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

to have your brain scanned, we’re going to go old-school concussion rules.”

She called the dog off again and Nik continued, lowering his voice. “If you don’t wake up every hour and appear coherent, I’m taking you to the ER using whatever force necessary.”

The every-hour thing was overkill, but she didn’t need to know it and he desperately needed to get some semblance of control over the situation. It very well could come down to whatever force necessary with this woman.

The evil snarl tugging at Titan’s muzzle hadn’t lessened. Nik needed to suppress that situation as well. He narrowed his eyes at the animal. “Easy, Lassie, I wasn’t going to hurt her. I saved her. Remember the whole ‘Timmy’s in the well’ routine? Forgotten, huh? Now you want to act all Cujo with me? Nice gratitude.”

Nik grumbled, realizing he was arguing with a dog. A dog! Coop would have a freaking field day with this.

Titan’s lip twitched and a half-growl, half-whine emitted from his throat as he begrudgingly lowered back down. Nik moved cautiously around the pair as the dog gave a quick indifferent lick to the top of his paw. No doubt the canine version of the middle finger.

 

Chapter Six

“Don’t you think…” I adjusted myself on the hotel bed, sitting up and crossing my legs under the white duvet before propping my chin on my hands. “I mean, well… I know it sounds crazy, and maybe it is, but everything happens for a reason, right?”

Nik’s jaw flexed. I’d learned he flexed it whenever he wanted to do something to me he couldn’t allow himself to—kiss me, kill me… He flexed it a lot.

This was a kill-me one.

He was the picture of exasperation. “I asked you about pizza, not the meaning of life.”

It had to be frustrating, my evasiveness whenever he turned our conversation in such a way as to probe into my past. But after nearly four hours of incessantly mining for memories, I was done. Done! I desperately wanted to sleep. I was so nervous I wouldn’t wake up and he’d haul me off to the hospital, I’d forced myself to stay awake as long as he did. If only he’d quiet down enough to eventually drift off. But no. The questions had no end. Each time I shut down, Nik piped up—Think about schools. Can you remember any schools you might’ve gone to? Do you think you lived on a farm? In a city? What is your favorite food? Favorite color? Song? Movie? Pizza?

Blah blah blah.

Why couldn’t he have been like Titan? Titan didn’t care if I remembered where we used to live or what we did yesterday. He liked the memory-free version of me just fine. He also liked toilet water, but still… Why couldn’t Nik let it go?

I’m sure he thought he was being helpful. But his eagerness for me to regain some knowledge of who I really was, and more importantly who I belonged to so he could return me, grated.

For him I was a mere blip of a few crazy hours in his thirty-some-odd year life. But for me, he and Titan were everything. Like literally. Everything.

There he was, sitting in the most uncomfortable-looking chair as he had for the past four hours, with those green eyes as hard and sharp as the shards of glass I’d been buried in. He looked so cute mad. He looked handsome as sin the rest of the time. Downright scorching coming out of the shower. Those arms…and chest…and abs, oh my. Such a shame I didn’t know the command for Titan to snatch his towel away.

“Pizza. Imagine a pizza.”

Ugh.

“I’m all good imagining something else right now.” My gaze slid the length of him. “Why don’t you tell me about your tattoos?”

Or better yet, let me get another look at them.

Nik threw his head back, banging it against the chair. “It’s like you’re not even trying,” he said to the ceiling.

Oh, I was. Trying to get him distracted. It just didn’t appear to be working very well.

How could I explain to him that I didn’t give a rat’s ass about the person who drove into the tornado? That woman and everything attached to her was essentially dead. He might’ve cared about who she was, but I couldn’t have cared less.

I had no emotions about her.

Zero.

Well, not entirely true. I did have one emotion about her. I was pissed.

She showed incredible stupidity to put herself and Titan in such terrible danger. Incredible stupidity! And given the overwhelming sense I was running from someone, I gathered she’d probably done something very bad to boot. Prying about for even more things to be angry at her over was the last thing I wanted to do.

“What if I don’t remember anything because I’m not supposed to?”

Nik closed his eyes, but he wasn’t going to sleep. Oh, noooo… He was way too disciplined. No, the kill-me look he’d thrown meant he was plotting to get rid of me. Before he could figure out how to re-bury me in the tornado debris, I grumbled, “Fine. What do you want to know about pizza?”

After a long silence, he calmly asked, “Are you hungry? I’m hungry. I’m sure there’s one of those all-night diner places nearby.”

“Yes!” I yanked the covers back and hopped to my feet, biting back a wince as my bruised body objected to both the motion and the impact. “But a wise man once told me I wouldn’t get very far dressed like this.”

His green eyes raked over me. And there it was in all its glory—the kiss-me jaw flex.

* * * *

Nik had to get his ass out of the hotel room, away from the beds and every other surface he’d debaucherously fantasized about utilizing. What kind of pervert was he? She was injured. Undoubtedly had brain trauma for crissakes. He’d been thankful she’d left the bathroom door open when she showered, because he’d worried she might faint. But hearing her strip down… Imagining the water cascading over her