Where Winter Finds You (Black Dagger Brotherhood #18)- J.R Ward Page 0,29

that someone had used her like a football and kicked her. But no. Arms were around her waist—or one arm was around her waist.

Looking forward, she saw the other of the pair thrust out in front, like one of those police battering rams that SWAT teams broke doors down with, and holy crap, it was working, clearing the path, getting her and her savior out of the crush. Determined not to be dropped, she grabbed onto the torso of whoever was carrying her, wrapping a tight hold around what turned out to be a hard, hard body.

After a few dozen feet, they were out of the chaos and away from the panic, but whoever it was didn’t stop. They seemed to want to run into the black wall—

A hidden door opened in advance of their going cartoon character through the Sheetrock, and then they were in a well-lit corridor.

The trap door slammed behind them.

Twisting around… she looked up into Trez Latimer’s harsh face.

* * *

Trez was breathing so hard, his eyesight was checker-boarding on him, although the visual optics were not the result of exertion. He had been scared fucking shitless as he’d tried to get Therese to safety.

He’d been up in his office, trying not to think about her, when he’d seen the fight break out between two asshats competing for the attention of a woman who was a sure thing either way. The men had started pushing and shoving, and then, of course, their buddies had gotten involved, the testosterone taking over and escalating everything. In a rather bored fashion, he had called down to Xhex and her team, but she was already headed in that direction, alerted by staff on the floor, and he was more than happy to stay out of it.

Except then, from his perch on high, he had seen a familiar face in the crowd, the flash of a laser illuminating what could only be Therese.

Without wasting a second, he had dematerialized through the glass, some sixth sense of impending doom calling him into furious action.

And then the shooting had broken out.

“Are you hurt?” he asked as he laid her down on the cold concrete floor of the passageway used to bring liquor to the bar during business hours.

“It’s you…” she said with wonder. “What are you doing here?”

Outside in the club proper, the music was abruptly cut off, the voices and yelling of the crowd taking the place of the beats.

“I own this place.” He stared down at her. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know.” She pushed her upper body up and looked herself over. “I don’t think so. I can’t smell blood.”

“Neither can I.”

Therese flexed arms. Flexed legs. Turned her hands over, assessed her elbows. “I’m okay.”

Annnnnnnd that was when a case of the woozies took Trez’s wheel, his body weaving even though he was kneeling. To keep from passing the hell out on the female—because, one, he didn’t want to crush her just after he had tried to save her from being crushed, and two, he’d pulled the fainting routine with her once already, so really, he’d prefer to keep things fresh and interesting by staying fucking conscious—he shifted to one side and sat on his ass. As they both stayed put and panted, he heard the sounds of sirens and the shuffling of feet.

“Do you need to go out there?” she asked him as she focused on the wall of the corridor.

He was momentarily distracted by looking her over himself. Her hair, previously so neat in that bun, had a halo of escaped curls, and there was a high flush on her cheeks, one that made her look especially lovely, in spite of all the drama. She also appeared to be totally not bleeding.

#bonus

Fuck. His heart rate was never going to slow down.

What had she said? Oh, right.

“Xhex is on it.” Which was a good thing as he wasn’t sure whether he could stand up to go out there anyway. “You did really well—getting out of the way, I mean.”

“I was good until I couldn’t get on my feet.” She rubbed her eyes. “I was almost shot.”

“I know.”

As they fell silent, he was very aware that she was replaying the near miss just as he was. The idea that something like that could happen so fast—

“It happened so fast,” she said.

“I was thinking exactly the same thing.”

There was another slice of quiet, and then they looked at each other.

Later, when he replayed the next shock of the night, he would try