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

it came time to elicit donations and tax exemptions. It didn’t hurt enrollment into the leadership courses or the conference series for those seeking an enlightened power climb up the corporate ladder, either. Morality was a strong motivator for opening wallets in some, immorality for others. His partner Sera had always enjoyed playing both sides.

“No, Amanda was never at the Sanctuary. Thea’s not ready to give up looking for her, but she needs to. It’s not healthy for her to keep chasing after false hopes.” Deadly, in fact.

 

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Nik took a long draw off his fresh bottle as he watched Coop lean down to pick up a branch, tossing it deep into the darkness. They both watched as an eager Titan tore off after it.

“What’s the deal? Is Thea a cop or something?”

“Why do you think that?”

“She hits like a cop.” At Nik’s confusion, he furnished, “Every cop who has ever whacked me with a billy club hit like she did with that fucking Squatch Knocker.”

“How many times have you been clubbed by a cop?”

“Enough. Mardi Gras can be a confusing time for a young man who loves alcohol and boobs. So, is she?”

Nik had naïvely hoped to avoid this line of questioning. He’d waffled on how much to tell his friends about Thea. It wasn’t like he didn’t trust them with the information, he just didn’t want their opinion on it. Well, Coop’s opinion at any rate. “I don’t know. We just met. She might be.”

“Her dog’s LE.”

“Titan? Law Enforcement?” Nik huffed. “Nah. He’s not very professional.”

Titan returned with the stick in time for Coop to drape an arm over him, comforting him from the affront. “Did you hear him, big guy?” Coop recoiled. “Not very professional.”

“Oh, please. I didn’t say he had fleas or anything. He just doesn’t obey every order and some of his reactions seem personal. Not professional.”

“Even the most well-trained dog will lapse depending on their handling and he may be retired or something. Either way, he’s allowed to have a personality, even if he’s a professional. But let’s go back… You don’t know if your girlfriend is a cop or not? You haven’t asked her what she does for a living? Isn’t that like one of those first-date kind of things?”

“Really? When you were active, how many women did you tell you were a SEAL on the first date?” It was common practice for Team Guys to keep their role in the military on a need-to-know basis.

Coop leaned back and let another stick fly into the darkness. “You know very well I told them I was a Marine.”

“And then you gave them crappy sex,” Leo said, shaking his head.

“I had to make it believable.” Coop reached around the fire to clink bottles with Nik as he tried to stifle a laugh.

Nik loved the good-natured, inter-military rivalry Coop had with the Marines, even though they both truly respected the hell out of them.

“But this isn’t about me. Thea clearly knows you’re a SEAL, so why don’t you know anything about her?”

Coop wasn’t going to let it go. Figures. Nik sighed. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t tell her until she had a gun on me.”

“Total cop move. Fucking hot, though. Please tell me she patted you down, paying special attention to your concealed weapon? Gave you the right to remain naked?”

“Nothing like that.” Nik looked down at his boots, grinning at his friend’s imagination as he admitted, “But it was a…moment. I disarmed her, she threatened to sic her dog on me, and I told her I hunted people for a living as I blew her a kiss off my knife.”

Leo ducked his head, ashamed, but Coop reached out to clink Nik’s bottle. “Shit, man, you still carrying the Stitch? That knife is all kinds of badassery. I’d probably do you if you blew me a kiss off it, dude.”

“Appreciate the warning.”

“Well? Y’all played a round of I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Yours was hopefully bigger. Then what?”

“I took her out for pancakes.”

“Hooyah! Like a boss.” Coop whooped as if Nik had said he’d fucked her brains out. But hey, who doesn’t like pancakes?

“SEALs have the best meet-cutes,” Leo muttered. “It really should be on the recruitment posters.”

You should see how we do shopping trips, Nik thought, but the steamy mall mission’s After Action Report was highly classified. Hell, the thought of his tiger’s succulent tail up against the mirror had him hard again.

“And she didn’t say anything about what she did for a living over pancakes?” Coop prodded.

“It’s complicated.”

“So you keep saying. Why don’t you spit it out?” Coop reached back and winged Titan’s branch off into the woods, sending the dog barreling after it again. “You know I’m like this dog with a stick, might as well give up now, ’cus I’m going to keep chasing the answer.”

“Fuck. Fine. She doesn’t know what she does for a living. She doesn’t know anything about herself.” Nik went on to explain about the tornado and her memory loss. Naturally, Coop was skeptical. “She’s legit, dude. When she first came to, I gave her a couple standard math questions. I could sense she was getting annoyed, so as a joke, I threw a couple hard ones at her and she answered them without a blink. Then I gave her random equations so big I had to check on my calculator app and she always got it right. Why would she do that if she were pretending to have no memory? Besides, I’ve watched her figure stuff out. Like her mind is her weapon and her brain is rewiring itself before my very eyes. Even with a concussion she’s quick and intelligent. She catches nuances and details. It’s like one of the hottest things about her. You should’ve seen her at Bed, Bath and Beyond. I swear she spent thirty minutes sniffing candles to register scents to their names.”

“Bed what and what?”

Shit. “Don’t start.”

“Oh, it’s started. Dude, I saw the bathmat. She picked