AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Rushing inside the door underneath the carport, I entered the house. My gaze bounced all over, finding the mess someone left behind. All the tipped-over furniture and shit spilled everywhere. Broken pots that held her plants. Slashes through her couch. Glass from shattered light fixtures.
She crouched and hid, trembling as she turned on me with wide, frightened eyes. I could swear she assessed me with open curiosity. . .and appreciation.
But when she saw the gun in my hand, she gasped.
Well, fuck. I just screwed this up.
Chapter 3
Someone broke into my house.
And that wasn’t the worst. No, theydestroyedmy stuff. My plants and their expensive pots. My designer couch. The new light fixtures I replaced four months ago and saved for half a year to purchase. Who the hell would do that? Why?
I didn’t have a lot of money. I barely scraped by and paid the bills on time. There wasn’t some huge savings account I hid or wealthy family members to demand a ransom from. This didn’t make any sense.
My back door slammed shut, and I realized I stood in my living room, in the open, without a way to protect myself. I took two steps toward my bedroom and my purse when I heard the door open again and slam shut a second time. I couldn’t control my reaction.
I screamed. Not some sissy scream, either. This was scream-queen-worthy and left my throat hoarse when I finished.
Oh, God.
Was someone inside my house?
I could swear the walls rumbled as my front door swung open and crashed against the wall. Frightened, confused, and exhausted from the mentally draining day, I crouched behind the couch.Stupid.That wouldn’t stop the intruder from locating me.
The scent alerted me I wasn’t alone first. A raw mixture of leather, motor oil, and mint hard candy. My eyes closed as I breathed the aroma in, nearly screaming again when I heard the floorboards creak. My eyes snapped open as I spotted the man who stood several feet away from me.
The stranger towered over my position as he glanced in my direction, scanned my body, and shifted his focus. His gaze tore away from me, darting around the room as if he expected some knife-wielding sicko to jump at him from the shadows.
I never had a chance to turn on all my lights yet. The hazy glow from my kitchen draped his body and provided the perfect backdrop. He was sin personified and built like a brick wall and indestructible. Tall, broad, with Nevada sun-kissed skin covered in dark ink, he swung his head in my direction.
A black t-shirt molded to his skin stretched over his biceps and pressed against the taught muscles of his abdomen. The kind of physique that wasn’t big enough for bodybuilder status but definitely sculpted in all the right ways. His jeans struggled to contain his powerful thighs as I realized too late that my eyes followed down his body, taking in every inch of virile man. It took only a second for me to see that the bulge between his legs hung thick and low, slightly to the right. . .oh God.
I pulled my gaze from the sight as I felt a blush rising in my cheeks, flushing with mortification. It didn’t stop me from lifting higher, taking in that expansive chest, and finally climbing to his face.
His short, auburn beard clung to his strong jaw. I couldn’t believe how undeniably sexy he was, especially when I noticed his full lips that twitched with amusement.
But his eyes were what did me in, fluttering my heart when mine made contact. I instantly got lost in the piercing, crystal blue color that reminded me of the sea under a calm, cloudless sky. So pretty and yet still masculine. I barely took in his short, reddish-blond hair cut in that messy style that I usually found unattractive, but on him, it wasperfect.He cleared his throat.
Neither of us said a word.
He stared at me in response, looking me over in a way that had me thinking about every impure sexual fantasy I’d ever conjured late at night in my bed.Yum.
What the hell was the matter with me?
I shouldn’t be checking out a man who entered my home uninvited and probably wanted to kill me. Metal gleamed from a hard object in his hand as the light glinted off the surface.
Oh my God, he had a gun.
A noise like a mewl left my throat as I scrambled away, falling on my ass as I backed into the wall, terrified he was one of those home invasion types that didn’t leave any witnesses behind.
His brows furrowed. “Fuck,” he growled, his voice deep and raspy, as hard and dark as his thunderous expression. “Is anyone inside?”
“I-I don’t know,” I replied honestly, terrified that he wasn’t the only intruder.
“I won’t hurt you. I’m here to keep you safe.”
My jaw popped open in shock as he moved with lethal grace, cutting off my chance to reply as he crept through every room in my house, pausing to check outside in both my backyard and the carport.
