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

skin… Smelling the soapy, Tigger-infused steam had smothered out every saintly thought in his mind. All two of them.

He wanted her every which way but loose and being in a hotel room was not helping. By sun up, his sanity would be completely unraveled. A location change was in desperate order.

She had a point, though. He couldn’t very well take her to breakfast in only his T-shirt. A T-shirt that had spent several hours now bragging to him about the curves it got to cling to. And he’d never forget the freaking show-and-tell session in the bathroom rivaling any wet T-shirt contest he’d ever fantasized about. How he hadn’t ripped the son of a bitch off her by now was nothing short of a miracle.

He strode from the room, leaving Tigger to wait while he went in search of clothes to cover her up with. The hotel lobby sat abandoned except for the perfectly styled, even at four in the morning, receptionist.

Dylan was in his early twenties, with blond hair so pale it could only have come from a bottle and a face so smooth and sculpted it might’ve been molded from artesian clay. And Nik was man enough to admit the dude even smelled sexy. He was the perfect blend of Ken and Barbie and seemed like he’d be more of a fit as a swank Manhattan hotel concierge than the front desk, graveyard shift at the Siesta Inns and Suites, Middle of Nowhere, Kansas.

He cast Nik some flirty side-eye before greeting him with a syrup-voiced, “Well if it isn’t Mr. Steele, my most favorite guest. How can I be of assistance at this hour?” The fashionable clerk had checked Nik in earlier and thanks to a fifty-dollar bill had very graciously overlooked the strict ‘No Dogs’ policy.

“I have another favor to ask.”

“Ooh, woof woof.” The way Dylan’s smile skyrocketed to his impossibly bright turquoise contact lenses, Nik felt certain this favor would require more than General Grant’s influence. Perhaps a founding father was in order. Ever the consummate professional, Dylan didn’t so much as blink when Nik set a hundred-dollar bill down while requesting women’s clothing.

“I don’t believe we have anything in lost and found, Mr. Steele,” he replied with a pouting frown. Nik feared the savvy clerk’s negotiating skills were as fiercely perfected as his eyebrows, until he winked and added, “At least nothing in your size pretty enough to go with those gorgeous green eyes.”

Nik choked on a laugh. “Thank you, but I didn’t mean for me. My, um, guest”—is practically naked…—“lost her bags in the storm and we’d really like to go get something to eat, but she’s not comfortable going”—naked…—“in her, um…traveling clothes.”

“Riiight. Well, what size is your”—Dylan paused to make actual freaking air quotes—“um…guest?”

Nik bit back a retort. Of course Dylan would assume the…naked…“guest” who he’d brought up the back stairs, even though the lobby was closer to his room, was a hooker. Oh God, one with a dog! Nik didn’t have the kind of cash on hand for this kind of thing.

Clenching his teeth, Nik gritted out, “Let me have a look at the clothes.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Steele, whatever you want, you can…have. I’ll be right over here, looking this way.”

This way was apparently holding the C-note up to a light and striking it with a special highlighter before pocketing it. Yep, Dylan had seen and heard it all. Probably done his fair share himself.

Nik sifted through the lost and found boxes, initially selecting some baggy, black sweatpants and a Jayhawks sweatshirt. Should keep the curvaceous feline covered up nicely. Then remembering the temperature outside would make those unbearable, he spotted a white dress with thin shoulder straps and a gauzy skirt. He also grabbed up a pair of sparkly flip-flops he guessed would fit the average range of women’s feet better than regular shoes.

Heading back to the room, he had no clue if she’d like the clothes. Lord knows he’d tried to figure her out all evening, but she wasn’t having any of it. It didn’t make sense. What was she up to? Didn’t she want to figure out who she was or where she came from? Who might be looking for her?

Why was she so cagey? Didn’t she want to go home? Maybe the memory loss was all an act. It wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed his mind. And what had she needed a gun for?

Even though it was not his nature, Nik had been trained to be suspicious. He’d honed his skills of observation by analyzing body language, intent, and emotions. The mystery girl he’d fought to keep from ravaging all night wasn’t anything like what he trained for. In fact, she was proving to be much more difficult than the insurgents he typically dealt with.

But even if it was all an act, there was one thing he knew for certain—she truly believed she had reason to be scared. Likely just the shock from the head injury and the memory loss. After eating and getting some rest, no doubt she’d rethink going to the hospital and he could be on his way.

As he slid his key card into the slot, the hairs on the back of Nik’s neck tingled. He stilled. Through the opening doorway, he sighted the gun aimed perfectly left of his breastbone.

His buddy Coop’s voice sounded in his mind, ‘It’s a good thing you don’t have a heart, Steele. One less thing to kill you.’

‘Yeah, but I’d probably bleed out and die slower’ had been his standard reply to his teammate’s incessant ribbing. Right now, he didn’t find the joke quite so funny.

 

Chapter Seven

“You told me you weren’t a killer.” I stared Nik down in the doorway as I leveled the gun I’d found in his bag at him. My hand had curled instinctively around the grip, as I’d stretched my index finger out alongside the trigger, but I was unsure if I even knew how to use the weapon.

His eyes locked with