He tried to take it all in. “So the sexy sweater, the mistletoe, the text . . . all of it was some sort of plan to seduce me?”
“And the no-bra thing,” she said. “Don’t forget that part.”
He pulled her up to her feet. “I really liked that part,” he admitted. “But Jesus, Willa, I’m an easy lay when it comes to you. You could’ve just told me.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again and stepped into him, her eyes on his, warm and worried. “But for all my big talk, I’m not very good at . . . well, talking.”
Her phone went off again. “Oh my God,” she said. “Give it to me so I can tell them to knock it off.” She stretched to reach it and Keane tried to not enjoy the mouthwatering view of her bent over the table. He wanted to reach out and push the skirt up, biting back a groan at the thought of the view that would give him.
And then he realized that she’d taken a call, not a text, and her voice was off. Scared, and urgent.
“Rory, where are you—” She broke off, her body unnaturally still and filled with tension. “Are you hurt?”
Keane went to her bedroom and grabbed her new undies from her dresser.
“On my way,” she was saying in her phone. “Text me with the exact address. I’m coming for you.” She disconnected and whirled in a circle, clearly looking for her things.
Keane held out the undies and then picked up her purse and keys for her.
“Always one step ahead of me,” she murmured, stepping into the panties. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to—”
“I’ll drive.”
“No, Keane, I’m not going to ask you to—”
“You didn’t ask,” he said and nudged her out the door.
Thirty-eight agonizing minutes later, Willa glued her face to the passenger window. “This one,” she said, rereading the address she’d gotten from Rory. “Dammit.”
“What?”
“This is her ex-boyfriend Andy’s house.” The pit of anxiety in her gut grew. “The one who put that bruise on her face all those weeks ago now.”
Keane turned down the street. It was narrow, lined with apartment buildings that had seen their heyday decades ago.
There were no spots available on the street.
“Just stop here,” Willa said, unhooking her seatbelt, leaping out before Keane could get the truck into park. She heard him swear behind her. “I’ve got this,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ve got her. We’ll be right back out.”
“No, Willa. Wait—”
But she couldn’t wait, not another second. She ran up the walk and into the building. She’d never been here before but she knew from the text that Andy lived in apartment 10.
With her phone in hand and the knot of fear in her gut growing, she knocked on the door.
It swung open, revealing a dark, cavernous room she couldn’t see into. “Rory?” she whispered.
A soft whimper was the only reply. Anxiety and worry drove Willa forward, hand out to combat the fact that she couldn’t see. “Rory?”
A light came on further inside the place, illuminating a kitchen. Rory appeared in the doorway, giving Willa a frantic “come here” gesture.
Willa rushed toward her through the still dark living room, her relief short-lived when she tripped over something on the carpet and went sprawling.
Rory gasped and ran forward, helping her to her feet. “Hurry! Move away from him!”
The anxiety and worry had turned into bone-melting fear. Ignoring the burning in her hands and knees, Willa let Rory pull her into the kitchen. “Please tell me I didn’t just trip over a dead body.”
“Not dead.” Rory paused. “I’m pretty sure.”
Willa gripped Rory’s arms and looked her over. There were no noticeable injuries. “Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
“What happened?”
Rory bit into her lower lip. “Andy got a job and said he was making bank. He said his boss had offered me a part-time job too and that he’d pay cash, a lot of it. All I had to do was show up and be, like, the receptionist or something. Only when I showed up, there was no office. Turned out it wasn’t an office job at all. The boss takes people out for bungee jumps off the bridges and Andy assists. I was supposed to greet the ‘clients’ and take their money. But that’s illegal, I know it is, and when I said so, the boss fired both me and Andy on the spot. And then Andy took me here instead of home and we got in a big fight about it.”
“Still waiting on the part that explains his prone body on the living room floor,” Willa said.
“It turned out we disagreed about other stuff too,” Rory said, averting her gaze. “Like on the definition of the word no, so . . . I showed rather than told.” She paused. “With a knee to his balls.”
Willa’s heart stopped. “Did he touch you?”
“Only a little,” Rory said. “And that’s when I dropped him to the floor. But he hit his head on the corner of the coffee table going down.” Her face fell. “Which is my fault, right? Am I going to go to jail?”
“No,” Willa said firmly, grabbing Rory’s hand. “It was self-defense—” She broke off when Rory let out a startled scream but before Willa could react, a hand wrapped around her ankle and tugged.
For the second time in as many minutes, she went down and then blinked up into Andy’s menacing, pissed-off face.
Damn, those spiked cuffs would have come in handy about now . . .
“You,” he grated out, staring down at her with a frown like maybe his head hurt. And given the wicked slash across his eyebrow, it probably did.
“Let me go, Andy.” Willa said this with a forced calm that she absolutely did not feel. In fact, it took real effort to speak at all with her heart thundering in her throat. “The police are on their way.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Willa struggled, but it was futile so she went with Plan B and jammed her knee up between his legs.
Andy’s eyes widened as he let out a squeak and slowly fell off her, curling into a fetal position.
“Well if I didn’t break his nuts, that sure did,” Rory whispered.
Willa rolled to her hands and knees, but before she could stagger upright she was yanked to her feet by a large shadow of a man who moved with the silent lethalness of a cat.