Page 125 of Protected By Duval
And her ears were ringing.
Her body shaking.
What was happening?
Noelle hit a wall.
Her back slammed against something.
And then she felt a weight fall on her.
Tony’s face, very nearly in hers, eyes wild, teeth bared. “Bitch!”
Noelle tried to bring her arms up between them, but they were trapped and her breath caught in her lungs.
“Get off of her!”
She wasn’t sure how or why she heard the words.
Maybe it was because it was nearly screamed into her ear, but Tony, who had been crushing her, was suddenly gone.
“Take him!”
She heard the voice again and relaxed. Feeling, oddly for her, boneless.
Then, over her, a face she wanted to see.
“McCrae.”
His eyes were dark, his face all hard lines and stormy expression.
She wanted to draw him like this.
Hard and menacing, but his eyes were... different.
His eyes were filled with worry and something else.
Love?
Or was that her own emotions projecting onto him?
“Baby, damn it! What the fuck were you thinking?”
“That’s what her mother’s going to ask!”
West was at her side helping her to sit up, moving McCrae further to her side.
Noelle reached out and grabbed West’s arm. “What were you doing?”
Her heart was in her throat.
“When I saw you walking up... and he pointed his gun at you... and then-”
“You grabbed him!” McCrae shook her by her arm. “He could have killed you! What the ever-loving fuck were you doing?”
She heard the frantic tone of his voice, but she didn’t hear anger, she heard the fear in his voice. It echoed the fear that she’d felt.
He helped her stand up as she leaned forward to get on her feet. She looked at West for a moment before turning to look McCrae square in the face. “I was thinking of Tracy and their daughter. I saw that Tony’s arm was shaking. His finger dangerously close to the trigger. I couldn’t let their baby lose her father! I couldn’t let another little girl grow up knowing that terror!”
