Read Online Worth the Risk by Melinda Di Lorenzo - Free Book Online Page A

it was big enough to slip through, she took a breath and slid into the lobby. Then, as quickly as she could, she moved along the wall, turned up the hall and waited for the policeman to notice she was gone.
    After a moment, she heard him say, “You know what? Never mind. She must’ve given up. No, of course not! See where she went? What the—”
    Not bothering to listen to another word or to verify that the cop was actually going to check outside for her presence, Meredith moved again. She hurried past a series of first-floor apartments and eased open the door to the stairs. And froze. A man, leaned over at an awkward angle, blocked her way.
    She took a step back, then froze a second time as the man shifted and she saw why he stood the way he did.
    He held Sam beneath him, throat in hand.
    And Sam wasn’t moving.
    With fear making her heart bang, Meredith drew the gun from her waistband. She shoved aside the doubtful voice in her head that reminded her she had no clue how to use the damn thing. Because she wasn’t going to fire it. She was going to improvise. She turned the weapon sideways, gripped it tightly, lifted it over her head and swung with all her might.
    The gun slammed into the side of the stranger’s skull with a thump that jarred Meredith’s arm. As the man’s head whipped to the left, his body wobbled, too. His arms shot out, but the momentum was already too great. He toppled over. The other side of his head smashed into the stairs. Then he rolled the rest of the way over onto his back and went still.
    Ignoring the way her whole body shook, Meredith turned her attention to Sam. One eye was swollen, and above that was a laceration. She could see a bit of red on his neck, and his breaths came shallowly, but at least they came.
    She smoothed his hair back gently. “Sam?”
    “Meredith?”
    She practically swooned with relief. “Oh, thank God.”
    His cleared his throat and opened his eyes. “Did you just clock that guy over the head with a gun, or was that a hallucination brought on by lack of oxygen?”
    “Are you cracking jokes? Now?”
    “Why? Is now a bad time?”
    “I thought he was going to kill you, Sam.”
    “Just trying to converse with me. In an extrapersuasive way.”
    “This really isn’t funny.”
    “I know it isn’t.”
    Meredith opened her mouth to tell him he had a weird way of showing it, but before she could get out a word, Sam pushed himself to a sitting position, then dragged her close. And she was too startled to pull away. His lips—a little dry and a little rough—pressed against hers.
    She knew the timing was terrible. The situation was precarious. Dangerous. Not to mention the unconscious man on the floor just a few feet away. But the moment Sam’s tongue flicked out to part her lips, it all seemed unimportant. And when he slid his hands to her waist, pulled them both to their feet and pushed her to the wall, everything outside of the two of them slipped away. She forgot the waning adrenaline that made her shake. She forgot her fear. She forgot everything but the sizzling heat between them.
    Meredith let herself sink into the kiss, impressed by the thoroughness of Sam’s exploration and startled by her own reaction to it. And react she did. Delicious explosions filled her mouth. They sent warmth down her throat and into her chest, where it bloomed into something fantastic and inviting. Something that forced out one little moan, then another.
    Sam deepened the kiss. His hands dug into her hair and his chest pressed to hers. And the contact was no longer just dazzling; it was consuming. The kind of kiss that could go on for an hour, just the way it was, or lead to something more.
    Something more.
    Meredith’s body sang at the prospect. Tendrils of desire moved through her, settled in and took hold. And when Sam pulled away, she felt the loss acutely.
    He cupped her cheek in his palm. “Well. That was even better than the one that I imagined while Mr. Unconscious and I