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

the rifle, then dialed the scope for my first target two hundred yards out.

I waited for Nik to give me the go ahead, finally resorting to asking on a whisper, “Ready?”

“Give me a sec to adjust my pants,” Nik said with a dark rumble of a laugh. “I’ve never ogled a woman with my thermal vision on, certainly not one shooting .308. Had no idea it could get me so crazy hot.”

“Well you keep playing with yourself while I see what this thing can do."

“Yes, ma’am.”

I refocused on the target, concentrating on gripping with my right hand and supporting with my left on the muzzle. I flicked the safety off.

No matter the weapon, each time my finger curled into a trigger, I was surprised. Surprised by the sound, the extent of the kick, the brass casing ejecting, and the bullet piercing through the target exactly as I had intended it to. Nik, on the other hand, nodded, as if my abilities confirmed some previous notion he’d been having about me.

As we journeyed back to his house on the quad, I decided I didn’t care how I’d come to be able to use the weapons, what background or training I might’ve had. Those reasons belonged to her. What belonged to me was confidence in my ability to protect myself, which unfortunately I needed. Somewhere out there in the night, someone was following me, tracking me, watching.

A foreboding sense overwhelmed me as I dismounted from the quad back at Nik’s house. I caught a stirring along the treeline. “There’s something moving. Do you see it?”

“Two o’clock. In the brush.”

My breath stilled as the branch rustled again. My thoughts flickered. But my body stilled with calm. Nik was right. Being threatened with death wasn’t a new feeling. This particular killer had been watching me for a while now, long before the tornado. And something deep inside me warned there was more than one who had. Could he or she really be this close?

The sense steeled my resolve and I reached for the M4. Shooting targets was one thing, but was I really prepared to shoot a person?

Nik came alongside of me and put his hand on the muzzle of the gun, lowering it as he held out his goggles. “Thea Gale, get ready to see your first bear. The noise we were making in the valley must’ve driven her this way.”

After making my weapon safe, I let it hang off my shoulder and traded him my NVGs for his thermal ones. At the sight of the lumbering animal, I bit back a happy squeal. I couldn’t believe such a majestic creature was so close. I could hear the pads of her feet drawing along the forest floor, her snuffling breaths as she tested the air…smelling me. “Wait… She’s not going to attack us, is she?”

“You’re the most dangerous animal here, Tiggs. You’re the one with the rifle.”

“I’m not going to shoot her!” I hissed below my fogging breath.

“Even if she attacks?” Nik grinned, not appearing the least bit concerned. He shot me a testing look. “What would you do?”

Remembering his comments about it not being good for the bears to be comfortable around people, I brought the rifle back up and fired off a single round skyward. Without ear protection on, the sound shocked me as much as it had the bear, who went scurrying off the way she’d come. “Prevent it.”

His shy dimple flashed on a grin. “Smart girl.”

I blinked, adjusting to the change as I removed and set aside the goggles. All I could see were his eyes dancing over my face before his hands came up to cup my cheeks. He tilted my head back, his lips effortlessly opening mine. The feel of him, smell of him, taste of him circled through my senses like the hot blood suddenly flowing through my cold body. His tongue stirred the now familiar urgency inside of me. I wasn’t sure I could handle it going unresolved yet again.

* * * *

Nik opened the gun room door, still lightheaded from kissing Thea. Given how quickly Thea picked her shooting skills up, it was obvious someone had made sure she had the fundamentals down to the point they were in her muscle memory. She held her gun correctly, not resorting to the dreaded teacup hold and never milking her grip. She called her shots, manipulated her weapons, and made mag changes on the move all while having no recollection of her training. She likely worked in an environment where she’d had a lot of repetitious practice with a variety of firearms. But before his mind could process further along those lines, his attention honed in on a square box waiting front and center on the metal work table.

Nik knew immediately where the familiar but out of place object had come from. Only one other person had access to the secure gun room—Coop.

“Leo and Titan are on recon,” he read aloud to Thea from the sticky note attached to the box of Trojans. “I’m on overwatch. You’ve got two hours. Looks like we have the house to ourselves, if you want to…”

Light played with Thea’s eyes like they were made of glitter as her grin spread. “I want to.”

Nik made fast work of securing the weapons. He grabbed the condoms and Thea’s hand before guiding her double-time up the stairs. As hot as the prospect of having sex in his gun room was, there was no way in hell he wanted their first time together to be on a metal table. Apparently Coop didn’t either. As they crested the stairs, Nik jerked to a halt.

Holy…shit. The living room glowed with burning candles. Nik narrowed his eyes at the sheepskin rugs positioned in front of the roaring fireplace, which also happened to be in the line of the cameras. Overwatch, huh?

He flipped the camera the bird, knowing the asshole was probably sitting in his truck with a giant bowl of popcorn in his lap. Nice