Damn.
Damn it.
All I wanted was to get inside my own house, peel off these sweat-soaked clothes, and face-plant into a coma on my own lumpy mattress. Sixteen hours in economy class next to a guy who thought elbows were a territorial claim had left me with the soul of a wrung-out dishrag.
Instead, I was standing on my own porch, staring at a key that had snapped in the lock like it too had just given up on life.
And Catherine wasn't picking up. Typical.
The voicemail clicked on. "Hey! It's Catherine! I'm probably… out! I did something that might surprise you a little, but you know me—I always figure things out eventually!"
A surprise. Great. The last time she 'surprised' me, I came home to a flock of garden gnomes she swore were 'investments'. I had a bad, bad feeling about this.
The humid summer air clung to my skin like a plastic wrap. Of course, the power was out. The whole street was dark. The only light came from that stupidly bright, obnoxiously full moon, bleaching the world in silver and shadows.
"Perfect," I muttered to the silent night. "Just the aesthetic my mental breakdown was missing."
Option one: sleep on the welcome mat and hope the mosquitoes didn't carry me away.
Option two: my old reliable—the loose back window from my forgetful teen years.
My maxi skirt was not designed for felony-adjacent activities. It took wriggling, a silent apology to my neighbors, and a near-death experience with a hydrangea bush, but I made it. I tumbled onto the familiar carpet of my living room, home at last.
The house was silent, and blessedly, stiflingly hot. No AC. I kicked off my shoes and didn't bother feeling for a light. I knew this place blindfolded. All I could think about was the cool, cotton embrace of my sheets.
I stumbled into my bedroom and collapsed onto the bed with a groan.
And… huh.
My mattress felt different. Firmer. Better. Maybe extreme fatigue was a luxury bedding experience. I didn't have the brainpower to question it. I curled up, pulling the sheet over my head, and let the black tide of sleep pull me under.
I was dreaming of airplane food that was fighting back when the world exploded.
One second I was asleep. The next, I was airborne. A force I couldn't see wrenched me from the bed and slammed me, hard, into the opposite wall. The impact knocked the air from my lungs. I slid to the floor, gasping, my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest.
A shadow detached itself from the deeper darkness of the room.
He was just… there. Materialized out of the moonlight and gloom. Tall, broad, and moving with a predator's silence that froze the blood in my veins. He was shirtless, his chest gleaming with a fine sheen of sweat—or was that blood? I couldn't tell.
I scrambled back, my voice a terrified squeak. "Take whatever you want! I don't have any cash! The TV's old and the silverware is plastic!"
He ignored me, his head tilted. His eyes, glinting in the dark, swept over me. They were… confused. Like I was a puzzle piece that had fallen from a different box. A human puzzle piece.
Then he swayed. A sharp hiss escaped his lips, his hand flying to his side. I saw it then—a dark, wet stain blooming low on his torso.
This was my chance.
Adrenaline fired through my limbs. I lunged sideways, not for him, but for my purse on the floor, my fingers scrabbling for my phone. I got it! My thumb found the emergency call button—
A snarl. A blur of motion.
My phone was struck from my hand with a sharp smack, slicing through the air in a ghostly arc.
A hand fisted in the back of my shirt and hauled me up like I weighed nothing. I was thrown back onto the mattress, bouncing once, the world a dizzying spin.
Before I could move, he was there again, looming over me. The moonlight streamed through the window, painting his face in sharp relief. He was… ridiculously, unfairly handsome. And currently, the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.
He took a step forward. Then another. Slowly, deliberately, caging me in.
"Please," I begged, shrinking back into the mattress, squeezing my eyes shut. "Don't. Please."
I braced for an attack. For his hands. For the end.
Nothing happened.
I heard a soft rustle. A quiet thud.
I cracked one eye open.
He wasn't looking at me. He was staring at my bedside table. He reached out, his movements suddenly slow, almost reverent, and picked up the small, wooden photo frame.
Inside was a picture of me and Catherine, taken last summer, both of us sunburned and laughing.
I watched his face change. The confusion cleared, replaced by a dawning, grim understanding. His shoulders slumped slightly. He let out a long, slow breath, the tension bleeding out of him, leaving only a profound exhaustion.
He carefully put the frame back down. Then, he bent—wincing again—and scooped his discarded shirt from the floor. He pulled it on, the dark fabric instantly soaking up the blood on his side.
"The house is mine," he said, his voice low and rough with pain. "I bought it. Get out."
The whiplash of fear, confusion, and now outright indignation left me speechless for a second. "*Get out?* This is my home! You can't just buy a person's home out from under them!"
"I have the paperwork. It's done."
"My sister would never—"
"Catherine Whitmore. She signed it."
My blood ran cold. The voicemail. *'I did something that might surprise you.'* Oh, Catherine. What did you do?
Frantically, I searched the room until I finally spotted my phone on the floor in the corner. "I need to call her. I need to—"
I didn't even get to finish. He moved faster than I could track—a blur of motion and fury. Barefoot, he stepped down hard.
Crack.
The plastic casing shattered beneath his heel, splintering across the floor like broken glass.
"That," he growled, his patience clearly at its end, "was too damn loud."
I stared at the ruins of my phone. My last tether to the outside world. Gone.
That was it. The final straw.
"You… you complete and utter *asshole!*" I shrieked, all my fear transforming into pure, incandescent rage.
I took a step toward him, ready to… I don't know what. Hit him? My tiny, sleep-deprived, rage-filled brain had not thought that far.
It didn't matter.
As I stepped forward, he took a half-step back—and then his eyes rolled back in his head. The formidable, terrifying predator simply… folded. He collapsed forward, straight into me.
The weight was immense, solid muscle and sheer male bulk. I stumbled, my arms instinctively wrapping around his torso to stop us both from crashing to the floor. My hand, splayed across his back, came away warm and slick.
In the quiet, moonlit silence of my bedroom, I was left standing, holding the unconscious, bleeding, and infuriatingly handsome man who had just stolen my house.