“Thanks.”

She pressed against him, appreciating the feeling of security she felt in his arms so much more after coming so close to losing him. Remembering his injuries, she pulled away, even as he tried to keep her tucked against him. Wiggling free, she flipped his hands over and examined the burns as well as she could in the dim light.

“Your poor hands.” She peered closer. “How bad is it? Are you in a lot of pain?”

He just shrugged—of course he did—and grinned at her, despite his poor, swollen mouth, looking much too happy for a guy who’d just had his face beaten and his hands fried. “I’m not feeling too much pain right now, but you can kiss them to make me feel better.”

Although his tone was joking, she did just that, pressing her lips carefully to the skin of his inner wrists, safely above the burned spots on his palms. His breath caught audibly at each touch, and all humor disappeared from his expression as he intently studied her for a long moment.

“Did you mean it?” he finally asked in a quiet voice. “I’ll understand if it was just fear and adrenaline talking.”

“Did I mean what?” she asked, meeting his serious gaze.

“Do you really love me?”

She didn’t even hesitate. “I do. So much it completely freaks me out.”

His laugh was a rough exhale, as if he’d been holding his breath. “Thank God, because I’m completely gone for you.” He pressed his lips to hers in an intense kiss filled with love and relief, and Molly returned it, the incredible feel of him blotting out everything else.

As much as she wanted to keep kissing John’s miraculously alive face forever, Sonny groaned and the real world returned. Reluctantly taking a step back and releasing John’s hands, Molly remembered Norah still had the explosives strapped around her waist. “Let’s get back.”

She moved toward Sonny, who was still limp despite the sound he’d just made, intending to swing him over her shoulders in a firefighter’s carry, but John got there first. Giving her a look, he hauled Sonny over his shoulder with obnoxious ease. “Let’s go.”

Molly ran back toward where they’d left her sisters, watching for any remaining traps, with John close behind her. As they turned out of the corridor, she stopped abruptly as she almost ran into Norah. Molly’s gaze immediately dropped to her sister’s waist—her wonderfully explosives-free waist.

“You got it off!” Grabbing Norah in a hard hug, she saw Cara beaming behind her. “How’d you manage that?”

“It involved taking off my pants and some careful maneuvering,” Norah said, squeezing Molly just as hard as she was being squeezed. “For once, I’m really glad my butt is nonexistent.”

“We need to let the cops in,” Cara said, shooing them toward the corridor they’d just left.

“Not that way,” John said, sounding slightly out of breath, but not nearly enough for a guy who’d just sprinted after a killer, put fire out with his bare hands, and then carried a full-grown, unconscious man over his shoulders. “Explosives.”