Twisted

by HELEN HARDT

  Though they were both members of the future lawmakers club at the private preparatory high school they attended, and Brad Steel had backed my father’s “business,” for lack of a better word. I had no evidence that he’d continued backing it when my father, along with Tom Simpson and Larry Wade, turned to crime, though.

  “Ryan,” I said, “I think we need to go on the assumption that Wendy was telling the truth, and that your father may be alive.”

  “But so much that has come out of her mouth has been complete fabrication.”

  “Not the most important thing. You are her son.” I hated sounding so blasé about it, but why beat around the bush at this point? We both knew the truth. We both knew my part in finding the truth. Ryan would eventually have to deal with all of that.

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “It doesn’t change who you are, Ryan. You’re still Ryan Steel.”

  “Only because my father is still my father.”

  “Yes. You have the same father as Joe, Talon, and Marj. You all share that. That’s huge.”

  He grunted.

  “And something else.”

  “Now what?”

  “Wendy might be completely off her rocker, but two things are crystal clear. One, she loves you. In her warped mind, everything she’s done has been for you.”

  He scoffed. “Whatever. What’s the other thing?”

  “She also loves your father. She’d do anything for him. Including helping him fake his death if he asked her to.”

  Chapter Four

  Ryan

  Ruby was talking like a cop. Well, she was a cop. What did I expect? My head no longer hurt, thanks to the drugs pumping into me, but it was still fuzzy, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to face what might be my new reality.

  My father might be alive.

  My father might be involved in some truly heinous stuff.

  My father might have faked his own death.

  Or…my father might have been forced to fake his own death.

  That made more sense to me. Everything I knew about Brad Steel negated him faking his own death unless someone or something had made him do it.

  I closed my eyes, urging my mind to work. Things were still hazy, but I thought about what Joe had told me from his time being held prisoner by Wendy when she delusionally thought he was our father.

  Mathias had shown up, and he’d seemed annoyed with Wendy and her antics, yet he hadn’t harmed her even though he’d threatened to. He had demanded what was due him—our father’s money. He’d claimed that the Steels had ruined his life, and then he’d said something about our father’s will. Simpson had shown up, said their beef was never with us. It was with our father. Then he mentioned the will, said they’d made sure there were no loopholes…and one of them said they knew the consequences if they harmed Joe…

  That’s all I could recall. I’d have to pick Joe’s brain when my own was working better.

  We’d have to search for my father’s will. None of us had actually seen it. It had been read to us by an attorney after our father’s death.

  Our father’s death…

  Had Wendy been telling the truth? Was my father alive? And had she helped him fake his death?

  Why would he fake his death? Unless…

  He did it to protect his children.

  “What’s churning in that mind of yours?” Ruby asked. “You’ve been quiet for a while.”

  The pulse in my throat thumped. “Wendy. My…mother.” God, that was still so hard to say.

  “What about her?”

  “You said she’d do anything for my father, including helping him fake his own death if he asked her to.”

  “Yeah. Do you think that might have happened?”

  “A couple months ago, I’d have said ‘no way.’ But now…” I breathed out. “Now, I just don’t know. I don’t know who the hell the man who fathered me actually was.”

  “Consider yourself lucky,” she said.

  True. She knew who her father was and what he was capable of. He was a monster. But at least she knew.

  “I’m not discounting what you’re saying, Ruby,” I said seriously. “I get what your father is. Oh, hell.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

  “You’re Ryan Steel.”

  “But who is Ryan Steel?”

  “He’s the man he’s always been. The man I…” She smiled. “Knowledge—and that’s all this is, knowledge about your mother and your father—doesn’t change your soul.”

  I looked at Ruby, her pretty red lips, her rosy cheeks.

  All this was big. Huge. And in the midst of it, all I wanted was to lick the smudge of spaghetti sauce off of Ruby’s chin.

  She was dressed in her normal uniform of white cotton shirt and khaki Dockers. Her hair was pulled back in its tight bun. No makeup graced her face. Classic Ruby.

  But I’d seen her in all her glory—walking down the aisle in a light blue sundress with an orchid in her hair, barefoot on the beach in a miniskirt and tank top, and—the best—naked, moonlight streaming over her tight body, her rosy breasts bouncing as we made love.

  Made love.

  I loved this woman—this woman who had no idea how beautiful she was. Or who did…and hid it for self-protection.

  “Take your hair down, baby,” I said.

  She widened her eyes. “I was in the middle of a sentence.”

  Had she been? Right, we were talking about my father possibly being alive. Then I’d started thinking about Ruby naked.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Once you’re feeling better, we’ll check your phone records and get the number of whoever called you. We’ll get to the bottom of this, Ryan. I promise you.”

  Ruby didn’t make promises on a whim. I knew that much about her. She meant to solve this puzzle. After all, she was as involved in it as the rest of us were.

  “You want to know something really weird?”

  I smiled. “Always.”

  “My father called me yesterday too.”

  Chapter Five

  Ruby

  He bumped his tray, nearly upending the glass of water he was drinking with the spaghetti. “What? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. You’ll never guess what he wanted.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He told me to ‘call off the Steels.’”

  Ryan scoffed. “Or what?”

  I knew one thing. My father didn’t make warnings for the hell of it. He wouldn’t harm me. He’d consider it offensive. It was okay to rape me, but now that I was grown and a cop? He had a strange desire to see me succeed, which was directly contradictory to him succeeding. That was my theory, at least. With the power he seemed to possess, he could have taken me out long ago.

  However, he could harm the Steels. He’d have no qualms about that.

  That wasn’t happening on my watch.

  “My father doesn’t make empty threats.”

  “Joe said something about when Wendy was holding him captive—that either Mathias or Simpson, I can’t remember which, said they knew the consequences if they harmed Joe. That could have been a lie of course. Are you telling me we should back off?”

  “I would never tell you that. Even if I did, you and your brothers would never back off.”

  His shoulders slumped slightly. “Ruby, I might.”

  I stared at him, my eyes wide. Had I heard him right? That didn’t sound at all like the Ryan Steel I knew. And loved. “What?”

  He sighed. “I might. I love my brothers and my sister, but they lied to me.” He cleared his throat. “You lied to me too.”

  I had known that would come up eventually. “I didn’t lie, Ryan.”

  “Fine. Semantics. You omitted. Then you gave my hair to my sister for a DNA test.”

  “We’ve been through that.”

  He sighed again. “I know. The least you could have done is fought me on it. But no. You did the cop thing. You admitted your wr
ongdoing and stepped up to take the consequences.”

  I braced myself. “So what are the consequences?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” He looked me straight in the eyes. “I don’t know if I can trust you.”

  I gulped, my heart pounding. “You can trust me, Ryan. I swear it.”

  “I’d like to be able to.”

  “Then do. I won’t let you down.” I put the container of food on a nearby table and went to him, cupping his cheeks, staring into his sad but beautiful brown eyes.

  “I want to. I want…a lot of things from you.”

  I had no idea what he was getting at. I loved him with all my heart, but I wasn’t sure someone as amazing as Ryan Steel could ever love me.

  “Anything. What do you need?”

  He smiled. “First, you can tell your psycho father that the Steels aren’t going anywhere.”

  Good sign. I hadn’t bought it when he said he might back off. He still considered himself a Steel. Of course he was one. He had the same father as the others. “He hung up before I could say anything, but my father isn’t stupid. He knows I won’t call you off, even if I could.”

  “Good.” He winked. “I’ve got one hell of a boner right now, so next, you can climb on top of me.”

  I chilled. We were in the hospital where anyone could walk in. “Ryan, that’s not going to happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re recovering from a concussion, for one. And we’re in a public place.”

  “No more public than when we were on a nude beach.”

  “Oh my God…”

  “And this is a private room. I’ll bet there’s a lock on the door.”

  I looked toward the door. There was a lock. Still…this wasn’t happening.

  Was it?

  I was turned on already, just thinking about having Ryan again. “Why would you want to fuck someone you’re not sure you trust?”

  “Christ, Ruby. I can’t help what you do to me. I can’t help what I feel.”

  What do you feel? The question was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t bring forth the words. In all likelihood, he only meant that he was feeling something physical.

  In truth, so was I.

  I couldn’t tell Ryan I loved him—I was too insecure, too frightened, to do that—but maybe I could show him. Besides, I had to make some use of the pink string flossing my butt. What had I been thinking, trying to wear a thong? It was so not me.

  A seductress I was not, but Ryan had asked me earlier to take my hair down, so I slowly raised my hand to the knot at the back of my head and pulled out the two barrettes holding it in place. My nearly black hair tumbled in a sleek mass down my back and over my shoulders.

  “Your hair is so beautiful,” he said.

  I warmed at his approval, turned, and walked to the door. It was already closed, so I simply pushed in the locking mechanism. Then I walked back to the bed.

  Ryan’s cock was tenting the sheet covering him.

  I drew in a deep breath and touched the top button of my shirt.

  Chapter Six

  Ryan

  I was ready to cream myself. Ruby Lee, even in her masculine garb, brought me to my knees. I hadn’t expected a striptease, but she seemed willing to give me one. Who was I to complain? Even in my still fuzzy mind, I wanted her beyond any desire I’d yet known.

  Her fingers shook slightly. This wasn’t something she was used to. Hell, she’d been a virgin before me. Yet just yesterday, she’d ripped the buttons off of her shirt. That had made me fucking crazy.

  This time she was taking it slow, and as sexy as it was, I longed for her to rush through it, get naked, and sink down on me.

  With each new inch of creamy skin she exposed, my cock grew bigger, harder.

  How could I fight what I felt for her?

  I loved her. I loved her devotion to her career, her determination to bring her own father—and one of my brother’s tormenters—to justice. I loved her self-deprecation, her beauty that everyone but she herself could see.

  But how could I feel love without trust?

  The shirt went to the floor in a ripple of white cotton. Her full creamy breasts were bulging out of her bra, her nipples protruding through the lace.

  Fuck. Trust was overrated.

  At least it was in this moment. I wanted her, and I would have her. Now.

  With one flick of her wrists, she tossed her bra to the floor with the shirt. Her toned abdomen was gorgeous. Her belly button so sexy. She’d be beautiful with a jewel hanging from it. Maybe I could talk her into one sometime… I wanted to lick that sweet dimple and then keep sliding downward to that succulent place between her legs.

  She’d be wet for me. She always was.

  Slowly she unbuckled her belt, unbuttoned her pants, slid them gently over her perfect hips.

  Lace. Pink lace.

  Ruby was wearing a thong.

  I’d have bet my fortune she didn’t own one. But fuck, I was glad she did.

  She looked good enough to eat.

  Eating probably wasn’t going to happen. I was so fucking hard I needed her on me now.

  When her pants fell around her ankles, she turned pink. “Oh.”

  Adorable. She’d forgotten her sensible shoes. She bent over, untied them, and then flipped them off. She’d screwed up her striptease, but I wasn’t going to say anything. She was still beautiful and sexy, and this was no doubt her first striptease ever. Last time I checked, most virgins didn’t do stripteases.

  Once the shoes and pants were out of the way, she turned around and bent over.

  Oh. My. God.

  Her ass was so beautiful, red like her cheeks. She inserted her thumbs in the waistband of the pink lace thong and slowly eased it over her hips.

  I grabbed my cock through the sheet and tightened my fist around the base to keep from shooting. She turned around and kicked the thong to the side with the rest of her clothes, standing before me, her long hair curtaining the swell of her breasts, her hard red nipples poking through.

  I ached to take my time with her. Kiss her, tug on her raspberry nipples, eat the sweet cream out of her pussy until she was begging me to stop… But not right now. Right now, I needed my cock inside of her hot cunt.

  “Come here,” I said, low and raspy.

  She bent toward me, whisking the sheet away. Then she pushed the light blue hospital gown upward, baring me to her view.

  She inhaled.

  She’d seen me naked plenty of times. “What is it?”

  “You’re just so…” She sighed. “You’re beautiful, Ryan.”

  I stared into her sparkling blue eyes. “Baby, you’re what’s beautiful in this room. Come here.”

  She looked toward the door timidly.

  “No one will interrupt us,” I assured her.

  “How do you know?”

  I didn’t, but I’d be damned if we were stopping now. “Trust me.”

  Big words from someone who wasn’t sure he trusted the person he was saying them to, let alone someone who couldn’t guarantee a nurse wouldn’t knock on the door. But right now, I was thinking with my other head. Big time.

  “Please, baby. Sit on me. I need you.”

  She smiled timidly. “I…want to.”

  “Nothing stopping you,” I groaned through clenched teeth.

  She climbed onto the bed, straddling me. She grabbed my cock and rubbed the tip against the wet folds of her pussy. I closed my eyes and concentrated to keep from prematurely ending our escapade.

  When she sank down on me, a soft moan escaping her throat, every nerve in my body screamed at me to plunge up into her, but I held still, let her get comfortable. I wanted her to take the lead. I wanted her to fuck me.

  She pulled herself off of me, the beautiful muscles in her thighs tensing, stopping right before I was completely withdrawn. The suction of her opening and her silky, wet folds teased my cock head.

  “Damn, baby.”

  She
sank down upon me again. I reached forward, grabbing her hips, pulling her off of me again and then pushing her back down. I couldn’t help but take charge. I wanted her so badly, and today, although I longed for her to lead, I needed her too badly to wait.

  “Your breasts. Play with your nipples for me.”

  She closed her eyes, obeying, her alabaster hands cupping her round breasts, her thumbs drifting over her hard nipples. Her soft sigh met my ears.

  “Does that feel good, baby?”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  I pulled her off my cock again and then pushed her back down. My entire body shuddered, as if I were one big penis and nothing else. My balls tightened, and the base of my cock started sizzling. I was going to come.

  I was going to come now.

  I lifted her up once more and pushed her down hard upon my cock, gritting my teeth.

  The tiny spasms started at the base, flowing out of my cock and into Ruby.

  At the same time, her pussy clamped around me, and she bit her bottom lip.

  “Ruby, God.” The orgasm erupted through me. It was a different sensation, perhaps because I was recovering from a concussion. I didn’t know. I knew only that it was rapturous, complete nirvana coming inside this woman.

  I held her onto my cock as long as I could, until both of our orgasms quieted. I didn’t want to let her go. I looked up at her, into her beautiful blue eyes, her bottom lip now swollen from when she bit down, probably to keep from screaming. At her lovely breasts now flushed pink, her nipples red from her own attention.

  I didn’t ever want to let her go.

  I opened my mouth to speak, not knowing what I was going to say, when a knock interrupted me.

  Ruby gasped, quickly moving off of me and off the bed. She grabbed her clothes and then ran to the bathroom.

  I covered myself quickly. “Yeah? Come on in.”

  “The door’s locked.”

  Shit. “Okay. Sorry.” Ruby was in the bathroom, so I got up, trying to keep my gown closed in the back, walked to the door, and opened it.

  My neurologist stood there. “Just here for my evening rounds, Mr. Steel.”