Saving Liberty (Kissing #6) Read online

  I don’t like politicians. And back when I used to protect them, I found that most of their families were pains in the ass, too. Back-slapping, guffawing senators who’d get wasted on brandy and need help sobering up before they could get into a strip club, then more help tottering from the limo to their house. Meanwhile their trophy wives would be sleeping with the gardener or the personal trainer and the poor kids were forgotten about aside from photo opportunities until they grew up to be carbon-copies of their folks. I’d never met the President but it made sense that he’d be even worse. And therefore that his daughter, by her twenties, would have become a power-hungry, backstabbing bitch.

  And yet she hadn’t been like that. At all.

  She had an infectious energy about her that made me want to grin. I’d seen it in her as we approached, as she talked to the kids and shook hands with the businesspeople. The sort of person who lights up the whole room when they walk into it. And she was... I couldn’t think of a better word than good. Good, in a city where every damn person was either trying to win power or cling onto the coattails of someone already there. She’d treated me as if I deserved respect. I hadn’t had that for a long, long time.

  And all the goodness, all that energy, was wrapped up in a body that made me instantly hard. Long, graceful legs, from what I’d glimpsed under that summer dress, and pert, luscious breasts, not big but perfectly shaped. She had a gorgeous wide mouth... I could have stared at those lips all day and when she’d licked them I’d caught my breath. All that soft, mahogany hair that hung down her back... I wanted that to be the only thing she wore. I wanted her sitting naked on the edge of my bed with that hair trailing down her naked back and pointing to that hot little ass like an arrow. And then I’d grab her waist and pull her to me and try to decide whether she or I would go on top.

  That voice: sweet and earnest and so soft it seemed to wrap around you. It had a warm shaft of Texan sunshine running through it, but a very particular kind... I couldn’t imagine her whooping or hollering. She sounded more like the innocent young schoolmarm who’d just arrived in town, all laced up tight in a bodice.

  She was good. And that made part of me want to do very bad things to her.

  Worryingly, it made another, deeper part of me come alive in a way I hadn’t expected. It almost made me want to pick myself up out of the gutter and climb up to her lofty heights. Which was nuts. I’d made peace with what I was a long time ago.

  Damn... so that was the President’s daughter. I sighed. Some oil tycoon or CEO was going to be a lucky SOB, someday soon.

  We reached the limo and I opened the rear door for the suit. He was just climbing in when the first gunshot rang out.

  Everyone looked up. That’s what happens with civilians: they’re so completely unused to gunfire, they think that it can’t possibly be happening here, now, to them. So their first reaction is to look around for the backfiring car.

  I’d already gone into autopilot. I stuffed the suit into the limo before the shot had finished ringing in my ears. I started to climb in after him. One leg was already in the car when I turned and looked at the scene.

  One man—a Secret Service agent, from the look of him, was down on the ground, blood staining his white shirt. And standing maybe six feet from him, looking down at him with huge, horrified eyes, was Emily.

  As I watched, a second shot rang out. Another Secret Service agent was hit in the shoulder. He’d been running towards Emily and the impact sent him sprawling on the ground.

  Now everyone started moving and screaming, running for the exits of the park or pressing themselves to the ground. Everyone except—

  Emily just stood there, frozen. I could see her chest heaving as she took big, panic-stricken breaths. Move! I screamed in my mind. Move, damn you!

  “Come on!” yelled the suit next to me. His voice was hoarse with fear. “Get in!”

  I barely heard him. My whole world had narrowed down to Emily, standing motionless in the line of fire. Gut-wrenching fear hit me, a kind I’d never felt before. Twisted in with it, anger that anyone would dare put her in danger.

  She was going to die. She was going to die unless someone did something right now.

  I hurled myself out of the car, slammed the door behind me and rapped on the roof for the driver to go. And as the limo screeched away, I started to run.

  Emily

  Move!

  I knew it was what I was supposed to do but I was staring down at Agent Hale. He’d been the head of my security detail for months now. He liked Krispy Kreme donuts and ice hockey and, the first time he’d ever flown on Air Force One, we’d hit turbulence and he’d thrown up and no one had ever let him forget it.

  And now he was dying, right in front of me, clutching at the wound low down on his side. His shirt was slowly staining red. His fingers were dripping red where they covered the wound. Even the green grass beneath him was turning red. “Run!” he croaked.

  But I couldn’t. Everything was happening too fast. It had all been fine, I’d been goddamn flirting like some happy idiot and meanwhile someone had been plotting violence, planning to kill people I cared about. Planning to kill me.

  Move!

  Everyone was screaming. I heard a hiss of air, like when you’re playing softball and the ball flies right past your face. When I turned, another agent was falling behind me.

  Move!

  I finally managed to make my legs work and ran, but I had no idea where to run to. A building? There were none: only a few tents and wooden stands.

  I can tell you exactly what being under fire from a sniper feels like: it’s like being in a horrible, sick game played by the cruelest mind imaginable. The people in the park were now just ants, crawling across a tabletop: we could run, but it made no difference to the fist that slammed down every few seconds, picking one of us to crush. All of us were pleading the same thing in our minds: please, please not me.

  And then I saw the kids. And I started pleading please, please, not them.

  Most of them had been scooped up by terrified, sprinting parents but a few were just standing there as I’d been. I swerved and ran straight towards the nearest one.

  Another shot. This one went so close that the hiss hurt my ears. Another Secret Service agent tumbled to the ground. I was so scared my muscles were locking up and I could barely run. But I kept stumbling across the grass, focused on the kid in front of me. Another ten paces and I could grab him and take him somewhere safe. Eight. Seven. Six.

  I felt it right at the center of my left calf, as if someone had drilled a hole there and poured boiling water right into the core of the muscle. I screamed and tried to take another step but my leg wouldn’t support me, anymore. I went down in a clumsy mess of arms and legs. The grass felt like concrete: every little jolt jarring my leg and making the pain ten times worse. Then I was sprawled on my side, panting, the pain seeming to pump its way higher and higher up my leg with each beat of my heart.

  I actually thought my leg had cramped up. That’s how in shock I was. It was only when I saw the blood on my calf that it sunk in that I’d been shot.

  I knew I had to move but just thinking about moving tensed my muscles in preparation and white-hot pain seared through my calf. I rolled on my back and howled.

  The shots had been coming at regular intervals. It was almost time for another one and, however much I wanted to deny it, I knew this was the one. I was an easy target, now, lying there on the ground. I looked towards where I thought the shots had been coming from and saw a tiny glint of light, off in the distance. I imagined the shooter racking the bolt, loading another round, lining me up in his crosshairs….

  I squeezed my eyes shut and waited to die.

  Emily

  A huge, warm arm hooked under my armpits and heaved me off the ground. My heels kicked once on the ground, sending a jolt of pain up my injured leg, and then I was fully airborne, lifted right off my feet. I felt the press of a body against my back, a hip rubbing against my as
s, and it hit me that I was being carried under someone’s arm like a piece of luggage. Who the hell was strong enough to do that? I still had my eyes squeezed shut but I could feel us moving: the darkness rose and fell in a fast, pounding rhythm. Who was strong enough to lift me and carry me while running?

  I started to open my eyes but, just at that second, another bullet hissed by us. Hissed by me. I hadn’t heard the hit when I was shot but I heard this one, a sound I never want to hear again, like a side of beef being slapped. My rescuer, whoever he was, had just been hit. I squeezed my eyes tight shut again, waiting to fall.

  And heard, very clearly, a voice say Motherfucker. The syllables were twisted by pain and brutal anger but I recognized that whiskey-silver accent.

  Then there was a deafening boom, the sound of a gun being fired only a few feet from my head, and I clung to the arm that held me as tightly as I could, my hands wrapped around a bicep that felt like warm rock. The gun roared again and again, a flurry of shots, as if my rescuer was pouring all his anger into it. And then I was flung down on my back on the grass and a huge, warm body was hunkering down on top of me.

  I finally opened my eyes.

  “You’re going to be okay,” said Kian O’Harra.

  Kian

  I’d hurled us down behind a big wooden stand. It was only waist height but it was long enough for us to lie full-length behind and still be hidden. “Stay down,” I told her. And then I tried to think of what to do next.

  I was panting and not just from the run. I wasn’t ready for what I was feeling. Since the second I saw her under fire, I’d been gripped by the need to protect her, primal and all-consuming, stronger than anything I’d ever known. I had my body completely covering hers, as low to her as I could without crushing her, and I never, ever wanted to move again. As long I stayed there, she was safe. I’d soak up bullets all day long, if need be.

  I could hear her panting. Her face was close to my chest and I could feel each panicked breath as a warm gust pushing my t-shirt against me. I looked down and I was looking right into big, green, terrified eyes.

  God, even like this she was so beautiful it hurt.

  And it hit me that I could feel the soft mounds of her breasts, pushing up against my abdomen. And our legs were scissored together, which meant our groins were almost touching. I could feel the heat of her body through the thin cotton of her summer dress. My head was focused on the danger but the message hadn’t reached the rest of me—she was too gorgeous, too soft and fragrant beneath me. Her scent was amazing: warm skin, sun-kissed rocks, and desert winds.

  I used my arms to lever myself up off her and then crawled backwards, taking care to stay behind the stand. “Let me see your leg,” I said gruffly. She tensed as I reached for her ankle, then hissed in pain as I gently rotated it to see the back. I felt sick when I saw the twin holes, that beautiful, elegant calf I’d admired now shining with blood. The anger surged up inside me. I was going to personally eviscerate the guy who’d done this.

  “It’ll be okay,” I told her. “The bullet went straight through. I know it hurts but you’ll be okay.”

  I hunkered down over her again and searched the park with my eyes. Another shot rang out and I saw a guy in the distance fall to the ground: a cop. Most people had cleared out, by now, or were in hiding.

  I looked down at her again. I could tell she was close to going into full-on shock. I put my hand on her cheek and she felt cold—she actually pushed her face into my hand a little and a hot little bomb went off in my chest.

  “Just hang on,” I said. “Help’s coming. Okay?” Her eyes were going wild—she almost seemed to be looking through me. I’d seen this before: her mind was closing down to protect itself. I couldn’t bear to see that happen, because I knew the kind of damage that would lead to. “Hey!” Barely a reaction. “Emily.”

  She focused on me. I cupped her cheek in my hand and stroked my thumb across the soft skin. “Listen to me: they’re coming. You are the President’s daughter. At the very first shot, the entire Secret Service and the DC police went into full-on red alert fucking crisis mode. There are squad cars screaming here. Trucks full of SWAT guys. Helicopters with counter-snipers. In about thirty seconds this park is going to be the safest place on earth. You just have to hang on.”

  She blinked and then slowly nodded. Looked around her. And then, to my horror, she tried to move.

  I grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back down to the ground. “No,” I said gently. “Stay down.”

  She shook her head and pointed. “The kid,” she croaked.

  I followed her finger.

  There was a kid stumbling through the trees, maybe thirty feet away. I realized that’s who she’d been trying to reach, when she was shot. And even now, lying here injured, she was trying to get to him. I looked down at her, speechless.

  “No,” I said. I knew exactly why the kid was still standing. The cowardly bastard who was sniping us was using him as bait. He’d be watching for anyone running towards the kid. It was the oldest trick in the book.

  Emily answered by gritting her teeth and heaving herself a few inches along the ground on her elbows, wincing in pain.

  “Stop!” I hissed. Then, “I’ll get him.”

  She nodded in thanks and stopped moving.

  I got awkwardly to my feet: there wasn’t a lot of room, behind the stand. I crouched there between her legs and took a second to think and assess, like they’d taught me in the Marines. I slotted a fresh magazine into my pistol and measured the distance to the kid. It would be close to a suicide mission even if I could grab him and keep going. Stopping, turning, and running back to Emily would make it much more likely that I’d get hit. But leaving her undefended wasn’t an option. I was bleeding: a bullet had winged my left shoulder but I’d been too busy carrying Emily to notice at the time. Picking a kid up off the ground was going to hurt.

  I looked down at Emily. “Stay here.”

  She nodded.

  I took a deep breath... and ran, squeezing off a shot in the direction of the sniper as I went. I had no hope of hitting him at this range: I was pretty much firing blind at the distant glint of metal. But it might make him keep his head down.

  A bullet sliced through the air three inches in front of my face. Or not.

  I thundered towards the kid, firing off two more wild shots. The kid had stopped and was just standing there, the bottom of his t-shirt twisted in his fingers, looking at the bodies around him. I thumped into him and kept moving, hoisting him over my shoulder. At least he was too scared to struggle.

  I slid behind a tree like a baseball player stealing third base. Bark exploded from the edge of the tree, the shot missing us by a quarter-second.

  I panted and scrambled to my feet. The longer I stayed there, the more time the sniper would have to prepare. I ducked my head and ran, charging like a bull. I didn’t bother firing back, this time, just went for raw speed. Emily and the safety of the stand were only thirty feet away. Twenty feet.

  A bullet punched a hole straight through the hem of my flapping t-shirt.

  Ten feet. I resisted the urge to close my eyes.

  A bullet skimmed my hair, so close I swear I felt the heat of the round against my scalp.

  And then I was pressing the kid to Emily’s chest and throwing myself over both of them like a protective blanket. My whole body was soaked with sweat. But at least now we’d be safe. How long had it been, since the shots started? Three minutes? Four? An almighty army would be descending any minute. All we had to do was to stay put.

  That’s when I heard the footsteps scrunching through the grass. Confident and assured. Not the steps of a man watching out for a sniper. The steps of a man who’s protected by one.

  There was a second shooter.

  I heard a scream and a gunshot and now I did close my eyes. I could picture the plan, now, as if it was laid out on a military map. One sniper, to take out the Secret Service and any other heroes. One man on the ground to wal
k around and take out those who made it into hiding. With the sniper watching his back, he was untouchable. Hell, if they had radios, the sniper could direct him right to each hiding place.

  The footsteps were coming closer.

  He was heading right for us.

  Emily

  I lay there panting, the kid pressed to my chest. He’d started to cry and I was making wordless little shh-ing noises and wishing I knew something about being a mom.

  The panic was like cold, black water that kept threatening to push me down and drown me. It had nearly taken me a couple of times already, but Kian had brought me back. The press of his body against mine was my life raft. As long as I could cling on to him, I’d be okay. It was something that went beyond his physical size or the fact he had a gun, even beyond the fact he was a bodyguard. From the second he’d grabbed me, I’d just felt so... protected, in a way I never had before, not even when I was in the White House before all this started.

  And then I felt him slowly draw away from me and sit up, pressing his back against the stand. And I realized it wasn’t over.

  “Someone’s coming,” he whispered. “Stay where you are.”

  I nodded and put my arms around the kid. I could feel his tears wet against my neck and wondered why I hadn’t started crying myself. I think I was too scared to.

  Then I heard the footsteps myself. Heavy footsteps—a man almost as big as Kian. They were as slow and relaxed as if he was out for a stroll and that only made it scarier.

  Kian was staring at something opposite our stand. A display the kids had made about pollution, with clouds made of silver card dangling on strings. There were hazy reflections in some of them: I caught glimpses of the man, walking up behind us. The stand was only waist high. In another few seconds he’d reach it, lean over and….