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

reminded me of when he’d drawn me tightly to him as he carried me to his car. Missing were the darkly intoxicating scents of his skin and his sweat. Still, the smell was pleasant enough for me to risk the pain of a deep breath to take it in.

The corners of my lips pulled up, the first hint of a smile I could ever remember having.

When I’d entered the bathroom, I’d encountered a dark shadow…a stranger. A threat. After my initial jumping recoil and Nik’s assurance it was my reflection, I’d avoided the mirror. I figured after being buried in a tornado, I’d look like hell anyway. With the layers of muck and pain rinsed away, I wondered what Nik would see when he looked at me.

I braved a glance that turned into a horrified glare. Despite the loose fit of his T-shirt, my breasts stood out round. Nude skin showed through the white cotton where the water from my hair had dampened the shirt, darker in the center where erect nipples strained the fabric.

Tugging and shaking the fabric, I tried to flag it dry as my cheeks heated. The warmth drew my eyes to the face in the mirror. The stranger wearily eyed me back, her swollen lips slashed by a small cut. I remembered Nik yanking up the hem of his black T-shirt to press it against it. The arm I had protectively curled around my rib cage had brushed along the soft line of hair low on his tight, flexing stomach and the rough edge of his denim jeans.

I kept replaying the scene over and over again. My absolute only memories were of him. Had I never touched anyone else? Had no one else ever touched me? It couldn’t possibly be true, yet I couldn’t pull up any other memories.

“Who are you?” I muttered.

My eyes connected with their reflection in the mirror. Were they the eyes of someone loved or hated? Smart? Or stupid?

“Good? Or wicked?”

God, I hoped I was a good person. I hoped the reason I so feared the policeman wasn’t because I’d done something horrible, but it very well could be the case. And what was Nik? Was he good or bad?

He’d been as evasive with the cop as I had. “Why?”

Possibilities flooded me—was he running from them? Had he done something bad? What if he was…was a…?

I must be a stupid, stupid person! I glared at my reflection. “You’re alone, more than half-naked in a hotel room, with a stranger. He might be a rapist for all you know, or a serial killer.”

Startled by a deep, rumbling laugh like thunder breaking through the heavy, silent air, I realized I must’ve been speaking out loud. I spun away from the girl in the mirror whose tan freckles were all but disappearing in a blaze of red. Oh she was most certainly a stupid idiot!

At the sudden appearance of Nik in the doorway, I sucked in a breath and bit down on my lower lip. His tall, muscular frame lounged against the jamb as if he’d been there all along. Dark, spikey hair glistened, still wet from a mixture of sweat and rain. Mud clumped to his boots and torn jeans. His ripped, damp, black T-shirt clung to his broad, taut body, outlining the muscles of his chest and abdomen. The skin on his forearms and knuckles looked shredded. And despite having scrubbed his hands with cleanser before caring for my wounds at his car, his fingernails were still embedded with bloody dirt. More of the same smeared into the stubble on the hard edges of his jawline and high on his cheekbones—all reminders he’d come to my rescue and saved my ass barely an hour before.

“You’re bleeding again,” he stated as he approached.

“I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to call you a serial…” I swallowed the word ‘killer’ along with my breath as Nik leaned in close.

The pad of his thumb stroked my lip. I trained my eyes on his as if I could see his next move coming in their colorful green depths.

He drew his brows tight as his forefinger joined his thumb in plucking my lower lip from my teeth. “It won’t heal if you keep biting it.”

“I should’ve bitten my tongue.” Again, I’d meant to stay silent. I really needed to get my thoughts under control, at the very least my mouth. But control was the last thing I felt being so close to this rough-hewn man.

Leaning in, Nik reached behind me for the last of the clean washcloths. His chest raked across mine, sending my pulse pounding in places too far from my chest to be my heart. Places I shouldn’t dare be thinking about on this foreign body.

His smile curled in amusement. His rich green eyes sparked with gold before the dark centers expanded. My heartbeat slipped, slamming to a stop as another grin skipped across his lips, this one flashing the white of his teeth. His Adam’s apple thrust on a hard swallow and the spark dissipated along with his smile.

As he pulled away, I was left with the punching beat of my heart. No doubt he saw its heavy protest pulsing through the T-shirt. Then I realized what else he could see, and had felt. My mouth went dry as my cheeks flamed hot again. I gripped the hem of the T-shirt, but forgot why when he dabbed the towel to my wounded lip.

“I assure you, I’m not a rapist or a serial killer. If I’d wanted to kill you, I could’ve done it already and made it look like the tornado had.”

The last bit he said with humor, but also with a little too much thought. Maybe he wanted to toy with me first. The realization remained a silent one, thankfully. No sense giving him any ideas.

He must’ve read the fear on my face anyway and pulled the washcloth away. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the police?”

His words should’ve comforted me—a