Page 99 of Meet Cute or Your Money Back

“Allie?” His voice is hoarse, disbelieving. “I told you to run.”

I’m already rushing towards him, my feet carrying me across the distance before my brain can catch up. “And let them kill you?” I hiss, pulling out the scissors from my travel manicure pack. I get to work cutting the zip ties around his wrists and ankles.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he growls, but there’s no heat in it. Only fear. Fear for me. “It’s too dangerous. Drakon?—”

“Isn’t here,” I cut him off, setting Biscuit down so I can better work on Thatcher’s bonds. My fingers shake as I work at the plastic zip ties, clumsy with adrenaline. “And I wasn’t about to leave you to face him alone.”

“Dammit, Allie! This isn’t some game. These people, they’ll kill you without a second thought.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I can’t keep the tremor from my voice, the barely contained hysteria. “You think I could sit there in your panic room, knowing what they might do to you? Knowing that I led them right to you!”

Thatcher’s jaw clenches, a muscle ticking beneath thebruised skin. “I can’t lose you,” he says, so quietly I almost don’t hear him. “I can’t.”

For a beat, my hands still, my heart a lump in my throat. But there’s no time for pausing right now. I get back to work and snap the first zip tie free, then get to work on the one at his ankles.

With his hands free, he pulls out a nail clipper from inside my discarded manicure bag and he gets to work on his second ankle.

“If anything happened to you because of me...” He shakes his head, still angled down and concentrating on the zip tie. “I couldn’t live with myself.”

His left ankle restraint splits, breaking free. Only one more to go.

I reach out, cupping his face, my thumb brushing over the rough stubble of his cheek. “We’re almost free,” I whisper. “You’re not losing me. And I’m not losing you. Not today.”

He looks down at me and the raw emotion in his gaze takes my breath away.

“We’re in this together. No matter what,” I whisper fiercely.

The final restraint snaps free and he kicks the chair away, standing and yanking me to him, his lips finding mine in a kiss that’s all desperation and relief, fear and hope tangled into a knot that I can’t even begin to unravel. His mouth opens under mine, and for a glorious, shining second, I forget where we are. Forget the danger. Forget everything except the feel of him, warm and alive and mine.

And then the creak of the door combined with Biscuit’s bark shatters the illusion.

We spring apart, instantly on high alert and Thatchertucks me behind him, putting himself between me and the door.

“How touching,” a cold voice drawls, and my blood turns to ice in my veins.

Drakon.

He steps out of the shadows, flanked by the Enforcer and the other man I didn’t recognize.

I look around, behind him in the shadows of the doorway, searching for Admiral Brady, but I don’t see him. Drakon is smiling, but there’s no warmth in it. Only a cruel sort of amusement, like a cat toying with a mouse.

“Young love,” he says, shaking his head. “So pure. So…fragile.”

Thatcher reaches back for me, his hand finding mine, lacing his fingers through my own. A lifeline. An anchor in the storm.

I think back to a moment not so long ago, a moment that feels like a lifetime now. Thatcher and me in the gym, his hands guiding me through the motions of self-defense. The press of his body against my back, the rumble of his voice in my ear. “Like this,” he’d murmured, adjusting my stance. “Firm, but flexible. Ready for anything.”

I hadn’t understood then, not really. It had all seemed like a game, a sexy little diversion in the midst of our burgeoning…whatever this is.

But now, facing down the barrel of Drakon’s gun, I get it. It’s not about strength, or even skill. It’s about resilience. About bending so you don’t break. And right now, with Thatcher’s hand in mine, I feel like I could bend myself into impossible shapes and still come out standing.

“Enough games,” Drakon says, all pretense of civility gone. “It’s time to end this.”

“For once, we agree on something,” Thatcher replies,his voice steady despite the tension coiled in every line of his body.

Under his breath, so low I almost miss it, he whispers, “Do you trust me?”

I squeeze his hand once. A silent affirmation.

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