Twist (A BDSM & Romantic Erotica Boxed Set)

by Tara Crescent

  “But you’re not.” It came out of Phee’s mouth before she realized she was going to speak, and it made the ghost of a smile move over his lips. He squeezed her hand and nodded.

  “No, I’m not like him. I would have been though. I would have been a perfect clone if someone hadn’t sent me a package while I was away. I was sixteen, and there was just a small note on top of a stack of files and a flash drive. It said, ‘This is the truth, you need to know it. I’m sorry.’ The files were full of the horrible things my uncle had done, but I didn’t believe it, I didn’t believe any of it until I played the flash drive.” Bryant let go of her hand and pushed his hands into his hair. “It was audio. Audio of my uncle ordering the death of my father, and specifically citing that it would be fine if my mother died as well because my father might have told her things.”

  “Bryant…” Phee wrapped her arms around him and hugged him, and he leaned into her. Then he kept talking.

  “I ran away from the boarding school, took buses back to the city with a plan to confront my uncle. But then, even at sixteen I knew it wouldn’t work. I knew he’d just kill me. So, I spent a week on the streets South of downtown, until I heard two people talking about the resistance. I followed them, snuck into a meeting and offered to join.” Bryant laughed a bit and leaned back, and Phee did as well to give him room as she watched his turquoise eyes flick around the room while he moved through his memories. “They figured out who I was pretty quickly. I was wearing designer clothes, I talked like a downtowner. They knew. I tried to tell them I refused to go back, that I’d never go back to my uncle after what he’d done. But Parks was there. He’s the head of the resistance, and he told me that if I really wanted to help the cause, if I really wanted to make a difference – I had to go back. I had to go back and endear myself to my uncle. To my parents’ murderer. Only then would I be able to help them. Get close to my uncle, get him to trust me, get into the COF, and give all the information I could to the resistance.”

  “Holy shit, Bryant, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine…” Phee hugged him again and this time he wrapped an arm around her too.

  “They’re pretty pissed at me. After more than ten years of being their perfect little double agent, I fuck it up two weeks before we were going to take them all down.”

  “Because of me?” She looked at him and he dropped his head back against the wall, tracing his thumb over her cheek towards her mouth, and then he ran his thumb across her bottom lip slowly.

  “I couldn’t let him kill you, Phee. He’s taken so much from me, and I’m not sure what we are yet, but I knew I couldn’t let you die.” A smile tugged at the edge of his mouth, “And you’re safe now, and I’ll keep you safe, I swear it.”

  “I believe you.” She smiled too, thinking of how easily he had killed three men. His words haunted her though and she spoke up, “You said the COF had done terrible things, terrible how?”

  Bryant’s eyes unfocused, dropping down to look at their entwined hands, her knees were on the bed, and his other hand traced her leg through the pants. “You don’t want to know that stuff, Phee. It’s the kind of stuff you can’t un-hear.”

  “I do. I want to know. I want to know what your father fought for, and what you’re fighting for. I’m in this now.” She spoke confidently, feeling like she was strapping on armor to join the fight. For so long she had been living in fairy tales in her head. She had been the forest queen, she had been a mermaid, she had been a winged bird sailing through clouds, and she had been a warrior with no real wars to fight. Now, she had a reason. These people had tried to kill her, they had killed Bryant’s parents. She wanted in on this fight.

  “The COF have been spying on the less economically advantaged -,” he laughed under his breath, “- on the poor, for a really long time. Trying to find dissenters so they could eliminate them before they spread their ideas.”

  “That’s why you ran that thing all over my apartment? You were looking for listening devices?” Phee said it with disbelief as Bryant nodded. She got a clear flashback of her mother peeling the wallpaper off the walls, screaming that they were listening, that they knew what she was thinking. Her chest ached as Bryant spoke again.

  “Yeah, but that’s not the worst of it. You know the COF provides economic assistance to a lot of the people in the fog. The factories pay such terrible wages that it’s just not possible to survive without help, but the COF doesn’t want to help. For decades they’ve been scheduling controlled ‘illnesses’ to be released in certain neighborhoods to ease the strain on the government’s aid programs.” Bryant winced as Phee gasped. Just two years ago there had been an outbreak of a respiratory virus on the Southwest end of the city, over a hundred and fifty people had died. Another two hundred had been sick, but survived. Her head swam.

  All of it was true.

  Her mother had been right. Phee felt tears burning hot trails on her cheeks and Bryant turned on the small bed to cup her face, his strong hands brushing her cheeks.

  “Oh hell, Phee, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you, I’m –”

  “My mom.” Phee sniffled as the tears really started to come, “My mom knew, she knew. She used to tell me that the government was spying on us, that they were poisoning the water, that they were killing us off. My grandparents thought she was crazy, and they fucking took me away from her. It killed her, it killed her on the inside to lose me, and then she got sick and died. She taught me to view the world with so much magic, and all that magic went out like someone snuffed out a candle in her the day my grandparents took me.”

  “Fuck, Phee…” It was Bryant’s turn to hug her, and she choked on a sob. The Cabal of Freedom had taken everything from both of them. “How old were you?”

  “Seven. They took me when I was seven, and I barely got to see her after that because they said she was unstable.” Phee shook her head, trying to stifle the tears as Bryant tightened his arms around her, “But she wasn’t, not really. All those episodes she used to have, she was right. She was fucking right!”

  “Yes, yes, she was. I don’t know how she knew, but she was right.” Bryant brushed her hair back from her face and rocked her against his chest, “Maybe she was in the resistance, we can ask in the morning. What was her name?”

  “Helen. Helen Everett.”

  “That’s almost as beautiful as Ophelia Everett.” Bryant was smiling when she looked up at him, and she couldn’t believe how handsome he was even in his own darkness. They had both been wrapped in so much darkness. The deaths of parents looming over them, shaping their lives, honing them into the people they were today.

  She kissed him. Hard. Her cheeks still damp with tears, but she pushed his shoulders back until he was leaning against the wall again and she straddled his lap. His hands were at her hips as she shifted forward until there wasn’t an inch of space between them. Her hands were in his hair as she kissed him, nipping his lower lip and he growled and nipped her back.

  Phee wanted to lose herself in him. In the man that had thrown away so much, had risked so much, to save her life. All because she had taunted him into a date. But he was so much more than a date now. He was a warrior, wreathed in the flames of the righteous that the damned Cabal of Freedom tried to claim with their phoenix emblem. But they weren’t the ones that had risen from the ashes. Bryant had risen from the ashes of his parents’ deaths to become a warrior. He had stood side by side with the man that had destroyed his life. For a decade, he had eaten lunch with him with a smile on his face, and she imagined he had sat in his home and laughed with him – all while working towards his destruction. That was worthy of righteous fire. And somewhere, deep inside her, Phee felt her own fire growing.

  She climbed off the bed and ripped the shirt over her head, her bra was next. Then the pants and her underwear, and she stared at Bryant, silent, until he pulled his shirt off as well. In moments they were both naked, clothing piled on the floor and she climbed back onto his lap. His cock was hard between them and she s
troked it, gripping him at the base before moving her hand up and rolling her thumb over the head as she watched him lean back into the wall. The muscles in his stomach tensed, his fingers digging into her hips. She repeated that a few times until he growled and lifted her hips, pulling her towards him. Leaning down, Phee captured his mouth as she guided him inside her and dropped her hips down, impaling herself on him. They both moaned loudly against each other, and she started to rock. Rising and falling, then rolling her hips to grind against him, before starting the movements all over. He slid his hands behind her neck, their moans humming in their chests as she worked them towards an orgasm. She picked up the pace and it broke their kiss, and she braced herself on his shoulders as she rose and fell, driving her hips down hard, circling, and lifting again. It quickly became one singular motion, and she heard him mutter, “Fuck… just like that.”

  His hands found her hips again, lifting her when she went up, and pulling her down harder as she descended. Sparks of pleasure began to move through her, like embers popping up from a fire, the heat inside her growing until it was an inevitable cliff that she was about to throw herself over. Her legs shivered with the strain of continuing to move as the pending orgasm had her shaking, her muscles taut and then she slipped over the edge. Light crashed inside her, tingles rushing up her spine to flood down her limbs and leave her breathless and whimpering on top of him. Bryant twisted them to lay her out on the bed, and he thrust hard, his lips muffling the moans and whimpers slipping from her mouth. His groan rumbled in his chest as he stilled on top of her and came, their bodies shivering with the intensity of it.

  Bryant gentled his kiss, trailing his mouth down her neck, across her shoulder, and back up. He brushed his thumb across her cheek as he looked down at her, their bodies still linked, her legs wrapped around his. “You are amazing, you know that?” His smile grew slowly as he looked down at her, and she saw the sincerity in his turquoise eyes and believed it.

  “You are too, Bryant, you’re a warrior.” Phee ran a hand through his hair, letting it rest at the back of his neck, cradling his head as he dropped his forehead to hers.

  “Only because I’ve had to be, beautiful, only because I’ve had to be.” He whispered the words and then kissed her softly and slid from her. In a moment they were wrapped around each other again, his arms cradling her to him, but it felt closer than when they had been at his apartment. They knew each other now. They had been through so much, and there was still so much to go, but they were together.

  Chapter Five

  “What do you mean we’re doing it tonight?” A man’s voice spoke up from the back of the crowd, and a ripple of dissent went through the large number of people gathered in the basement of the church. Bryant was up front with a group of leaders for the resistance, and Phee was tucked to the side watching.

  “The situation has changed, and if we want to be successful we’re going to have to move it up to tonight. I have faith in each of you that you will accomplish your tasks, that you will succeed, so that tomorrow a new dawn will break over this city. A new dawn that will herald a world where we will not be the foundation for others’ greatness.” Parks was speaking again. He had gray hair cut in a close crop on his head. A tanned, weathered face, but his body was still strong. It was clear he hadn’t rested a day in his life, he had always been a fighter, and he spoke like a true leader. He had hope for the people South of downtown, those who never saw the sky under the thick blanket of fog, and hope was something rare, precious.

  “What changed?” Another voice spoke up.

  Parks sighed and Bryant stepped forward, “I had to save someone’s life last night, and this means my uncle will figure out my allegiances sooner rather than later. If we act quickly, I can still get close to him, but if we wait too long the window will close. Tonight is the only night.”

  “Because you saved that bitch.” Easton said it with a growl, pointing directly at Phee. The attention of the room shifted, whispers creating a din as she shrunk against the wall she was leaning on. She could feel the animosity, the tension, the nervous energy of attempting to take down the government tonight. Killing the leaders, destroying the justice building and several other key government strongholds. It had been planned for two weeks from now, but – well, but Bryant saved her life last night. Which meant his uncle would identify sooner, rather than later, that Bryant wasn’t the dedicated little carbon copy he had designed him to be.

  “Easton. If you call her a bitch ever again, I will break your arms. Understand?” Bryant said it through a growl, and something about the flat way he’d spoken made it less of a threat and more of a promise. Easton obviously believed him because he went quiet. Parks cleared his throat and spoke again.

  “Holbrook has saved our lives more times than I can count. He has identified attacks that would have killed hundreds, and we have had time enough to save as many as we could.” Parks dropped a hand on Bryant’s shoulder, and Bryant looked at him with something like gratitude, “We can’t be upset that he saved another life on top of the thousands that he’s helped us save. That girl is one of us, and he protected her, just like he’s worked to protect all of us. So we’re moving up everything to tonight.”

  “What if we can’t get the explosives in place by tonight?” A calmer voice, towards the front, directly in front of the leaders.

  “All I’m asking for is your best. Those of you flagged for assassinations, can you arrange visits tonight?” Parks looked across the people standing near the front of the group, and there were murmurs of assent. He looked at Bryant, squeezing his shoulder, “What about you, Bryant? Can you still get to your uncle?”

  “Yes. He won’t be happy to see me, but he can’t know everything yet, and he won’t be unhappy for long.” Bryant said it seriously, and took a breath, stepping forward again to address the group. “Everyone. We have all suffered losses. The COF have taken so much from us. They have killed our loved ones, our friends, our families. But this is where we take a stand, a real stand to tear them off their self-made thrones. It is tonight that we will rip them away from their power. Tonight, we will get our vengeance. Whatever job you have, it is important. It is central to our success, and I ask you to do your best. I ask you to do your best not just for those of us in this room, but for all of those suffering in the fog. For all of those we have lost. Tonight we take this world back from their greed, their hate, and we will raise up a new world tomorrow. A world where we can be safe, where all of us can be safe. So, I ask you, ARE YOU WITH ME?” He roared the last words and the crowd roared back. She could see him wreathed in flames again. A great warrior, a king of fire, and the group turned to him like sunflowers following the sun. They were mere sprites, clad in clothing that hid them in the maze of the city. She felt like she’d been a lost girl for years, wandering, only now discovering that she had also been a sprite all along. Underestimated, unassuming, overlooked. But now she had teeth, and a sword, and she would strike with the rest of them.

  The group broke into planning. Maps and schedules and details. Phee felt useless and she hated it. Time was ticking away, the sun was dropping in the sky outside even though she couldn’t see it. Soon, there would be nothing but the lamps floating like will o’ the wisps in the dense fog. That was when they would strike, as evening fell, and as darkness descended even on downtown.

  It was hours before Bryant could step away to wrap his arms around her, his chin on top of her head as he hugged her tight. “I think they’re all on board. It’s going to work.”

  “I’m going with you.” She said it and she felt him tense against her before he leaned back.

  “No, Phee, no. You can’t go with me, I’m going to my –”

  “I know you’re going to your uncle, but I’m coming with you.” Phee looked up into his eyes and she saw tense storm clouds brewing in their depths.

  “Phee, you have to stay here. I need you to be safe.” His eyebrows pulled together in his concern, and his thumb traced her chin,
but she shook her head.

  “I won’t be safe here and you know it, and I can help you. I deserve to face the man who ordered my death, to do whatever I can to help the resistance. For me, for my mom, for all of us.”

  “No one remembers your mom, Phee. Not even Parks, and he’s been in it since almost the beginning.” Bryant sighed, “I don’t think she was involved.”

  “But then how did she know all of that? How?!” Phee grabbed his shirt and he hugged her tight again.

  “Maybe she knew someone in the resistance, maybe they talked to her and she was afraid for you. But either way, I can’t take you with me.”

  “If you leave me here, I’ll just follow you. I saw the maps, I know what part of the city your uncle’s house is in.” Phee stood up tall, the flames inside her growing a little. “I can either come with you, or follow behind you with no one to watch out for me.”

  Bryant gritted his teeth as he held her away from him by her shoulders. His eyes bored into hers and she wished she could lose herself in them like she had the night before, but there was no time for that. No time to seek shelter with each other, because the battle was here and now, and in just a few hours the first shots would be fired.

  “Bryant, my mother died alone and scared of the world because no one believed her. I should have believed her, I was her daughter, and instead I was at school the day she died. I was so busy being a good girl, being exactly what my grandparents wanted me to be, what the world wanted me to be, that I abandoned the only person who ever told me I could be something more.” Phee pleaded with him, “Please, don’t leave me behind.”