Prisoner of Love

A/N: Once again, I'm early. I stayed home from church. Ouch! Here's the long awaited next chapter. I hope you all like it. Let me know by voting, fanning and commenting. Thanks to all of you already who are following this story and commenting!

Jake awakened just before two in the morning, not needing to empty his kidneys; just, awake. He lay listening to the silence in the apartment, outside the apartment, and thought, well, hell, what was he going to do, wide awake in the middle of the night? If he had a willing bedmate, they could engage in a game of under-the-covers Twister. But, he didn’t even have a bedmate, let alone a willing one. On a sigh, Jake sat up and grabbed the TV remote. Time to surf for porn. If he couldn’t get any, at least he could do the next best thing: watch someone else getting some.  Preferably two women, since that was always a turn-on. But as Jake unerringly punched in the proper channels, and received black screens with the encouragement “Subscribe now!” he realized ole Sexpot Parker didn’t have any of the good channels. That figured. She had the body of a goddess and the morals of a nun.

Not wanting to stoop to watching Bowflex infomercials, Jake flipped the TV off and tossed the remote to the other end of the couch, staring at the blank screen for several minutes. At last waggling his head to clear his self-induced trance, the cop decided to go choke the python after all. Maybe he’d sleep in past six A.M. then.

Jake had reached the bathroom doorway when he paused and cocked his head, convinced he’d heard an odd sound from Lucy Parker’s bedroom. Glancing toward the toilet, and then back at her door, Jake decided to just peek inside quietly, make sure she wasn’t having a bad dream or anything. Yeah, right, you horn dog. You just wanna try and get a repeat performance from last night. The tarnished gentleman buried deep inside Jake insisted he go on toward the john, but the cop’s sixth sense had him gently opening the bedroom door anyway.

Good thing he did.

Poking his head around the door, the first thing Jake spied was two bodies in a pile on the bed, and he was willing to bet Miss Lucy Parker was the one on the bottom. Adrenaline surged immediately, and Jake saw red. On a growl, he launched himself at the shadowed figure straddling Lucy, snagging the assailant’s collar in one tight-fingered grasp and hauling him up and off of her body, startling the knife right out of his hand and onto the floor. That was his last advantage.

Immediately the intruder turned in Jake’s grip, smacking him alongside his face with open-handed bitch slaps, one right after the other, using enough force to stagger the cop. His ears rang. This dude was no amateur. Jake threw some punches, crowding in close to avoid those lethal hands, attempting a head butt when he could. Two could play that game.

Jake’s opponent was near his own height, but had him on weight, and in street fighting. Jake could fight dirty, but this guy was a master. It was already apparent to the cop that he was outclassed, but the guy had attacked Miss Parker, and for that reason alone Jake would do his damnedest to bring the jackass down. But then the ninja bullshit started.

The intruder swung his left leg towards Jake’s face, and Jake automatically caught it, grinning diabolically at the ski-masked man, pleased to have rendered him useless so easily.

“Whatcha gonna do now, asshole?” Jake taunted in the dark, twisting his attacker’s ankle for emphasis.

 He never saw the other leg coming.

One minute Jake was holding the man’s leg parallel to the floor, and the next, he was kissing the carpet. The ninja G.I. Joe had clocked him with his other foot! He’d cleanly jumped into the air and scissor kicked himself free.

With Lucy out of immediate harm’s way, Jake chose to pause a moment on the floor and make sure his head was still connected to his body. When that inventory was complete, the cop pulled himself to all fours, just in time to get a boot to the ribcage. Shit! He was getting his ass kicked! And the shithead never said a word, never grunted, never lost a breath! Just kept kicking the crap out of Jake Dalton.

Finally the cop, who was proud of deflecting the attack from Lucy Parker to himself, but not so proud of his showing, shouted at the cowering girl, “Get the mace! For Chrissake, get the mace!” His voice broke at the end, a sure sign of a butt-whipping. And still he continued to rise, and continued to get kicked.