Twist My Heart by Brooke Taylor (ebook audio reader .txt) 📕

with each pulled breath. My lips hovered in front of his, our burning gazes meeting.

Without warning, he pressed his mouth into a hard line and ducked his head over my shoulder. His unshaven cheek scraped hot and rough against my smooth one. The bulging flex of his jawline countered my own.

He drove his fists into the vanity countertop, his knuckles taking the weight of his formidable body as it angled over mine, covering me completely. Every inch of him hardened. At some point my hands had found his hips, my fingers clawing to grip his jeans. A futile attempt at getting his lower body flush with mine. He didn’t budge. His body and resolve were more solid than anything else in this room. We stayed locked in place—cheek to cheek, each charged breath raking his chest against mine—as if afraid moving apart might break us both.

Every warm exhale against my ear sent trembling waves down through my bones. His ragged voice vibrated as he ground out the words, “Who the hell are you?”

Mine came out desperate and trembling. “Does it matter?”

“Shit, you could be married.”

“I don’t have any rings.”

“How old are you?”

It took me a steadying breath to piece his concern together. Between his white-knuckled fists jammed down on the vanity ledge as if testing its structural integrity and my fingers clamping tight to his hips, I felt pretty sure trying to claim it would’ve only been one kiss would insult both of our intelligence. I wasn’t entirely sure what we’d started here, but from our panting breaths it was obvious neither of us would be satisfied with only one of anything.

And I did look young, but not that young. Or maybe I was. I had no idea. No idea who I was or what I wanted, which was exactly his point. How could I truthfully consent to even one kiss with so little information?

With a shove, he pushed off the counter. His body ripped away from mine in one fast pull, leaving me to struggle for air again.

“I better take my shower now.” He turned to adjust the water as I backed out of the bathroom. Before he closed the door, I heard him mutter, “A cold one.”

* * * *

No good deed goes unpunished. This one undoubtedly would cost Nik dearly. The sooner he found Tigger’s friends, family, whatever…the better.

He splashed icy water over his face, but it did little good at tempering the hot pumping of his blood. Lingering to pick her up at the gas station in Goodland had been a mistake. Sure, getting right back on the highway would’ve put him directly in the path of the tornado. But he would’ve been better off in what the weathermen were already calling an EF4, than in a hotel room with some jailbait vixen who didn’t seem to understand reason.

Potentially jailbait. Most assuredly didn’t understand reason.

He needed to get away from her before she had him doing something really stupid, like inviting her to go to the island with him.

Take her to the hospital and let them sort it out. Is that so hard? Be on your way.

Huh.

Why was it so hard?

Maybe because the way she’d threatened to flip him off as he was saving her life, then bullheadedly refusing medical treatment flat-out reminded Nik of the Team Guys, and he’d never turn away from any of them.

Maybe because he’d felt entirely useless since returning stateside for stand-down phase and even more so having left the Teams.

And maybe because he believed her fears went well beyond being caught in the tornado. For something to be more terrifying than a ravaging act of God…well, that kind of spoke to him.

Nik had seen horrific things in the military, but finding Tigger buried and broken had punched through all his walls, slamming right into an old wound.

A wrecked car…a lifeless, angelic face stained with blood. Cora.

He yanked himself out of the memory with the same fierceness he’d used time and again in the haunting nightmares. Thrusting his face into the cold shower spray, he tried to erase the visions of Cora red with blood, her body buried under so much weight. No, this is different, he reminded himself for the millionth time. This girl survived. Everything turned out okay. She awaited him right on the other side of the door—living, breathing, and downright feisty.

Truth was, everything was not okay. Despite the fact she could rattle off the answer to any mathematical equation he could throw at her. She had no memory at all, or so she claimed. She refused to go to the hospital, even though she had to have a concussion and no doubt needed some industrial-strength pain meds. But she was alive. Sweet-faced and innocent…

Innocent. Huh.

His memory snapped back to the field, when the sky had run out of rain, and to the all-too-familiar nylon-based polymer his fingertips skimmed. Before she’d even come to, his hand had passed over her abdomen in the darkness as he examined her for injuries, and he’d felt it. Glock 43, modified sights and grip, carried hot with a half-spent extended mag. No ID on her, no permit or badge, nothing to let him know if the gun was even hers. No…innocent girls didn’t tear out of gas stations driving straight into tornadoes with Glocks tucked in their waistbands.

Then there was the blood. Her hoodie had been soaked in more blood than had been consistent with her injuries. He hadn’t realized it at first, given the rain and mud. But under the interior light of his Jeep he’d realized she was covered in it. Whose blood was it? She’d been alone at the gas station in Goodland. The female DOA under her truck had had a lot of blood loss. She’d looked to have been injured by the tornado, but he couldn’t rule out a gunshot wound as well.

Maybe Tigger was an undercover cop? Could explain the gun and her possible involvement with the other girl. But if she were