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

will appreciate what he’s gonna do with his knocker, either, Steele,” Coop added with what I hoped was humor. The hostile edge to his hardened eyes worried me though.

Nik ignored the threat. “You couldn’t give me a couple more days? Huh? Had to come sniffing around, begging to get your dick shot off?”

“First off, I wasn’t sniffing anything. Apparently, you forgot your security system was still tied to my phone when you lied to me and came back here. Second, you know better than to shoot without knowing who you’re shooting at. Besides, with the non-tactical breaching technique you kicked in your door with and the way she was grinding all over your gun, I’d worry more about getting your own dick shot off. So, yeah, why don’t you finish up whatever this is,” he said, casting a dismissive wave my way, “so we can get on the road.”

“This isn’t like that.”

“Shit, Steele, when has it ever not been like that?” He tilted his head at me. “Sorry, ma’am.”

Oh, there was no misreading the man’s jerky tone. “No, you’re not,” I grunted.

Correctly assessing my desire to assault his bro some more, Nik reached out and brought me easily against his hard body in a half-hug, half-restraint. “I assume your brother is lurking around here somewhere, too?”

“Leo’s in the truck. He wasn’t keen on sneaking up on you. Didn’t want to get his pretty hide bullet-scarred like ours. So much for having my six, huh?”

“He’s always been the smart one. Tell him to get his pristine ass up here.”

“He was supposed to drive up after he saw you turn in. Probably playing on his phone.”

I’d been vaguely aware of Titan’s barking, but it dawned on me he might be upset at something other than wildlife. Which brought back the possibility of someone following me.

Nik and I shot out of the house, with Coop trailing. Nik warned me to stay back and I skidded to a stop at the edge of the deck. In the distance Titan clawed viciously at the peeling bark of a thick tree trunk. Leaping up from his haunches, he tried to scale it before giving up and rounding the tree out of sight.

Nik and Coop, who’d both kept running toward the commotion, pulled up short as a pair of legs dangling from the evergreen’s foliage jerked up. Skirting another of Titan’s leaps, the man’s backside lifted to avoid the snap of his wide jaws.

Coop collapsed to the ground in laughter. The body up the tree evidently belonged to his brother Leo and not anyone dangerous.

“Titan, off! Off! Come!” I hollered until he emerged from the woods. He loped toward me, mouth splayed wide and eyes sparkling with satisfaction.

At Nik’s laughing assurance of Titan being under control, the treed man dropped to the ground, less than amused. He dusted pine needles from his body and shook them out of his hair before straightening his clothes. Nik clapped him on the back in greeting as the three men started back up the drive, broad shoulder to broad shoulder. A formidable wall of muscle and brawn.

Leo’s hair wasn’t as black as his brother’s and fell longer and curlier. Where Coop’s looked a shaggy mess, Leo’s was a thick, soft mane. Like the other men, his body was beyond fit, warrior-like. Where Leo differed most was in the way he looked at me. His gaze dipped, never confronting me full-on the way Coop’s did, nor raking my body in Nik’s now standard heated appraisal.

Flashing me a curvy smile, Leo shook my hand, introducing himself as Coop’s younger brother.

“I’m Thea.”

“Like the Greek goddess?”

A hint of familiarity about mythology came to me, but before I could figure out the connection to my name, Coop interrupted with a grunt. “Enough of this goddess bullshit. Nik and I have unfinished business. Break open the Jack,” Coop commanded Nik. “We need to toast Mr. Foxtrot and listen to songs about whiskey.”

I noticed Nik’s body had stiffened and his smile had dropped as we all filed back into the cabin, Titan included.

Coop still hadn’t mustered up any manners. He went straight to pouring the Jack Daniel’s, purposefully distributing shot glasses to Nik and Leo before pausing as his eyes locked on mine. “Can I see an ID?”

“Don’t be a dick,” Nik muttered, much to my relief. He edged the drink closer to me, his fingertips stroking against mine as I took it.

I watched the men hold their glasses to the ceiling. “To Mr. Foxtrot,” Leo said, while Nik and Coop belted “Till Valhalla!” in unison, then they all downed their shots.

Valhalla, a paradise reserved for Viking warriors killed in battle? It was confusing having these kinds of facts file into my brain, when I still had no idea where I’d learned them.

Coop eyed the lone remaining shot glass on the table then me. “Mr. Foxtrot is William Thomas Farris, aka W-T-F. Or what the fuck, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, in military speak. More simply and formally, Mr. Foxtrot. One of the best damn soldiers and men to have ever walked this earth.” He lifted his brows and angled his head sharply in the direction of my shot glass. “Drink.”

I hoisted the glass up the same way Nik and Leo had. “To Mr. Foxtrot.”

Tipping all the liquid into my mouth, I held the numbing fluid on my tongue for a short moment, then closed my eyes and knocked it to the back of my throat, letting it slide down fast. To my left, I vaguely heard Leo’s appreciative, “Damn.”

Nik leaned in, his tongue tracing a swift path along my bottom lip. As he kissed me, he pulled me flush to him, catching my body quaking from the burst of alcohol. “I’m sorry we’re not alone,” he whispered in a heated rumble against my ear.

No, we were most definitely not.

Coop’s dark eyes were sizing us up as he dropped his thick body onto the couch. He kicked out his legs, crossing his cowboy boots on the coffee table as he