Twist My Heart

by Brooke Taylor

  Stroking a finger along the pinkish red line disappearing into her blonde hair, he told her, “What the makeup lady said about needing to cover your scars was total bullshit. I don’t want you to ever cover this scar up. It was the first place I touched you.”

  He trailed his finger over the white marks on her knee, the one on her wrist, her calf. “Scars on girls are incredibly sexy things. They prove you were wild and brave. Climbing trees and shooting guns and riding horses.”

  “Horses?” she breathed out in a whisper. “What makes you say that?”

  “At the gas station, you went over to a trailer to smooch on the horses inside. I was incredibly jealous I didn’t have four legs and a furry mouth.”

  Thea playfully pushed at his chest, but then inched closer, allowing his arm to curl behind her and hold her as she settled against him.

  “And there was a picture of you riding as part of a news story about your sister.”

  “My sister?”

  Pulled close, he could hear Thea’s heart pumping wildly. Thrashing against the ropes of the past like an unbroken colt fighting for freedom, and here he was about to break it and cage it. But he had to. She had to know the reason why he believed she’d never had sex.

  “Amanda was a few years older.”

  “Was older?”

  Nik pushed out a breath. “She was kidnapped when you were ten. You were sleeping in the same room. You witnessed her being raped and abducted. Her body was never found.”

  “She might still be alive?”

  “Your sister wasn’t the only girl who’d gone missing. There was also a neighbor girl whose case was similar. Her body was found. It’s unlikely for Amanda to still be alive. Your parents laid her memory to rest in an empty coffin.”

  “Did they find who did it?”

  “A man named Danny Dalton. He died in prison.”

  Thea’s body quivered. Hot tears wetted the skin at his shoulder, as Nik went on to explain about her parents’ divorce and their subsequent deaths. “How can I not remember any of this?”

  “Maybe your brain needed this break.”

  “Things like that should never be forgotten.”

  “Thea, things like that should’ve never happened. I didn’t say anything sooner because I thought it would be best if you remembered it on your own—or maybe never remembered, I don’t know. But I can’t let you go on believing your choices before the tornado didn’t have weight behind them.”

  * * * *

  Not even a fleck of memory had sprung to my mind. I could imagine the terror of the girl who’d been raped and tortured. I was deeply shaken with sympathy for the girl who’d witnessed it. Who’d lived with the aftermath. A ten-year-old me.

  In part it was terrifying to realize these things had happened in my life. And in part it was like Nik had revealed a story about strangers. An awful, sad, heartbreaking story, but there was distance there. There was also intense relief I wasn’t living with the memory of those events, and I felt horribly wrong for having been so hard on the woman before me who didn’t have such luxury.

  Now I understood why Nik had had to tell me about my past. Anyone who’d not only witnessed so much horror, but had lived through it and lost her entire family, would be leery of both physical and emotional connections. Perhaps even avoiding intimacy and love completely. Like Nik, she’d be desperate to wrap her heart in a steel shield.

  If this heart had been walled-off before the tornado and my memory loss, there was no trace of a fortress now. This body desperately craved physical and emotional contact. Maybe without the bad memories it was finally free.

  I understood why Nik thought I’d regret being intimate with him if my memory ever came back. But was denying oneself really a choice? No one chooses to hold onto those kinds of fears. No one wants to be terrified of natural emotions and desires. Just as her sister had been ripped from her long ago, so had those choices.

  Ripped from me.

  Like Nik had said, I couldn’t discount my past simply because I had no memory of it. I couldn’t have one foot in one world and one in another, not anymore. My heart needed to feel love and so did my body. Who better to give me what I desired than the man who time after time made sure I was safe?

  I reached out for Nik, my fingertips tracing his jawline as I brought his lips toward mine. “This choice has weight to it, too.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Nik kissed me softly, tenderly adjusting to this abrupt change of subject. With a possessive surge, he rolled us to the bed’s edge until we were both standing. His fingers deftly worked to free the top buttons of the flannel shirt, stopping as soon as he could part the fabric enough to bare my breasts.

  Drawing in a breath, I marveled at the sight of those green irises of his set ablaze, along with all the candles flickering around us. I gasped as he thumbed my nipple. His rough knuckle flicked back and forth over it. Like a switch, it turned everything inside of me on. On edge. On fire.

  I swallowed back my heady eagerness, needing to keep my head about me in order to remember every single amazing moment of this. But it was futile. Unable to patiently endure such sweet torture, I fumbled with the button on his pants and slid the zipper down. Letting my fingertips explore even farther, my nails scraped the tight denim. His breath hitched as I raked the straining, circular outline below his shaft.

  His voice came out hoarse and shaky as he rocked unsteadily on his heels. “Maybe you have done this before.”

  “No. Only with you.” I lifted on my toes to better taste his lips, his tongue.

  He clasped my buttocks, gripping my flesh as he hoisted me up. My legs didn’t have a chance to lock around his waist before he spun my back to the bed and dropped me to the soft sheepskin with a squeal. Hovering over me, he worked through the last remaining buttons on the flannel shirt as his eyes cut down my midsection.

  “Pink string bikinis?” he snarled as his large, callused hands dragged up my legs. “You’re killing me right now, Tiggs.”

  Shivers chased along my spine as his thumbs curled in to stroke my inner thighs. He spread my legs farther apart, barely fitting his large body between them. His eyes locked on mine as he knelt between my knees. While dropping kisses low on my abdomen, he hooked his chin on the thin elastic band of my panties and used the stubble-rough edge to drag the silky fabric down.

  Sliding his tongue across my smooth, newly bare skin, he stopped and murmured, “Holy fuck.” No doubt he was aware of the drastically different texture than his hand had experienced in the dressing room. His hot mouth hovered over my exposed sex. His fire-filled eyes lifted, his brows rising even higher. “Was this one of the things you Googled?”

  I shifted up on my elbows to meet his gaze, barely able to move as my pubic bone was locked down by his face. Biting my lower lip, I nodded. “I borrowed your razor. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Google told you it was okay to steal a man’s razor for such a dirty deed?” His rough chin, still hooked between my pulled-down panties and my fully naked sex, brushed mind-blowingly against my clit with each drawn-out word. I panted for breath as the sensations of his soft lips and hot breath skirted sinfully across me. “I had no idea you were such a naughty girl.”

  “I’m a fugitive, I do very bad things,” I managed between breathless gasps.

  “Yes, you do. I’m putting a camera in my bathroom if this is the kind of thing you do in there.”

  “You and your cameras.” My body struggled as I fought another shiver. “You just want to watch.”

  “I want to do more than watch. God, Thea, the way the scent of your arousal is mixing with your skin and the lingering hint my shaving cream…” He widened his nostrils, pulling the breath deep into his lungs as if it could reach places normal air couldn’t. “It’s like I’m already inside of you.”

  He rolled his tongue out, lapping my exposed skin. Parting his lips, he clamped over my sex in a series of soft, sucking bites. Sharp stabs of pleasure had me writhing, the
intensity too much and not enough all at the same time. But his wide hands had locked on my legs, preventing the desperate arch his sucking demanded. All he allowed was the buck of my hips, drawing my sex further against his feasting mouth. I turned my head, biting back a sharp gasp.

  And then it all came to a sudden stop.

  I shot a look down, meeting his bold eyes. Playful sparks danced in them as a hungry-for-more grin tugged on his lips. He stood.

  “We don’t play the Quiet Game in here, Tiggs. I want to hear every single noise I wring from you loud and clear.” He fisted the thin, pink band of silk. With a quick yank, he dragged my panties past my ankles and worked them off my feet, before tossing them aside. His lips curled in a snarl. Without warning, he knelt down, throwing my knees over his shoulders as his tongue delved inside me.

  “Holy Mary, mother of God…” I half moaned, half wailed, so glad I didn’t need to hold the noise in as my heels dug into his back.

  I lost count of how many times I thought I’d have to be pried from the ceiling in ecstasy. His mouth relentless, and his fingers…one…a pleasurably tight two…and an almost impossible three. As I slowly came down from another orgasm, a crinkling sound caused me to open my eyes.

  Nik wrapped his fingers around his shaft, stroking it a few times as his eyes coursed over me. When had he stripped completely naked? The last time I’d noticed, he’d still had jeans on. Sort of. My heels digging into his sides had shucked them mostly down. Had I blacked out on the last orgasm? What else had I missed?

  A small foil square dangled from his teeth as his hands wrapped my hips and heaved my body from the middle of the bed back to the edge. He hooked my legs around his bare hips as he rocked forward, rubbing his length against me as I moaned out in pleasure.

  His eyes roved over me with savoring slowness, with awe. His well-defined body glistened with a hint of shine, the heady scent of his skin filling my lungs. Towering over me, Nik looked every bit the God of Safe Sex and I his eager and willing virgin sacrifice.

  He grinned, the condom package still hanging by a corner between his white teeth. With a soft touch he stroked the rounded edge of my breast with his knuckles. “What are you thinking, baby?”

  My voice quivered. “You’re looking at me like you’ve never seen me before.”

  “I haven’t,” he gritted out. His teeth bit into the foil corner of the package to keep it from dropping as he spoke. “Not like this.”

  “But the ice bath?”

  “You weren’t mine to look at like this then.”

  “Nik, I’ve been yours since I first opened my eyes.”

  “I could say the same thing, Thea.”

  Sinking his fists into the bed at my sides, he locked his elbows straight so his muscular arms could brace his weight. His body rocked over mine, the slippery tip of his cock bumping back and forth over my clit, driving me insanely crazy. I grappled for a pillow and bit down on its corner as I came hard again.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to watching you come for me, but I can’t stand not being inside you another second.”

  I felt him stand back up and heard him slide the condom on. I couldn’t even see straight anymore. My hair fell in loose tangles over my eyes and I was too weak from pleasure to push it aside. Holding his weight with one arm, he plowed his fingers through the wild mess, dragging it away. His face loomed in front of me as his tongue and teeth worked my lips over with hot, needy kisses.

  “Ready, baby?”

  I vaguely nodded. My focus centered on my sex, expecting to feel the heat of him entering me. Expecting to feel pain. Or pleasure. Or anything and everything but what I got—nothing.

  My eyes opened to find him staring down. I sprang up on my elbows, as if possessed. My forehead nearly cracked into his nose. “Nikolas!”

  His eyes pierced mine as he growled low and long. “When you say my name like that, all I can think about is ramming my cock into you and driving you as wild as you make me feel all the damn time.”

  My voice came out raw with desperation. “Then why aren’t you?”

  “I need to hear you say it.” His jaw flexed hard—this was it, the best of them all, the fuck-me flex. He lifted one tightly fisted hand from the mattress and with a swiping motion of those glorious fingers he gestured for me to hurry it up. His teeth gnashed down as his words came out on a throaty rasp. “Invite. Me. In.”

  Despite the impassioned focus in his eyes, I managed to grin and ask, “Vampire rules?”

  He nodded curtly. His lip twitching.

  “Nikolas.” I smiled at his flared nostrils as he torqued his neck. On a feral snarl, he punched both fists hard into the mattress. My body bounced from the wake. I gripped his arms, shocked at the restraint and strength running through his stout veins. I really shouldn’t be teasing such a powerful man. That’s what made it so fun, though. “I invite you to ram your cock into me and drive me wild.”

  “It’s going to hurt you enough going slowly. I’m not exactly…lightweight,” he said mocking my comment from back on the boulders over Estes Park. “But I assure you, when you’re ready, ramming will come.”

  His face had the same tightness I felt as he gradually pushed into me. The stretching pain cut through my body, ripping a cry from the back of my throat.

  Nik ducked his head, his raspy cheek nuzzling against my smooth one—sweet and rough all at the same time. He was holding back, no doubt aware that his thick cock, barely even inside me at this point, was splitting me in two. He rocked his body back and forth, side to side.

  “Too tight,” he rumbled as his jaw popped dramatically. His teeth dragged over his lower lip as he tensed and panted. His green eyes were wild, yet deliberating.

  I felt him start to pull away and summoned whatever energy hadn’t already been drained from me, dug my heels into his ass and bucked my hips hard into him. His jaw dropped on a groan as my body enveloped his, our hips colliding. A searing burn sliced through me, but my sharp cry morphed into a deep throaty moan at the wondrous sensation of him filling me and the pain becoming saturated in wet pleasure.

  His eyes opened to mine, his brows lifted.

  “Surprised?” I asked with a nervous, breathless giggle. When he didn’t move or respond, I commanded, “Breathe.”

  * * * *

  Breathe? Nik was afraid to move at all. Not only was he certain he’d hurt her, he was also confident if he so much as shifted, he’d explode. Having Thea wrapped around him was unlike anything he had ever imagined, and like nothing he’d ever felt before.

  Her eyelids lulled as she scissored her hips, exploring the feel of him inside her. Not heeding the warnings in his brain, he maneuvered his hips, rocking them as her body accommodated his. He didn’t want to ever stop, but his thighs were already shaking and his spine was on fire. Fuck. Who was the virgin here? He wasn’t going to hold out much longer, and her body restricted his movement too much for this to be pleasurable for her yet. Shit, shit, shit…

  He frantically reached between them, using his hand to help stimulate her clit. “I don’t want to rush you, baby, but I need you to come.”

  She laughed. Laughed! He should’ve been taking offense, but the vibrations channeling into him nearly undid his fragile grip.

  “Why?” Her eyes exuded a gentle compassion. Not exactly the look he wanted to see while having sex, but at least her laughter wasn’t mocking him. No, she was genuinely confused.

  Shit. How to explain the horror of this situation? It was hard to think with balls this tight. Her soft, gasping breaths kept stealing his attention. Not to mention his cock jumping at every sharp, sexy squeak she’d make when he moved too much. His brows knitted together as his fingers desperately worked whatever magic they could. “I don’t want to come before you, baby.”

  Another laugh. But she cut it short as she bit down on her full lower lip. Her eyes rolled back with each stroke of his fingers. “I’ve had at least four orgasms,” she hoarsely moaned. “Felt like I gave bi
rth to a magical baby unicorn on the last one. You’re the one who needs to catch up, slowpoke.”

  Slowpoke? Ha! He was trying desperately not to be the fastest gun in the west with her. At least he’d surpassed the two-minute bar she’d originally set for him back in Goodland, but not by much. “It’s different for men. Baby, you have no idea how amazing it feels being inside you. I’m not going to last much longer.”

  She clasped his forearm. “Can you move your hand?”

  Nik’s fingers stilled as he slowly slid his palm up to her abdomen. He prepared to pull out and find a hole to crawl in, until she murmured, “I still can’t see.”

  What?

  Thea’s chin jutted out as she bit down on her lower lip. Her abdomen peeled away from his as she lifted to her elbows, straining to look between her thighs. “I can’t see us… I want to see you inside me.”

  “Oh…kay,” he managed through a panting breath as he hovered over her. “I can do that.”

  Can I?

  It was quite possibly the hottest thing a woman had ever asked him to do. But his cock wasn’t exactly handling the ego trip it was already getting from how tightly her body clung to it. A captive audience could easily send it over the edge. Damn if he was going to blow this moment by telling her no, though.

  Wide, sparkling eyes lifted to meet his. So genuine. They calmed him, edging him ever so slightly back from the brink. His next breath flowed in more smoothly. His spine cooled as control seeped back to his body.

  How did she do that?

  Nik hooked his elbows under her knees. A soft cry escaped her as he tugged her in closer to him while positioning himself more upright. She lifted again to her elbows, giving herself an unobstructed view of their perfectly linked bodies. Thea’s expression remained unreadable until she whispered, “It’s amazing, isn’t it? How we fit together.”