Into the Fire - Anne Stuart [67]
She must have screamed. She was trapped in the rotting floorboards, up to her knees, and when she twisted around to look the doorway was empty.
The wood had collapsed around her, and every time she tried to pull free it simply crumbled beneath her. She was trapped, almost up to her hips, and she had a suddenly, irrational terror that ghostly hands would reach from underneath and pull her down, down into some inexplicable hell, and she screamed again, this time for Dillon.
She heard the thundering sound of his footsteps, and she closed her eyes in relief. There hadn’t been time for him to have pushed her, disappeared and then come back up. There couldn’t have been.
He reached under her arms and hauled her up, the wood splintering as he pulled her through, and she let out a cry of pain. He set her down in the hallway, ungently, and she leaned against the wall, her legs weak beneath her, and watched as he slammed the door, plunging them into darkness. And then locked it, locking away the evil, locking away the truth.
“What the fuck were you doing in there?”
She was glad she didn’t have to see the fury in his face. Her left leg was beginning to throb, and her entire body was trembling with the aftermath of shock.
“That was where he died, isn’t it?” Her voice was low, strained. “That’s where Nate was murdered. That’s his blood all over the place. For God’s sake, couldn’t you have at least cleaned up the blood?” she cried.
Silence. She could barely see his shadow in the darkened hallway—his expression was beyond reading. “I didn’t expect you to go nosing around where you didn’t belong.”
“Hell, I don’t belong here, anywhere here, and we both know it! I certainly don’t belong in your bed.”
“Or in the back seat of my car. Or on the floor of the garage. Or on the kitchen table, or anywhere else we end up doing it. Whether you belong or not is beside the point. It’s where you want to be.”
The pain in her leg was nothing compared to the harshness in his voice. “Go to hell,” she said. She pushed away from the wall, but her leg buckled beneath her. It should have been too dark for him to see, but she should never have underestimated the Killer.
He picked her up, and she hit him, trying to squirm out of his arms. He was much stronger, of course, and it only took him a moment to pinion her arms between them. “Stop fighting me,” he said gruffly. “It puts me in a bad mood, and you don’t want to see me in a bad mood. You’re hurt, you can’t walk, so you might as well shut up and let me help.”
“I could crawl,” she snapped.
“A lovely thought, but we’ll wait till I’m not so pissed at you to play those games.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“By your standards, yes.” He was totally unmoved by her struggles or her fury, and she could tell by the strength and tension in his body that he was just as angry with her.
He carried her down the stairs. Down two flights of stairs, thank God, not stopping at the floor with the bedrooms. The kitchen was filled with warmth and light—a shocking contrast to the bleakness of the third floor, and she could smell something cooking. Something wonderful, and her empty stomach growled in sudden hunger.
He set her down on the oak table, and she immediately tried to jump down.
“Don’t waste your time, and don’t piss me off more than I already am,” he growled. “You screwed up your leg big time, and I don’t want you turning around and suing me. I don’t have any kind of insurance, and while I know you’d like nothing better than to take this place away from me and burn it to the ground as a tribute to your darling Nate, I’ve worked hard for it and I’m not about to let it go. So hold still and let me see how badly you’re hurt.”
She still tried to scramble off the table, but he was stronger than she was, holding her there, and she gave up fighting.
“Shit,” he muttered.
“Shit,” she echoed, looking down at the blood-matted leg of her jeans. No wonder it was throbbing.
“Stay put,” he said, and by now she wasn’t fighting. He went to a drawer, grabbed a bunch