AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His look dove down to the tuft. Except it wasn’t just a tuft of her skirt, it was the whole of it.
His heart stopped and he rushed into the room, shoving aside the settee as he rounded it.
Elle on the ground. Flat on her belly. Arms splayed wide. Her right arm bent down with her wrist by her waist, her left arm bent high over her head.
Not moving.
Dead. She looked dead.
He skidded onto his knees beside her, his hands to her face. Cupping her cheeks. Shaking her.
Breath. Breath hit his thumb. The slightest whiff of air, but it was there.
He froze with her head in his hands, not daring to move. Not until he felt another breath from her.
A slight whisper of air rolled over his knuckle.
Thank the heavens.
But what the hell had happened to her?
As delicately as he could, he slipped his hands under her body and flipped her over.
Shit.
Seeing it instantly, his fingers went to her throat, gently tracing the angry red welts that lined her neck. One…two…three…four…and then on the opposite side of her neck, a fifth mark.
She’d been choked. Choked in her own home.
A rage so visceral swept through his body he was shocked his skin didn’t tear open, exploding.
“What the hell happened to you, finch?” The whisper barely made it from his lips, choked in a dam of fury beating hot in his throat.
His body heavy, as though a thousand stones had landed upon him, crushing him, he spun around, setting his back to the wall and he pulled her head onto his lap.
His fingers itched to shake her, to wake her up, but he instead stretched them wide, then set them on the bare expanse of her chest above her bodice.
If he could feel her lungs rise and fall then he didn’t need to worry—she would wake.
But he did need to plan.
{ Chapter 14 }
This wasn’t how she fell. Face first into the floor.
She remembered it distinctly. The wood rushing at her. The thought that it was going to hurt flashing through her brain, then nothing.
The sliver of light she could see through her lashes told her the sun was still streaming in through the window.
No. Not at all how she fell. She was on her back now, her head propped up. What the deuce?
She shifted slightly, her head rubbing against something soft—soft but hard. A lap.
Her head was in a lap, fingers stroking through her hair.
Howard—hell. She had to get away from him.
Her eyes opened wide, her look darting frantically about the room as she tried to lift her head.
