Twist My Heart

by Brooke Taylor

  “You’ll see.” Instinctively, I lowered myself onto my belly, my hip bones pressing into the cold earth. My body flattened as my feet flared out and I dropped my heels down to stabilize me. I nestled the Colt’s stock into my shoulder, leaning my cheek tight against it. I used the magazine to stabilize 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 try, buddy.

  While the gun room hadn’t been the right fit, neither was his living room, filled with flickering golden light. This was more like a scene for a freaking marriage proposal. The pit in Nik’s stomach grew, while Thea took it all in, wide-eyed.

  “You don’t look too happy,” she noted. She may not remember her favorite sandwich, but she sure knew how to read people. Nothing got by her. Which, along with her marksmanship, made his theories about her working for the government even more likely. “Don’t like candles?”

  “Dad would turn over in his grave if he knew his survival candles were being used to make a sex den.” It was the truth, but not the reason why the romantic scene upset him.

  “A sex den,” Thea remarked with a little laugh. “Who did all this?”

  “Coop.”

  “For us?” Thea’s tone was laced with doubt. The ‘for us’ really meaning for her.

  “Trust me, he wouldn’t do anything like this just for me.”

  “Does this mean Coop…approves?”

  It was no surprise she was skeptical of someone who’d acted like a first-rate dickhead to her. If it were any other guy, Nik would’ve straightened him out right away. But he’d known Coop long enough to know there was a method to his asshole madness, and with a little patience, Coop would come around on his own harder than anyone. Nik hadn’t really anticipated the turnabout would come with candles, sheepskin, and roaring fires, but he also knew better than to take the gesture at face value.

  Nik brought her hand up to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “His approval isn’t required. I’m sorry he is being a dick. He’s overprotective of his friends. We all can be.”

  “And is all of this”—she gestured to the candles surrounding them—“him being a good friend or him being a dick?”

  Nope, nothing got by her.

  “Both.” The box of condoms and giving them some privacy was simply Coop being a good bro. The exorbitant display of romance, however, was Coop’s way of strapping some C-4 to something he was eager to blow up. So yes, he was still being a dick, a dick in a romantic package. “Coop thinks once we have sex, I’ll ditch you to go with him.”

  N
ik hated himself for it, but Coop was probably right to think it. Infiltrate. Hit your target. Exfiltrate. It’d been Nik’s modus operandi for most of his adult life in more ways than work. “Like I said, we’re jackasses.”

  Naturally, Nik didn’t plan to leave Thea. Or want to leave her. But how could he trust feelings he’d never had before?

  A nearby candle held her attention away from the struggle no doubt showing in his eyes. Lifting it, she cupped the warm heat in her hands, studying the dance of the flame. “You would never ditch me.”

  “I might.” He hoped it sounded more playful than it felt. “I told you I wasn’t a nice guy. You can still back out.”

  She skimmed her finger through the flame, winced, and set the candle down before sucking the burn. “You won’t.”

  He grimaced as she closed the distance between them. How could she be so confident, when he felt so torn?

  She met his uncertain gaze head-on. “What? You’re the one who insisted I look into your eyes and witness what I do to you.”

  “I better keep my cards closer to my chest next time.”

  “I hate to break it to you”—she tapped her finger to his heart—“but your cards are tattooed all over your chest.”

  Nik stilled, the air in the room thickening, the mood deepening to the point he might as well have been treading in rough waters. He tried to force a smile, not really wanting to come off like the emotional wasteland he was. “Thea, it’s not that I don’t feel—”

  Thea’s casually raised hand cut him off. “You don’t need to explain why you encased your heart in steel, Nik. I’m not naïve enough to expect those reasons have changed in the short time you’ve known me, no matter what happens in the next two hours or how many glowing flames dance around me trying to tell me otherwise. But the candles are really pretty.”

  “You still want to do this?”

  She turned back and smiled. “Well, not in front of the cameras.”

  Nik let out his held breath. “Then we better take all this back to my bedroom where there aren’t any.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  With the glow of candlelight dancing from every surface, fresh bed linens, and the sheepskin rugs draped over the bed, Nik’s bedroom looked surprisingly elegant. It was the gorgeous girl with the amber eyes impatiently staring up him making it perfect, though.

  “We’re not doing anything you’re not ready for, okay?”

  “Oh no, we’re doing this,” Thea assured, grappling with the hem of his shirt and hoisting it awkwardly over his head. “It’s bone-in ribeye day.”

  He’d have laughed at her mimicking his seriousness about steak, but couldn’t resist teasing her back. Flexing his muscles, he raked the hair she’d disheveled back, drew his brows together, and asked, “You want my bone in your what?”

  Thea ducked, her forehead knocking into his now bare chest as a cascade of blonde waves tickled his skin. An adorably embarrassed giggle escaped her lips. “I’ve had a head injury. I’m allowed to make bizarre sexual innuendos. Please forget I ever said that and just bone me.”

  He pulled her closer. “Oh no, this will never be forgotten. Never. You know how strongly I feel about bone-in ribeye day.” Grasping her hips, he heaved them against his own to prove his point. And his cock was killing it at making his point. “But before I put my bone in your…ribeye, there is something we should talk about.”

  “Talk? You want to talk? They’ll be back soon.” She started shucking off her oversized snow pants. The tighter black yoga pants took more effort, her impatience evident as she tugged them down her thighs while bouncing on the balls of her feet. Bouncy, flouncy, trouncy… His instinct to pouncy roared back in full force. His cock sprang like the springs Tigger bounded on as she struggled to free it from his pants, but his mind prevailed.

  He wrapped her wrists in his grip. “Slow down, Tiggs.”

  “Slow down?” Her eyes shot up to his, confusion and lust tinting them. Cuffing her hands didn’t stop her from using her feet to keep working her pants down. “But, Coop said…”

  Snapping his focus from the sexy waggle of her hips, he tried to get her attention. “Hey…hey. I don’t give a crap what Coop said. We’ll take whatever time we want. Trust me, he knows if he breaches the doorway he’s a dead man in the most literal sense, doesn’t matter if it’s in two hours or two days.”

  Her whiskey eyes went wide. “Two days?”

  “Believe me, Tigger,” he assured, his words rough with desire. “I can find things to do to your body for two weeks straight without coming up for air, maybe two months.”

  “So why are we talking?”

  Good question. Unfortunately, it was a question he knew the answer to. “You don’t remember anything. You’ve never had sex.”

  “I have a good idea of how it’s supposed to go,” she bit off defensively. Then, with a hint of shyness, “I Googled the rest.”

  Nik blinked. He could only imagine what her search had come up with. “Okay. But I’m trying to explain how there might not be anything to remember.”

  “Of course there’s nothing I remember…wait. What do you mean? You think…I never…like, truly ever?”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

  “I’m twenty-five. Aren’t I a little old to still be a virgin?”

  “Not necessarily. The more I think about it, the more I think you purposefully chose not to have sex, not to be intimate.”

  “You mean she chose not to?”

  Nik closed his eyes. She.

  “It doesn’t matter why she did anything,” Thea rushed to continue. “It’s my life now and I’m making the choices.”

  Nik pushed out a breath. Thea didn’t know what she was saying. Getting into it all would be a real mood killer and they couldn’t take many more of those. But he needed to tell her. She had to make the decision to have sex with him knowing everything. He couldn’t live with himself otherwise.

  Maybe he wasn’t such an emotional wasteland after all.

  “Come here.” He gently scooped her into his arms, sliding her onto his lap as he settled back against the pillows in his bed. “You don’t seem to like the person you think you were before the tornado. I get it. You don’t really know her. But I do.”

  Breaking free from his embrace, Thea scrambled in reverse. “You’ve been lying to me?” Her razor-sharp glare cut into him. “Please tell me you aren’t the person I’ve been running from.”

  “Easy, tiger, it’s not like that at all. About a half hour or so before the tornado, I saw you at a gas station. I talked to you briefly. Well, you did most of the talking. I was trying to hit on you and you rebuffed me pretty quickly.”

  Nik reached out to stroke her calf, thankful she didn’t pull away. From the confused look on her face, he could tell she still didn’t understand.

  “Just because she wasn’t into you…?”

  “Oh, she was into me. You…you were into me. There is no other she.” Nik squeezed his eyes shut. Focus, Steele. “I’m trying to explain—the night of the tornado was the first time we met, but it was before you lost your memory. You were sweet and smart and sassy and beautiful, exactly like you are now.”

  Her leg jerked out of his caress. The look she speared at him, poisoned with betrayal. “I’m not the same girl you tried to pick up at a gas station.”

  Nik groaned. It wasn’t like he was speaking fondly of another woman while trying to charm her.

  His thoughts pinged back to Goodland, to the moment when Thea’s full attention had turned to him. To the surge of energy he’d felt before he’d ever even seen her eyes. No, all he’d seen in her mirrored sunglasses was his own stupid reflection. He’d looked every bit the on-edge player expecting a quick, easy score. That was who Nik had been then, but not now.

  “I’m not the same guy who was trying to hit on you, either. He would’ve never brought you here, he wouldn’t have stopped you down in the gun room, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be having this conversation
. These past few days have changed me. You’re making me feel things I haven’t felt in a long time. Things I’ve never felt and don’t know how to deal with very well. I can’t believe I ever looked at you and thought I’d be able to leave you behind.”

  “You should’ve left me behind, Nik. I’m not the kind of girl you deserve to be with.”

  He blew out a breath, trying to quell the frustration. He’d started this conversation out all wrong and needed to take another tack. Thea considered her old self an enemy, and he had plenty experience having one’s self as an enemy.

  “Look, I get you’re learning things you don’t particularly like about your past. I’m not proud of who I used to be, either. I didn’t keep that photo face down on a shelf all these years because it hurt to see my family. I did it because it hurt to see the person I used to be. But it is still me in the photo, the cocky asshole who couldn’t wait to get as far away from his family as he could.”

  “Nik.”

  “You want to know what they were doing on the day of the wreck? They were mailing me a care package. Candy, clothes, video games… Trivial, immature shit I’d asked for because I’d been gone barely two months and was already homesick. My stupid desire to be independent cost them their lives. So I know all about regretting past choices. But don’t hate the person you used to be simply because you don’t agree with all of your past decisions. Your past is a part of you, like mine is a part of me. But, Thea, it’s not all of you. Not even close.”

  She sniffed as she blinked back a tear. He wasn’t sure if the emotion had come from her empathy about his regrets or if he was starting to get through to her. The best way to combat an adversary was to know their motivations, but as Nik was beginning to realize, understanding your enemy was the only way to forgive them. And maybe it was time Thea started understanding the enemy she seemed so eager to be up against. “You had a tough life, baby. Give yourself a break.”

  Barely audible, she asked, “You said you met me at a gas station. How do you know what kind of life I’ve had?”

  Back in the gun room, her eyes had brightened at the thought of her dad teaching her how to use the rifle. She’d almost seemed interested in learning about her younger self. Maybe he should start there. He reached out and brushed her hair back off her face as he waited for her to relax.