The Dangerous Thief (Stolen Hearts #3)(16)

Before she truly got her bearings, James came around the bed, gun drawn, and kept on firing. Willa tried to crawl away, but the bed stopped her from moving any further.

All she could do was sit there as James stood over the attacker. Even though he’d been hit multiple times, the guy was coughing and moaning in pain.

“Leave,” said James.

It took a second for Willa to realize that James was talking to her. “I....” Her throat didn’t want to work right. “Should I call the cops?”

James didn’t look away from the man on the floor. “No. Leave, Willa. I’ll be right out.”

She pushed herself up but she didn’t make it out. She couldn’t leave him. She didn’t want to. She needed to see what was going to happen.

She expected James to finish it with a gun, but he didn’t. He knelt down and in the darkness, it was hard to see exactly what was happening. But the coughing man was suddenly quiet and she could tell from the body positions that James was leaning over him, with a hand on his throat.

Willa stood there the entire time. She couldn’t leave. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t know what was happening. She couldn’t pretend she wasn’t involved in this.

The minutes stretched on, and James didn’t let go, even long after the man had stopped moving. Finally James stood and Willa felt as though she were frozen to the ground. What did she say to that? James had just killed a man for her. It was the second time she’d ever seen someone killed. Murdered? The lines were so blurred at the moment.

James walked over to the doorway and flipped on the lights. Setting a hand on her arm, he pulled her into the hall where she couldn’t see the body anymore. “Are you okay?” he asked in his normal tone, as though nothing had happened.

“I....” What the hell was she supposed to say to that?

He didn’t wait for her answer. He knelt in front of her and pushed her hand away from where it was holding the knife wound at her side. She didn’t even realize she’d been holding it until he did that. He lifted the edge of her T-shirt to get a better look, and as her legs wobbled, she set a hand on his big shoulder to steady her. Was she weak from blood loss or was it the craziness of what had just happened?

“This doesn’t look too deep. I don’t think it will need stitches. I’ll grab some butterfly bandages and some antibiotics.”

Well, that probably meant it wasn’t blood loss. She stared down at him, which quickly turned to staring up at him as he stood and continued to look her over. He tilted her face back and moved her head to the left and right, as though looking for any other injuries.

“I think I’m okay,” she managed to get out, trying and failing to have the same calm that he did. She’d been stabbed. People like her just didn’t get stabbed. And they didn’t get saved by people like James Weston.

He nodded at her words, but he didn’t let go of her face. His long fingers reached the base of her neck while his thumb was right under her chin. She was still gasping for breath as she took a moment to study him. His face was smudged with dirt and she could see evidence of bruising on one side of his face. Whatever had kept him from her for so long, it hadn’t been enough to keep him down. She reached up to touch him, almost not believing he was real. He had come for her. She had been the damsel who was so sure she was going to die and then there he’d been.

She was fighting off the urge to kiss him when he crushed his mouth over hers. After everything that had just happened, making out with her personal killer was the worst idea in the world. But all the safeguards in her mind that were supposed to keep her from doing this had been fried in the franticness of the past few minutes.

The kiss was just as feral as James. He didn’t treat her as small or fragile or breakable. He was rough and hard and she held him closer, more than happy to take all of that roughness.

Because at the moment, even though she’d needed to be saved and had almost died, she didn’t feel fragile. She had survived. She fought. She didn’t scream.

She didn’t feel as if she and James were all that different for the moment. So when he backed her against the wall and pressed his body against hers, she didn’t notice any of the pain. All she could do was grab onto his shoulders, her fingers biting into the muscle, as she held him closer and kissed him back.

He held her head steady, bracing her for his kiss. Suddenly he broke away and his forehead rested against hers as they both caught their breath. Even as the reasons that never should’ve happened rushed her mind, all she wanted to do was pull him back in.

“Stay here.” James pushed away and went to the bathroom.

She wished he hadn’t left. The second he was gone, reality crushed back in. Namely, the physical pain of what had just happened. Her hand went back to her side. Putting pressure on her mini stab wound didn’t really do much for the pain, but it was almost an impulse.

He told her to stay there, but she was too antsy to sit still. She leaned in and looked into James’s bedroom. The side wall had slid open to reveal a hidden door. That was how James had snuck up on them. It was strange to have a hidden room, but nothing was really a surprise when it came to James Weston. From what she knew about the layout of the house, the hidden door led to the locked room they’d gotten into a fight over during that first night.

She stepped into the room and glanced over at the body. She wanted to feel bad about the deceased man, but she could still feel the way his palm had crushed her windpipe. Good riddance.