A tidal wave of panic flooded her mind, but her feet remained stubbornly planted and her hand tightened on the hammer’s handle. Forcing the panic out of her mind, she concentrated. Her knees would lock if she remained standing stiff-legged in fear, so she loosened them and moved her weight from foot to foot to get the blood flow back.
The meat tenderizer’s wooden handle had grown to her hand, it seemed. Consciously, she loosened her grip and spun the handle without releasing her grip to reposition the makeshift weapon. She spun it again; and then a third time.
The man didn’t move or make any sounds.
With complete self-willed control, Jayda asked, “Who are you?”
Her heart stopped in mid-beat when the hands moved to the arms of the chair. She stepped one step farther into the room, giving her arm enough room to really draw back the hammer if he charged her. She’d be damned if she’d turn her back and try to run away. He could likely overtake her before she made the back door anyway, and he was sitting far too close to the front door to try for it.
“I asked who you are. Why are you in my house?” Jayda?
?s eyes stung from trying to see him more clearly.
In one smooth, liquid motion, the man was on his feet and closed the gap between them by half, putting himself directly in the light from the television.
The hammer was already in motion, arcing toward the intruder by the time she recognized him. The flash shot memory of him in The Hideout, fresh off his Harley had come an instant too late and she couldn’t stop the hammer’s descent.
Drake stepped toward her and caught her arm in mid-swing. The force of her swing caused him to step back a little and she heard him chuckle.
Chapter 5
Claimed by the Dragon
“What the hell are you doing in my house in the middle of the fucking night, Drake?” As she stepped back he tore the hammer from her hand. She let him have it and stepped back into the open archway between the kitchen and living room. She was still scared but not as badly.
“You’ve ignored messages and phone calls all day. Your girlfriends have been trying you all afternoon. When they said you’d not been sleeping, they thought that might be exactly what you were doing. I was on my way down the mountain and I decided to stop and check in on you.” He moved forward with slow, determined, sure steps.
Jayda wanted to stand her ground and not let him see her fear, but she couldn’t do it. He had the hammer now. She’d just woken and was sore and stiff from head to toe. He had surely been sitting there awake and debating all the time he had been there. Every step he took toward her, Jayda took a compensatory step back.
Drake twirled the hammer’s handle much the way she had and caught the spinning head in his other hand. He had backed her into the kitchen. Her back was against the bar and she had nowhere else to go. “How did you get in? How long have you been there in the dark like that?”
“Your front door was unlocked.” He made a tsk tsk tsk sound of disapproval at her and wagged his finger side to side in front of her face. “That’s dangerous out in this neck of the woods, you know.”
A bit of fire came back to her and she said, “Obviously, you never know what will come crawling through the door.” She looked for a way around him but there was none.
He laughed at her remark but was not fazed by it. Mere inches separated them and his masculine scent filled her nose: whiskey, denim, leather, and the faint smell of cigarette smoke.
Like a cornered mouse, her eyes darted and she shunted to the left but a large heavily muscled arm shot out and blocked her path. Immediately she went to the right, but he dropped the hammer onto the counter as his other arm successfully blocked her path. With both hands on the counter and leaning forward with his weight, he had pinned Jayda in place.
She pushed at his chest and when he didn’t budge, she slapped his face hard enough that his long dark hair flew out to the side. “Let me go, Drake.”
He leaned down and inhaled her scent. “No. Not yet.” His voice was low and deep. It held no threat.
She tried to knee him in the balls, but he moved and she hit his thigh. “So, what? Are you going to rape me now? What? You have me at your mercy. If you want me to beg you can forget it. I’d rather die.” She tried to head butt him in the mouth as he leaned in again and she connected with his chin just below his lip but was rewarded with a surprised yelp as his head flew back. Jayda thrashed side to side, forward and back.
Drake said, “You got a brass set, I can tell you that.” He wrapped his arms around her thrashing body and pulled her to his chest, pinning her again.
She screamed in fear and frustration. In his python-like grip, she was truly helpless for the first time in her life.
Lifting her feet off the floor, Drake said, “You can stop! I’m not gonna fucking hurt you. You might hurt yourself though, if you don’t quit.”
Jayda, tiring quickly, stopped thrashing and screaming to look up at him. “Then why were you sitting in the dark like a serial killer?”
“I’m going to let go but if you swing at me again, I’ll throw you on the couch and sit on you. Deal?”
Reluctantly, she nodded.
He let her go slowly.