips against my skin again, letting another kiss linger on my temple.
We didn’t allow our eyes to connect, not this time. We knew better. We knew what it would mean for us in the power of that moment.
I had fallen hard for him…for the man who killed for me.
As he lowered me to my feet, a kitchen towel unraveled from his right hand. We stared at the bloody broken skin covering his knuckles until he jerked his hand behind his back.
I tugged on his arm.
“Come sit at the counter. Let me help you with it, Will.”
He nodded, and I grabbed the first aid kit from the cabinet.
“It doesn’t upset you then,” he said.