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

The ringing in my ears had quelled, but now the stillness and silence became painfully deafening. My body greeted me dirty and stained with dried blood. My body… I didn’t even remember my own body. Unsteady, I looked down at the scrapes and cuts on my arms. I’d worked to remove the layers of dirt and blood, only to find bruises changing colors as quickly as the angry night sky I’d awoken to.

My heart thumped hard and sure, despite my trembling fingers dropping the bloody washcloth. My breathing fell somewhere in between—focused but ragged. Under the bright lights of the hotel bathroom, I couldn’t help but notice I had pale pink toenails. Bad people didn’t paint their toes pink, did they?

Over an hour had passed since the tornado. I didn’t remember being in it…just like my life. All of my memories, much like the western edge of Colby, Kansas, had been swept not-so-cleanly from the earth. Maybe the people and places dearest to me had been too.

Had I told anyone I loved them? Was there even anyone to tell? I had no clue.

All I knew was Titan was mine and I was his. The only other instinct burning inside of me beyond my present survival was the need to run—but from who? I had no factual basis for it, but I feared I’d been involved in something horrible and the tornado was the least of it. My mind kept circling back to being trapped in the field and the events of the past hour or so, desperate to figure out what had happened to land me there.

What if Nik was the very person I feared? The person I was running from? Had it been stupid of me to send the policeman away? And why the hell hadn’t he said anything to the cop? He knew I wasn’t fine. Why hadn’t he forced me to seek the help he insisted I needed so badly? His chance had been right there and instead he’d hustled me into his Jeep.

‘Stay with me’—the first words he’d said when I’d opened my eyes replayed in my mind. He hadn’t meant it literally, but latching onto him mentally made it difficult to physically detach. He seemed a little confused and somewhat amused by it, but he’d agreed to let Titan and me tag along to a hotel to get cleaned up. He didn’t know what else to do with us and I hadn’t allowed any other options. Without any memories, the only thing I could count on was my gut, and my gut was telling me I desperately needed to stay with this man.

He wasn’t from around here, only passing through on his way from California. He’d offered to get me my own room, but the jitters from the aftermath of the tornado and my lack of any memories before made me scared to be alone, even believing Titan would protect me. More than that, I couldn’t risk Nik bailing on me. If trusting him had been the wrong choice, it looked like I was going to have to find out the hard way.

Keeping the bathroom door ajar, I was certain he could hear my undressing as well as I could hear his subtle movements from the other side of the thin wall. My brain buzzed with so much uncertainty and Nik’s presence around the corner steadied me. I was glad Titan stayed curled up but alert outside the threshold, because I sensed something else from Nik which wasn’t so calming. Something I couldn’t quite identify—anticipation? curiosity? impatience? Whatever it was, I oddly felt pulled toward it. He’d tell me it was the shock talking.

Maybe all of my fear and paranoia was from the shock too. It was Nik’s answer for everything.

I freed my hair from the ponytail holder. Dirty, bloody strips of blonde fell against my cheeks as the bulk of it stroked my shoulder blades. My hoodie and jeans had protected most of my skin from deeper wounds, but there were a few superficial lacerations in my hairline that had bled profusely. It looked worse than it was, Nik had assured when he’d cleaned and tended them at his car. He’d had a pretty extensive medical kit, but said he wasn’t a doctor. Whatever he was, he knew what he was doing.

I held tightly to the towel bar, not trusting my shaky legs. Nik waited around the corner, listening to me step into the shower. Hearing me fumble as I adjusted the warmth of the water like he’d shown me how to do. I was certain he’d come running if he heard me crash. I breathed a little easier trusting in this.

The wet cascade of heat down my naked skin took away everything before, revealing new surfaces—cleaner, softer ones. I hesitated to touch myself, my hand trembling and lurching as I tried to smooth soap over this body. Someone else should do it, but I knew enough to know I shouldn’t be asking Nik such things. While his touch felt safe, it also vibrated with an energy that left me a little more breathless than I already was.

Moving my hands briskly and quickly, I tried not to think about the woman these body parts belonged to. I didn’t like thinking about her. I much preferred thinking of Nik and who he was. What his skin would feel like to touch. Those were much easier things to think about.

The first moment my eyes had focused on him, I’d been drawn to stay with him just as he’d told me to. As I dried off, I wondered again if I knew him. Sometimes when he spoke, his word choices implied familiarity. Yet, his presence seemed such a sharp contrast to how we met, new and fresh, much like the soft, white cotton T-shirt he’d given me to put on after I showered. I eased it over my head and let it fall until it tickled against the middle of my sore thighs. The smell of it