Free Checkmate by Annmarie McKenna Page B

her.
    And then she would slowly die on the inside when he decided he’d had enough.
    “I won’t leave you, Nikki-Raine.”
    She startled in his arms, making him stagger a step. “How did you—”
    He snorted. “Honey, I can read you like an open book. You leave it all out there in the open for everyone to see. Always have. That’s why I’m wondering how you made it eight months without telling anybody all the details about what happened. Me, especially, which, by the way, I’m supremely pissed about.”
    Nikki swallowed as Eli took the steps up to the porch. She didn’t want to have this conversation. She wanted to snuggle deeper into his arms and forget about everything else.
    Tears welled up, threatening to spill. Not in a million years would she be able to forget.
    “I know you told them the basics, but you’ve never talked about what you felt, have you? Told them the raw terror you’ve had all this time. They’ve seen it in you, but you’ve kept the words bottled up inside, haven’t you? No more secrets, Nikki.”
    She started to speak but was interrupted by the woman who’d come out to meet them.
    “Eli, good to see you again.”
    Eli bent at the waist, giving a small bow, and Nikki clung to his shoulders to keep from falling on her ass.
    “Tieran. Damn that’s a big baby.”
    Tieran gasped and slapped at his shoulder.
    Moron. “Jesus, Eli, can you be a bigger idiot?” Nikki wiggled out of his hold, planting her feet on the ground and shrugging Eli off. He relented only slightly, keeping one arm wrapped around her middle in an almost protective hold. She cleared her throat and lifted her good arm.
    “I’m Nikki.”
    “Tieran.”
    Eyeing each other up, they shook hands. Tieran didn’t look like the type of woman to cause trouble, but…
    “Did you really think Eli had killed all those girls?”
    Foot in mouth. Had to be the drugs talking. Eli’s arm squeezed her belly, jarring her arm and therefore her shoulder, making her groan. Tieran’s face turned all shades of red before she lifted her chin and pulled Nikki’s hand into the crook of her elbow.
    Tieran gasped and something in her eyes sparkled when she looked at Eli. A second later she went into a trance. That’s the only word to describe what happened. Her eyes glazed over and she stiffened up. Tieran’s fingers crushed Nikki’s hand in a painful grip.
    “Oh, Christ. Now look what you’ve done,” Eli murmured.
    “What? What did I do?”
    Tieran let out a gush of air and focused on Nikki. Her face was pale where it had been flushed a minute ago, and her whole body positively vibrated.
    Tieran swallowed audibly. “It was dark and small. An enclosed area.” She looked to Eli, a question in her eyes.
    Eli simply nodded once, his jaw jumping with the force he was putting on it.
    “What’s she talking—”
    “My own. What are you doing out here?” Caelan asked in a tender tone, cutting Nikki off.
    “Stuff it,” Tieran groaned. All traces of her weirding out were, poof, gone. “While you were out playing chauffeur, I’ve been sitting in this house suffocating. Now you’re back and I’m outside.” Tieran smiled sweetly at her husband and Nikki had to laugh. It appeared Caelan was just as big an oaf as Eli. Should have known it, coming from identical twins.
    “What happened to the back of the car, Caelan?” Tieran asked, trying to tug Nikki out of Eli’s grasp.
    He wasn’t having any part of letting her go.
    “Oh. Nikki was shot at at the hospital. We narrowly escaped with her life, and here we are.”
    Tieran gasped. Her jaw dropped open and she pinned him with the evil eye. “So not funny.”
    Eli sighed. “No, not funny, but true.” He stepped forward, forcing the three of them into the doorway since they were all still connected.
    How Eli thought all of them were going to fit was beyond her. A dance ensued. In a bizarre The Three Stooges way, they shimmied through the doorway until, like a cork popping out of a