When I tried again, the intruder blocked my knee and wrapped his arms around my waist.Uh oh.
Struggling to loosen his hold around me, I planted my feet on the ground and jammed my elbow down between his shoulder blades.
The man grunted, but he didn’t let go.
Instead, he pushed forward and tackled me to the ground. I braced for the fall as my back hit the floor, but the intruder twisted at the last minute, and I landed on top of him.
He groaned in pain, but I didn’t waste another second as Ipushed off his chest, swung my right leg up, and pressed my knee firmly on his neck.
He tried pushing me off him, but he was pinned to the floor with my body weight. I grabbed both of his hands, locked them together, and twisted until I heard a pop.
“Argh,” he groaned. “Katherine, stop! It’s me! It’s Drew!”
As if the cloud of adrenaline cleared, my hold loosened, and I looked at the intruder’s face for the first time.
Drew’s dark green eyes stared up at me, pleadingly.
Oh, God.
I frantically let go of his wrists and lifted my knee from his throat.
Drew coughed twice before he spoke. “I’m glad to see those self-defense moves I taught you were put to good use.” He rubbed at his neck where my knee had been. “Almost too good.”
His hair was ruffled off his forehead and stuck up in random places.
“I—I’m so sorry, Drew. I thought you were an intruder. I thought ...”
… you were Adrian.
He isn’t Adrian;I had to remind myself.
I took a deep breath, still shaky from the what just happened, and glared at Drew.
“What are you doing here?” I pointed to his gun on the floor a few feet from us. “You had your gun out!”
He stood, swiped his hands on his jeans, and retrieved the weapon from the floor a few steps away. He clicked the safety back on before sheathing it on his hip.
“I needed to know you were okay.” Drew cleared his throat. “You looked terrified when you left. I knew something was wrong, so I followed you home.”
My heart skipped a beat at his words. He wanted to checkon me—to make sure I was all right even after the way I treated him.
Drew took a deep breath. “What’s going on? What happened to your apartment?”
Despite him being here, I was still hesitant to involve him in my problems.
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “It’s nothing. You should go.”
“This doesn’t look like nothing.” Drew gestured to my destroyed apartment and reached for my hands. “Please, Katherine. I want to help you.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and took a step back, but he stepped forward.
The little bit of light that filtered in through the window and from the hallway put a spotlight on his handsome face. The right side of his face was red from where I kneed him. His eyebrows were slanted up in concern.
“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Drew asked. “I know something is wrong. Just tell me.”
I wanted to tell him, but he’d be in more danger than he already was just by being here. I couldn’t do that to him. This was my problem. I had to handle it on my own.
“You can’t help me,” I said. “You shouldn’t even be here. He could be watching us right now.”
