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He wasn’t dead yet—so I slammed my knee into his nuts. All the air seemed to leave him as he collapsed. When Freddie would have followed him down, I gripped his blood-soaked hand.
“We can go…”
“He hurt you.” He was incensed, and the pain radiating from my shoulder and sending fire shooting down my arms was a testament to that.
“He can’t touch me.” It wasn’t a lie. The guy was dead. His brutal contact already forgotten. If I had bruises—I didn’t care. I was safe, and so was Freddie.
Gaze locked on mine, Freddie dipped his eyes from where my dress had torn, then down to the man below. He was still alive—barely.
“He’s losing those fingers.” It wasn’t a request. I squeezed Freddie’s hand then dropped to my knees to grip the guy’s arm and yank it straight.
Flattening the offending palm to the ground, I cast my stare up to lock with Freddie’s again. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl of a grin. “You got him, Boo-Boo?”
“I got him.”
“Which fingers?”
Three sparks of pain radiated from my ass, so I chose three fingers. Freddie severed them with brutal efficiency. The first one barely registered with the guy. The second one made him howl. After the third, Freddie kicked him in the head to silence him.
Finished, I reclaimed my gun. Instead of leaving the mutilated digits there, Freddie scooped them up and carried them down the alley with us to toss them into a grate.
Yeah, I didn’t want to think about that anymore. Clasping our sticky hands together, we took off through the network of alleys. I could almost tell we were getting closer to the water. The scents changed, and the breeze shifted.
When we would have emerged from an alley right on the road, Freddie drew me back into the shadows. “We wait here,” he said.
“In the open?” It wasn’t so much a question as a confirmation. Freddie nodded once.
“This is where we wait. The guys will come for us.” Absolute certainty. There were zero reasons to expect anything different. Jasper and Liam would come for us.
Or they would send Rome or Kellan or Vaughn. I shuddered as I tried to catch my breath. Freddie tugged me to him.
“Are you cold?”
Head tilting back, I studied him. This close, there was no mistaking the blood spatter on his face or hair. Another reason to not go any closer to the streetlamps. We were a bloody mess—literally.
The shivering wasn’t from the cold but the reaction. I got that, and still, I didn’t want to put too much pressure on Freddie. “I’ll be okay.”
“C’mere, Boo-Boo,” he murmured, tightening an arm around me and inviting me right up next to him as he turned his back to the wind and shielded me from the worst of the draft.
“I don’t want to scare you,” I whispered.
“Not scared,” he said, almost like a prayer. “Only scared when I saw that guy trying to hurt you.”
“You stopped him.”
His grin was breathtaking. “You stopped the son of a bitch who hit me.”
“Never letting anyone hurt you again,” I told him. It was my promise. “Not if I can help it.”
“Well, same, Boo-Boo.” Then he dipped his head, his nose brushing against my hair. “Can I kiss you again?”
I didn’t bother with a verbal answer. Tugging my fingers from his, I raised my free hand to his face and my lips to his. He fused his open mouth to mine, and the sweep of his tongue was a heady experience. My pulse hammered as I held on tight to him. Freddie squeezed me gently and then nuzzled my lips before he tangled his tongue with mine.
Intoxicating and delightful, I wanted more, but I still held a gun, and he had a knife. We were also covered in someone else’s blood. When he dragged his head upward to gaze down at me, I couldn’t slow my panting breaths.
“Don’t run away,” I whispered. “Please.” I didn’t want to put pressure on him, but I couldn’t bear it if he had to flee right now.
“Not running, Boo-Boo,” he promised. Then he kissed me again—this time, slow and deliberate. The pressure pushed me right up against the wall. Brick scraped against my back, but I didn’t care. The softness of his lips was a temptation, as was the husky chuckle he released before he nuzzled kisses to my throat.
