“Well, I’ll walk you through it.”
She laughed. “I’m sure you will. Are you going to be loud on a regular basis?”
“I don’t know. You seem to have a calming effect on me. I rarely get the urge to yell when I’m around you.”
Dylan smiled. “Now, that’s a compliment.”
“Smartass,” he said, giving her ass a little smack.
“You’re rubbing off on me.”
Dylan rolled out of bed and grabbed his tee off the floor, slipping it over her head. She rooted around on the floor for a few seconds and came up with her underwear.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Yeah, but I’m sleepy now,” he answered.
She laughed. “Is that your way of telling me you want me to make the food?”
“Nope. I’d flat out say that if it was true.”
Dylan shook her head and walked into the bathroom. After she took care of business and washed her hands, she came out and found Clay asleep under the blankets. She suppressed a giggle at the sight of him with his hands behind his head, mouth open, and soft snores coming from his chest.
She tiptoed over to the dresser and grabbed a pair of soft lounge pants out of one of ‘her’ drawers. Once she was dressed, she padded out of the bedroom, gently shutting the door behind her.
She’d make a quick snack and then get something on for dinner.
When she rounded the corner into the dining room, a flash of blue caught her eye. She started to turn, but arms came around her from behind, lifting her off her feet. A hand clamped over her mouth tightly.
“It’s time we had a chat,” a male voice said in her ear.
Though he’d barely said anything to her before, Dylan would have recognized that voice anywhere. It was the man who’d broken into her duplex.
She was frozen in fear as he carried her through the kitchen and into the mudroom. By the time she gathered her wits, they were out the side door of the mudroom and heading toward the car parked behind Clay’s house.
Dylan came alive then, kicking and scratching. She flailed in his arms, trying to lift her legs high enough to power kick out of his grip. The man had to stop walking in order to keep his hold on her.
“What are you doing?” he growled. “Stop that! We’re going to have a talk, that’s all. Then, we’ll decide on your punishment.”
Oh, hell no, Dylan thought.
She opened her mouth and sank her teeth into his ring finger, doing her best to bite completely through his skin.
He yelled and tried to jerk his hand away, but she refused to let go, keeping her grip on his finger with her teeth. At one point, she could have sworn she felt bone.
Finally, he dropped her in an effort to get his hand away. Dylan released her bite and screamed as she reared her leg back and kicked him in the nuts as though they were a football and this was kickoff.
The man clutched at his crotch before going down on his knees and falling to his side. A strange, high-pitched wheezing sound escaped his mouth as his face turned red, then purple.
It wasn’t until his hat fell off to reveal his buzzed brown hair that Dylan recognized him.
“Larry?” she asked, gaping down at him.
He moved, reaching one hand out toward her in a pleading gesture, but she scrambled back and screamed again.
“What the hell, Larry?” she yelled. “What are you doing here?”
He huffed and tried to speak, but while his mouth worked, no words came out. Larry clutched at his privates and curled up into a ball.
