Chapter 5

Rosemary

When the stranger just collapsed in my hallway, my first thought was to grab my cellphone and call for help. Running up the stairs, I’d shrugged into more clothing and grabbed my phone and flashlight, only to discover that I had no service. Of course not. It seemed I was trapped in the plot of a really shitty horror movie or something.

Then my eyes dropped to the naked, sprawled out shape on my hardwood hallway floors and I had to amend that thought. Could be that I was about to end up in a cheesy romance novel instead because this guy was smoking hot. If I had a choice in this, I’d pick option number two; my libido was firmly onboard with that.

Flicking the flashlight along his muddy form, my eyes widened when I noticed the muddy footprints he’d left. They were impossible; bigger than dinner plates, they looked like something straight out of the Jurassic Era. Dinosaur prints, big claw-like shapes with three toes and a fourth one pointing backward. That had to be the weirdest splatter pattern ever because when I pointed the light at his feet, they definitely looked human-shaped: normal, if big.

“Okay, just roll with it, Rosy. This is weird, but he’s out cold. He needs help.” I had a habit of talking to my plants, and that had evolved into talking to myself since I was alone all the time. It felt weird to do it when there was an unconscious man on my floor, though.

Then I made another startling discovery. Not all the mud that covered him was brown or gray, some of it was too red to mean anything good. My heart rate shot up again. He wasn’t kidding; he really was hurt. I couldn’t keep standing there and just gawk. I had to do something before he bled out.

Armed with a bucket of water and some of my towels, I got to work cleaning him up so I could find out where he was injured. I was grateful that I’d had the foresight to already unpack those when I had my shower earlier tonight.

It was a strange and slightly erotic experience to be stroking a wet cloth over a naked man’s flesh. Especially since he was such a handsome naked specimen, and I had to wipe along the sexy curves of his muscled back, down his wide shoulders, and even rub my cloth along his tight ass cheeks. I certainly didn’t feel the cold, or any of the water drops that soaked my shirt by the time I was done.

But staring at his back was sobering, too. Now that the mud had been wiped off, it was obvious that he was covered in mottled bruises, black, green, red, blue; practically every color of the rainbow. He had cuts along the palms of his hands, his knees were scraped, and a nasty head wound at the back of his skull, which was where most of the blood had come from.

He looked, I realized with some confusion, like he’d just crawled out from beneath a rock or mudslide. My eyes lifted automatically to the still boarded-up window I could see through the dining room, the one facing the vegetable garden where such a slide had happened in the past. There was no way he’d been trapped under there, but his words from before sent more chills rushing along my skin. You freed me. I was trapped.

The bleeding seemed to have stopped at least, so I cleaned him and then just left it. Unless I wanted to shave my poor, unconscious visitor, I couldn’t really stick a bandaid in his hair. Sitting on my knees next to him, the two-by-four still at my side, and my now muddy and bloody bucket on the other, I tried to figure out what the next step was. He was naked, and he should be freezing cold after all that water, but his skin was hot to the touch. So warm that it felt like my water had evaporated right off him. Did he need a blanket or not? I wasn’t sure.

Eventually, I just draped a clean towel over his hips. For my own sanity, rather than because he needed it. I could not keep glancing at that sexy ass or I’d go crazy. He was unconscious and hurt, but that still didn’t exclude him from being a crazy ax murderer when he woke up. What did he call himself again? And I mean, how freaky was it that he knew my name?

Ah, Chardum the Destroyer, that’s what he called himself. Definitely crazy. Destroyer was hardly a friendly, neighborly name to offer at a first meeting. That was total ax murderer territory, or like an end-of-the-world villain. Not exactly how I wanted a stranger to introduce himself as when I was all alone with him.

I stared again at his wide shoulders and narrow waist; he really was one hell of a sexy man. Totally my type if I pretended he didn’t have a bizarre name. I guess I’d just have to sit there and keep watch until he woke up. There was no other choice because my phone still had no reception.