Page 36 of Kiss Across the Universe
Kit worked on her ankles.
Alannah had a hundred questions but knew he would answer none of them. Not until they were out of the room. So she ignored the burning pressure to know exactly what was going on and why Kit was here and not Aran.
The man on the floor twitched, his hands shifting. He was coming around.
“Kit…” Alannah said warningly.
“I know,” he said just as quietly, his glossy dark head down. “Damn this stuff is sticky as hell.”
The urge to laugh struck her once more. It was because she was so close to being free, she knew, and mentally sat on the impulse.
Kit gripped her ankle and jerked it. The duct tape tore away from her leggings with a low growling sound. Kit shifted and worked on the other leg.
The man groaned.
Alannah held in the need to warn Kit once more. He was right there. He could hear for himself that the man was coming back to consciousness.
The man groaned again, and Kit gave a soft curse and turned. He slid his hand under the man’s chin. His thumb spread backward and pressed into the side of the man’s neck. He held it there for a long moment.
The man’s hand stopped twitching.
Carotid artery. The memory whispered silently. Old lessons, older conversations, laughter over disasters barely averted, confrontations only just survived.Far’svoice, in lecture mode. “The movies make hitting someone on the back of the head to knock them out look as safe as anesthetic, but you stand a real chance of cracking their skull. You will concuss them at the very least—that’s what knocks them out. Better to immobilize them some other way. And if youhaveto render them unconscious, there’s at least three ways that don’t involve blunt instruments.”
All those conversations and stories, over the years. Alannah had never thought that one day they would directly apply to her life.
Yet here she was.
Kit yanked her other ankle free, with the same low tearing sound. Then he stood and gripped her arm. “Up you come.” His tone was brisk, but kind. And shewasglad of his hand under her arm, because her quads, her hamstrings, her back…allof her protested as she got to straighten up for the first time in many long hours.
Her hips twinged.
“Can you walk?” Kit asked, his black eyes studying her. Assessing.
“Maybe.”
Kit pushed the chair out from behind her and turned her around.
Her torn tunic slid down one arm. She got her hand up fast enough to slap it against her chest so her breast wasn’t revealed.
Kit’s face shifted. An emotion flashed across it too fast for her to interpret. He stepped behind her. She felt him tugging at the torn back of the tunic. The tunic came together behind her neck and stayed there. It sat higher than it was supposed to. He must have tied the raw ends together.
“That will hold it for now,” he murmured. “Try walking.”
Alannah tried a step. Her legs held her up. She took another, and although all her muscles protested over the movement, she remained on her feet.
Kit guided her to the door and put his hand on the lever and looked at her. “This is the last room on this end of the floor,” he told her. “Out the door, turn right, then through the door right next to this one. Down to the ground floor, then out a side door. My truck is not far from that side door. Got it?”
She nodded. “The woman who knocked…?”
“A friend. One I didn’t expect to find here. She owed me a favor. Now we’re square.” He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Becky went back to the reception desk even before he opened the door. She knows nothing about you.”
Alannah shivered. Anonymity was good. It was a relief to know she wasn’t about to cause an international diplomatic incident or something. Her fathers would never forgive her for that.
“Ready?” Kit asked her. His hand was still under her arm, warm and solid.
“Yes.” Even if she wasn’t, she’d grit her teeth and hang in there. Anything to get out of this room.
The man on the floor behind them groaned again. Loudly, this time. Alannah jumped.
