I wasn’t small by any standard, but he made me feel downright petite.
His lips dropped to my ear, and he asked, “You sure about this?”
Was I? A niggling voice in the back of my mind kept reminding me why I never brought men back to my place. Eventually, they all turned into Luke.
But Landon was different. Beth’s son wasn’t some psycho killer—he was too much of a wannabe superhero for that. Besides, he’d be gone soon.
Anticipation hummed beneath my skin as I squeezed the hand wrapped around my waist. “Positive. Just don’t disappoint me, Superman.”
He chuckled against my neck, and a shiver went straight to my nether regions. I led him through the fire door and down the hall, stopping to unlock my door. As soon as I turned the key, he grabbed my hip, spinning me around to face him. The two-inch heels on my pumps put my eyes at about the same level as his lips. He leaned in until we were so close I caught the hint of mint on his breath seconds before he kissed me.
Kissing was something I usually avoided, because most of the guys I’d been with didn’t know how to do it without slobbering all over or gnashing their teeth against mine.
However, this man knew what he was doing.
Heat erupted on my lips, spreading throughout my body and hijacking all my concentration. What missing brother? What date with Luke? Life was nothing but the minty taste of Landon’s skilled lips and the press of his body against mine. Without breaking the kiss, he snaked an arm around me. I was vaguely aware of him leaning past me to push open the door, and then my center of gravity shifted. Clinging to him like a starfish on a rock as he backed us into my dark apartment and closed the door behind us, I flailed wildly behind him until I slapped on the light switch. I lowered my arm to blindly drop my purse and laptop bag so I could shimmy out of my coat.
Against me, Landon went completely rigid.
Before I could fully register that something was wrong, he swung me around, shoving my body behind his as he dropped into a crouch, drawing a wicked-looking knife from his boot.
“Wha—”
He shot upright and turned far enough to clamp a hand over my mouth, silencing me.
And then I saw it… the body lying in the middle of my floor.
7
Landon
SOMEONE WAS LYING on Mercy’s apartment floor.
Her entryway held a coat rack, a tall, narrow table with a key dish, and a pair of men’s work boots, still connected to a person, lying prone and facing away from us. All I could see from my position by the door were his shoes and a portion of his bloody jeans. More blood speckled the laminate wood flooring between us and him. With Mercy behind me, I drew the knife I kept in my boot and crept forward until we could see the face.
“Ben!” Mercy said with a gasp.
When the body on the floor didn’t so much as twitch, she shoved past me. “That’s my brother!” and hurried to his side, dropping to her knees. She gently rolled him onto his back and reached for his carotid artery.
Knife at the ready, I crept closer, keeping my head on a swivel as I listened for anyone else who might be in the apartment.
Mercy’s shoulders collapsed, and she let out a sob. “Oh, thank God. He’s alive.”
Senses still on high alert and monitoring my surroundings, I crouched and quickly scanned the injured. Unconscious but breathing. His thick flannel made it difficult to see the extent of his wounds, but the high volume of blood soaked through his clothes told me his injuries were serious, possibly life-threatening. And judging by the pallor of his face, we had no time to waste. He needed an ambulance. “Call nine-one-one.”
Mercy patted down the pockets of her trench coat, stood, and turned toward me, freezing when she saw the knife in my hand. Her hands shot up in surrender. “Uh… Landon. What are you doing with that?”
Realizing how threatening I must seem, I pointed my knife away from her and dropped my voice to barely a whisper. “Someone did this to him.”
She was intelligent, so I didn’t have to expand on my theory. Her gorgeous blue eyes sought mine, and the lips still swollen from our kiss formed a silent ‘O.’
“I’m going to look around,” I mouthed.
She nodded and headed toward the purse she’d dropped on her way in, while I moved further into the apartment.
The door on the other side of Ben led to the tidiest coat closet I’d ever seen. The storage boxes on the shelf were neatly labeled and alphabetized, and not a single coat hung crooked. I moved enough of the contents around to make sure nobody was hiding in the coats before closing the door and continuing down the hall, acutely aware that my only weapon was my knife. I had seen no bullet holes on the injured man Mercy had called her brother, but that didn’t mean his attacker wasn’t packing.
My heart raced, and I focused on my surroundings. During my time with the military, I’d seen enough shit to identify a dangerous situation, and my skin was buzzing with trepidation. I knew nothing about Ben and what sort of trouble he was in.
