He Can Fall: She Can Series by Melinda Leigh Read Free Book Online Page A

leaned over her with the knife. He slid the back side of the blade across her breasts. The metal chilled her skin. Her heart banged against her breastbone as if her ribs would crack like ice. When Win reached behind her to slice her binds, relief coursed through her bloodstream, and her body sagged as the tension ebbed.
    Win’s sour breath wafted across her cheek, and his right eye twitched.
    When had he had his last fix of whatever stimulant he was using? She’d been a model before she met and married Sean. She’d had a few friends who used cocaine to stay skinny. She knew the shooting-star trajectory of an amphetamine addict on a high. When this psycho crashed, the situation was going to get even uglier.
    Win dragged her to the door. He yanked her back to his body and wrapped his forearm around her windpipe. His erection ground into her lower back, and the knife brushed the skin at the side of her neck. Using her as a shield, he stepped out onto the back porch.
    Choking against the pressure on her throat, Amanda grabbed his forearm with both hands and pinned it to her collarbone, as Sean had taught her the many times they’d practiced basic self-defense. She let her body weight sag to keep his wrist bone off her windpipe and turned her chin toward the crook of his elbow. The scant inch of space she created allowed her to breathe.
    “I know you’re out there,” Win yelled to the forest. “I saw your footprints. Give yourself up. I want you, the kid, and my uncle in the next ten minutes, or I’m going to rape your wife. And that isn’t the worst I’ll do. When I’m done with her, she’ll be worse than dead.” He ran the sharp edge of the blade across Amanda’s neck. Blood welled hot from the shallow cut and dripped down onto her chest. “Ten minutes.”
    He dragged her back inside.
    Amanda barely felt the warmth of the kitchen. Her brain and body floated in a chilly fog of surreal disconnect. Sean was out there. She could feel him. His fury radiated from the trees, filling the air.
    Just as Win’s excitement filled the kitchen, his eagerness to hurt her was palpable and profane in the homey kitchen. Under the metallic, raw scent of blood, the smell of fresh scones lingered.
    Win still held her by the neck. As he pulled her sideways, her body tilted at an awkward angle. She lost her grip on his forearm, and her feet kept tripping over each other.
    He dropped her suddenly. She fell to her knees. Though her kneecaps hit the tile hard, she felt nothing. On the porch, numbness had spread through her body like a morphine drip. Was her fear separating her from her body in self-defense, preparing her for the horror to come?
    No, she refused to consider that Win would get his chance. Sean would come. But what could he do? No matter how much she protested, he’d trade his life for hers in an instant. She knew that with complete certainty. It was the way he was wired. But there was no way he would give up a child for any reason. Nor would he sacrifice any of the other hostages.
    She grabbed hope and held it tight. He had to be planning something. But he’d better implement it fast. Ten minutes wasn’t much time to move.
    Win meant what he’d said. He couldn’t wait to hurt her.
    Her gaze fell on the redhead. Her porcelain skin had whitened nearly as much as her wounded husband’s. Blood crusted in the hair around her face and rusty smears streaked her temples from pushing her hair behind her ears. Shivers racked her barely dressed body so hard Amanda could see her shaking from across the room. How long could her husband last? His chest rose and fell in a labored rhythm, but the pile of bloody towels on his shoulder had grown, and his face had faded to the gray of drying plaster.
    Would she bleed out slowly from a wound? Or would Win be impatient? Despite her resolve to block them, thoughts of what Win was planning intruded in her mind. Her bruised breast throbbed, and the shallow slice stung. Her hand drifted to