Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
I listened for the sound. I felt for my phone again and muted it, throwing the barn into silence.
I glanced over toward the front door knob.
Maybe I’d imagined it?
A rattling sound came again a moment later, more loudly this time.
My chest went cold. I set my glass down on my kitchen counter, turning quickly in the dark.
“Misty?” I muttered to no one. But the tabby stray hadn’t been on my porch all week. My little barn was surrounded by grass, shrubs, maple and oak, and my parents’ house was on the opposite end of our two acres of land. There was no way anybody could mistake the front door of this old barn for anyone else’s.
The handle jiggled now.
Someone really was trying to get in.
I moved away from my kitchen counter, crossing toward the front of the living room. It was dark outside and dark in here. I hadn’t bothered turning on any lights when I stepped inside ten minutes ago, bone tired after my shift at the bar. The only light was the tiny glow above my stove.
I thought about the comments on my latest video.
Some of which seemed a bit… stalkery.
I’d filmed my last video shirtless and it had been getting a lot of attention from men. I was straight, but I didn’t mind the compliments. But if one of the creepier comments actually had been someone threatening, and they’d found out where I lived?
I was fucked.
I didn’t think I had reason to feel unsafe… until about thirty seconds ago.
My pulse was rising. A thin strip of moonlight came in across the living room, and my gaze landed on the corner, where I had an old hockey stick from college resting on the wall. Not exactly the best self-defense weapon, but I could crack someone over the head with it if needed. If only I’d played baseball instead.
I padded over the hardwood floor as quietly as I could and closed my fingers over the cool lacquered wood of the hockey stick, gripping tight.
As I stepped toward the front door a floorboard creaked.
“Shit.”
I’d remodeled this barn with a lot of TLC, and even though it looked nice and cozy, the place wasn’t Fort Knox in the security department.
When I heard the handle being fucked with again, louder this time, my heart lodged itself somewhere up in my throat.
I sucked in a breath through my nostrils.
Fuck.
Think. Think.
I had no time to think. If someone was trying to break in, I wasn’t going to sit around and wait to be ambushed.
I needed to ambush them.
I moved to the front, grabbing the handle and yanking the heavy door open.
Holy fuck.
It hadn’t been a false alarm. There was a man.
A stranger in a black cowboy hat on my porch, trying to get in.
To my fucking house.
My spine went cold and time froze. I saw his silhouette with the glow of the moon behind him.
The outline of a cowboy hat. His body, hard and muscled.
The light of my parents’ house was distant, like a little lighthouse on the horizon across a field full of grass, shrubs, and trees.
There was no chance they could hear me yell from this far away.
My only advantage was that I’d seemed to catch the man off guard, giving me a split second to act.
I brought the wooden stick up, aiming for the side of his head as I began to swing it down. My grip was sweaty and uneven, though, and on my downswing, the man’s hand came up and closed around my wrist in a swift motion, gripping me with an alarming amount of force.
“What the fuck?”
His palm was warm around my wrist. I tried to pry it away and he held me tight, as if he was handcuffing me with just his strength. It was starting to hurt now, and his grip was only getting tighter.
In a flash, he moved positions, yanking my arm up against his chest and jerking the hockey stick out of my hands. I lost my grip and the stick was gone in a split second, clattering to the ground. In my peripheral vision, something else fell onto the porch too.
Think.
Fucking think.
I kicked my heel downward onto the man’s boot, but I was barefoot and it didn’t do a damn thing.
He got behind me quickly. His leg connected with the back of my ankle, getting behind my foot. Both of us tipped backward and I felt the ground disappear beneath my feet as I got lifted and he took us both down onto the ground.
His forearm locked against my throat.
His broad chest, pushed up against my back.
He’d grappled me down in an instant, restraining me from behind until his arm was an iron bar just below my neck.
I’d watched enough of my college buddies wrestle to know that there was no chance I could get out of this position. Not with a man so much stronger than me.