Page 43 of Shattered Hearts
I can’t breathe. I can’t think.
Drunk, deranged, and dancing in the center of my den is Troy Sullivan.
He’s six feet of chaos, enclosed inside a tall, muscled body. He has brown hair and a deadly, white-hot temper. His blue eyes lack any warmth.
Everybody has demons. Troy is mine.
He sways right. “You lied to me.”
“What did I lie about?”
My body drops into fight-or-flight mode, but my system is malfunctioning. Déjà vu immobilizes me. Gruesome, violent memories cross-fade with my present terror.
“You said you’d never get married.” Troy draws a gun from his belt and scratches his head with the barrel.
“Things change, Troy.” Shit. Now I’m baiting him.
Blood rushes in my ears.
He could kill himself. He could killme.
Feet frozen in place, my heart beats thick and heavy. The seconds unfurl in slow motion as his gaze rakes over my body.
Then he lunges.
Mace in hand, I aim for his eyes.
I don’t miss.
Troy screams in pain, but his drunk legs keep coming. “Bitch!”
I don’t get out of the way in time.
The air in my lungs dies as Troy makes contact, slamming both of us into the creaking bookcase behind me.
My pepper spray goes flying. Pain shoots through my skull.
Troy braces himself against the shelves, some of them giving way beneath his colossal weight. Romance novels and textbooks on social work rain to the floor as my head swims. He cages me with his giant body, his face hovering above mine.
His eyes are swollen shut.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” Bourbon wafts off his breath.
I peek right, straight into the open doorway of my bedroom. If I can just push him away, maybe I can make a run for it.
“Crazy bitch.” Troy can’t see me, but he can feel me. When his sticky, meaty fingers wrap around my arm, dread floods my veins.
No, no, no.
Fight mode engages, late but in full force. I hook my other arm around his neck for support and knee his ball sack into his lower intestine with everything I have.
“Fuck!” He coughs, sputtering a string of curses.
Troy’s knees hit the ground on either side of my feet, his hands digging into his crotch. His head dunks forward into my abdomen. Reaching for a weapon, my hand brushes an encyclopedia. I snatch it up and hit the fucker with everything I’ve got.
He sprawls to my left, an insane, drunken, blubbering mess.
With my heart pounding hard enough to shatter glass, I half sprint, half stumble over the obstacle course Troy made of my living room. Hopping over his feet and the fallen books, I climb past the outstretched legs of my upturned desk and capsized office chair. I fly into my bedroom, ready to whip my gun out from beneath the mattress.