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

nod, the man maneuvered between the truck driver’s chair and the salesman’s table. He wrapped an arm awkwardly to his back and extracted a slim, black, rectangular object. The way he held it close to his thigh blocked it from Nik’s sight.

Sliding his free hand up Tigger’s spine to the base of her neck, Nik tucked her closer into his chest. The move also left him in position to thrust her body quickly to the floor, should the man produce a weapon.

Seconds ground out, everything around Nik slowed as his attention volleyed between the new patrons. The woman moved forward. Her unsteady gaze traveled up Tigger’s back to Nik’s hand before meeting Nik’s eye. She shot him an awkward, almost apologetic smile before joining the man at a booth across the aisle from Nik. The unknown object was now even more protected from view. Nik’s fingers closed around his Sig, but he kept it holstered. The salesman’s head lined up directly behind the man’s upper body. Nik would need to get creative to get a safe shot.

A noise sounded. A slap. The man dropped, sliding into the booth. Nik got a clear look at the object—a leather, checkbook-style wallet resting on the middle of the table. The jangle of keys sliding across the yellow laminate tabletop followed. With a snap of his fingers, the man summoned Wanda. The woman, still visibly distressed, chastised his rudeness.

“Don’t even start on me until I’ve had two cups of coffee,” he muttered.

“How can you drink coffee? I can’t stop shaking. You almost killed us!”

“Not like I meant to! Damn cow in the middle of the highway. Of all the luck.”

Angling his head, Nik sighted the couple’s motorhome parked in the street alongside the diner. Corroborating the man’s statement, the front end looked mashed and splattered with a dark substance. Blood. Tornado probably took down pasture fencing.

Oblivious to Nik’s hand sliding from his gun, Tigger squeezed him tighter, returning his embrace. To her the whole thing had merely been a hug. As it should’ve been if he weren’t who he was. A heartless operator. Trained to analyze and execute even in a diner. While Nik knew without a doubt he’d never discharge his firearm without clear cause, he also knew the edge he lived on was too thin and sharp for relationships. It didn’t stop him from wanting, no, needing to crash his lips into hers.

Clamping his hands on Tigger’s shoulders, he encouraged her out of the embrace and off his lap. She slipped from his lap to stand between his legs. Eyes meeting his. Lips close enough to take. So help him God, he damn near took them along with everything else she hadn’t yet offered.

“Why are you being so kind to me?” She sniffled again.

“Haven’t done anything.” Thought about a lot of twisted things, but haven’t acted on any of them.

Yet.

“That’s not true. You’ve done so much for me. You’re too nice to me. Really.”

Right… Tell me after I’ve completely devoured you, ruined your body for any other man and left your soul torn in so many pieces you could use it for confetti at New Year’s.

He channeled a hand through his hair to keep it from grabbing for her again. “I’m not nice. I can provide you several references if you don’t believe me.”

“Yessss. Yes you are,” she chided, as if she knew anything at all about him. And he wanted to believe in her version of him. He did. But he also knew all too well why he didn’t deserve to be worthy of the tsk-tsking smile she tossed so easily at him. “You’ve been so good to me. You’ve done so much and what have I done? Ruined your plans. Wasted your time. Accused you of being a serial killer and pointed a gun at you.”

“I’ve been accused of much worse and you’re far from the first, and probably not the last, to point a gun at me.” Fact.

“Nikolas.”

God, the way she drew his name out in three syllables—a teasing flick, a soft curling oh, a dragging lap of her tongue—was like a roared call to uprising of everything hot and hard and male inside of him. If she ever said it like that again, he wouldn’t be able to keep from crashing his body deep into hers. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was managing to hold back right then. He pushed the heel of his palm across his damp forehead. His eyes felt wide and wild. His dick was hard as fucking granite and ready to blow like C-4.

“You’re a good person. A good man.”

The sordid things he wanted to do to her… And she was looking at him like he was a goddamn saint or something. The close contact, the compliments, the wanting…it all made his neck tight and his skin itchy.

He grabbed for a glass of water, it might’ve even been hers—he needed something to help swallow this… This…whatever the fuck it was had to stop or he’d never get out of this diner with his life…at least his life as he knew it.

He shifted, pressing his knee into her thigh, effectively nudging her farther away.

“You’re a beautiful woman, but you’re an ugly crier.”

Her eyes rounded out in shock.

“See? Told you I wasn’t very nice.” He was grateful she laughed. He deserved a black eye. Lord knows she’d have given him one if she knew one-tenth of the ways he wanted to defile her. “Go wash up in the bathroom. I’ll settle up here.”

He strained to keep from watching her. Feeling her body leave his had been bad enough. He didn’t need visuals of her walking away too. No matter how remarkable the past few hours had been, he knew at some point her memory would return. At some point she’d realize she didn’t belong with him. And as much as it made the ungodly amount of food in his belly churn, she’d probably even remember she belonged to someone else.

Nik might’ve had all the exit