Page 71 of Biker's Prisoner: Property of Bucky

“ZAYNA!”

“I’m coming to bed,” she says through her grunting as she struggles to pry the ax from the door. “I don’t need your help.”

This woman isout of her fucking mind. Before she splits the door completely in half, I run up to stop her and thrust what remains of the door open. Zayna stands back, allowing space for Zeus to race through the open door and act like they’ve been separated for years.

“What the hell are you doing?”

She keeps wielding the ax and glaring at me.

“What does it look like? I’m breaking the door down.”

She hasno right to look this sexy dripping in sweat. I never put Zayna to the task of splitting wood and clearly, it took her plenty of effort to get through that door. Worst part is she’s just glaring at me, holding that goddamn ax like she’s ready to chop my ass down. Like I’m the one who did something to hurt her.

“Why are you doing that?”

I sound angry. Like Doc scolding me for stealing from the Flying J.

“Because you won’t let me in, Ruger!” She yells at me, heaving the ax to impale the wall next to the door frame. We both flinch, surprised by the strength behind her fury.

“So I won’t let you kill my ex-boyfriend. Big fucking deal. I told you that I loved you and you just stormed off. How isanythinggoing to work between us if you don’t talk to me?”

Everything about Zayna pisses me off right now. Her lips. Her hair. The color of her skin. It’s impressive the way she swung that ax to get through the door, but it also means I’m fighting a beast far more stubborn than I imagined. Any other woman would have curled up on the couch weeping. Not Zayna. Not the teacher. I wonder if I did this to her by making her kill with me. By fucking her in my bed every night. Did I turn her into an ax wielding mad woman?

“Put the weapon down.”

“NO!” she yells. It takes all my military training and experience not to flinch. I’m not in the best position, but Zayna is still a small woman. Easy enough to overpower. The ax blade is more unpredictable and I keep my ax sharp since it gets cold as fuck around here and I chop food for the fire whenever I can to stockpile for the winter.

Her hair is all wild and tangled around her head. Unbelievably sexy.

“Put the ax down, Zayna,” I say to her more sternly. She can tell from the look I’m giving her that I mean business, but Zayna barely bothers to hide her defiance.

“I agreed to your original terms,” she says. “You can’t go back on them now. You can’t just… You can’t!”

The explosion of vulnerability from her shocks me, but it’s not enough to cure me completely of what I want. There’s no cure for what I am. The fucked up events that created Ruger Blackwood from the blackness.

“I want to be different, Zayna.”

“Then BE different.”

“I can’t,” I say to her, trying not to snarl at her. But I sound angry because the pain she plucked up is deeper than Zayna can imagine. She doesn’t know what it’s like to grow up knowing your mother prefers beer, cigarettes and dick to taking care of you. The first woman’s hands I reached out to for love smacked me away.

“I can’t believeyou can share your love.”

“I can’t,” Zayna says, her voice trembling with anger. “I don’t love my ex-boyfriend. Do you realize how crazy you sound?”

Bold words from a woman who chopped down my bedroom door with an ax.

“You loved him once. Means you could fall in love again.”

“I don’t hold onto the past.”

“Don’t you?”

“What do you mean?” Zayna says, her hands finding a suspiciously more comfortable looking position on the ax handle. “What past am I holding onto?”

“Put the ax down, Zayna.”

“No.”

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