Twisted Desire (The Twisted Series) (25 page)

This is the only way out.

Aliah lifts herself into the smallish window and sits on the
sill.  She decides that taking a leap feet-first would be smart, since she
doesn’t think hurdling herself at the thorny trellis is much of an
improvement.  But when the bathroom door swings open, her plans are made
for her.

A lanky man is standing there, with a snarky smile on his
face.  He appears to take pleasure in the fact that he’s found her naked
beneath her parted towel.  He makes a dash toward her, and Aliah takes a
dive head-first out the window.

She crashes into the bushes, soiling her now bloody hands
and rolling onto her back.  Her towel does little to save her flesh from
the prickly thorns.  She cries out as she crawls away from the house and
takes the millisecond to retrieve her towel from the shrubs.

She considers going to the lake, but the dark murky waters
don’t look very inviting.  She huffs on the air that’s rushing into her
lungs and forces it back out, to the beat of her heart.  She doesn’t have
time to think on it.  The man follows her out the window.

What a dumb ass.

Hoping he’s there alone, she runs around the house,
clutching the towel in a bloody palm.  His partner is standing on the
doorstep.  She hangs onto the corner of the house, calculating how much
time she needs to get to the vehicle left parked in the driveway.  She is
closer to it than him.  He is a fatty, but she is barefoot.

She hikes up her towel and clutches it to her chest, knowing
that if she worries about it for one second too long, it could be the death of
her.

Aliah doesn’t need told what they want.  Clearly it’s
her.  And everything she has seems to be free agent at the moment. 
She drops the towel and takes a deep breath, as the scrawny goon reaches out
for her.

She takes off in a sprint toward the car, completely
naked.  The guy standing at the doorstep, just watches for a second,
enjoying the view, as her breasts bounce freely.  Then he quickly snaps
out of it, when he realizes that she’s making a run for their car.

Aliah gets in the car and hits the lock, forgetting about
one important thing.  A key.  The ignition is empty, so she flaps
down the visor to look for one.  Papers fall onto her uncovered lap, but
there’s no key.  The skinny guy starts knocking on the window and
hollering at her.  The other guy rounds the car and stares at her from the
passenger window.

“Come on, lady.  We aren’t going to hurt you.”

“Yeah,” the skinny one agrees, with a cackling laugh that no
one trusts.  “We aren’t going to hurt you.”  He waggles a long, slimy
tongue at her.  “The boss lady wants to do that.”

With a pained look on her face, she whips open the glove
box.

Please… please be in here.

Again, more papers.  And whoa!  A gun.  She
takes it and immediately releases the safety.  Both of the men jump back
from the car when she checks to see whether it’s loaded.

“You left the gun loaded?  You dumbass!” the big guy
shouts.

“At least she hasn’t found the key.”

Aliah glances out at the skinny guy and smiles.  His
eyes show his fear.  He’s in trouble now.  He’ll get a beating later
for sure.  But she doesn’t care about him.  She still has to find the
damn key if she’s going to save herself from the wrath of fat-ass and slimy
tongue.

The car is surprisingly clean, but she doesn’t waste time
thinking about it.  She opens the compartment between the two seats and
instantly finds what she’s looking for.  She digs out the big key and
drives it into the ignition.  The expensive car purrs to life.

“You’re not going anywhere, doll,” the big guy shouts, as he
pulls out a handgun and points it right at her.

The dumb one manages to stop him from pulling the
trigger.  It gives her the second she needs to slam the car into reverse.

“But she said she wants her alive!”

Aliah puts the pedal to the metal, shooting stones at the
two men standing there.  She thinks she’s home free, as she cranks the
wheel and whips the car around, until it’s facing the open road.  She
starts hollering in triumph as she heads forward again, but screams when the
back window shatters from a bullet.  It’s hard to drive when you’re
ducking, but the bullets continue to fly.

Still terrified, long after she’s out of range to be hit,
she stays hunched in the front seat, until she sees headlights
approaching.  It could be Harley!  It could also be backup coming to
murder her good this time.

She reaches for the gun, with tears in her eyes, and
releases the steering wheel to cock it.  The SUV that’s coming looks like
Harley’s, but her eyes are too watery to tell for sure.  She squints her
eyes and slams her breaks, willing to take the chance.  She can’t let
Harley walk in on an attack.

As the vehicle passes, its brake lights instantly flash
red.  She jumps out of the car and points the gun directly at the driver’s
door.  Harley flies out of the vehicle and sprints to her side. 
Aliah’s crying when he rips the gun out of her hand and drops the mag of
bullets into his pocket.

“It was loaded,” she gasps.  “They were trying to kill
me.  I thought they would get you too.”

He pulls her into his arms, crushes her against his chest
and kisses her forehead.  “You take the SUV.  I’ll take care of this
one.”

“I’m not leaving you again.”  She’s putting her foot
down this time.

“That’s good.  I need you to follow me.”

She nods and turns to run for his SUV, knowing that time is
of the essence.

“Aliah?”

She turns back to him and glances at him with wide, wet
eyes.  “Yeah?”

“Where are your clothes?”

“Oh my God!” she shouts, just then realizing that she is stark
naked.  She covers her breasts and crosses her thighs, but it doesn’t help
the exposed feeling she suffers from.

Harley peels off his shirt and pulls it over her head. 
It’s big enough to cover her ass, and that will have to do.

“My jacket’s in the back seat if you’re cold.”  He
drops a kiss on her lips and stares right through her, with his thumb hanging
onto her chin.  “If they did anything to hurt you, I’ll kill them.”

“I’m okay,” she admits, though her voice defies her. 
It’s shaky and soft and breathy.

He kisses her again, and she lets him.  She’s too
shaken to fight his chaste acts of affection.  “Can you pop the trunk for
me?”

When he paces around the car and leaves her standing there,
she shivers.  Then she dutifully crawls back into the car, pulls open the
glove box and pops open the trunk.  She slides back out of the driver’s
door, and when she turns around is slammed with the sexiest image of Harley
holding a machine gun.  His gaze is deathly and he’s surrounded by
night.  Every muscle in his body looks tense, sweat glistening over his
large arms and across his firm chest.

“You say you’re alright, but these guns aren’t for a small
time investigation.  Brandee’s hired a fucking hitman.”

The look on his face is puckered, like he’s just barely hanging
onto his last shred of willpower to not go back and kill those two guys with
their own weapons.

“No.  The guy said I shouldn’t be killed.”

She says it fast – too fast.  She’s afraid it might be
the last straw that will send Harley over the edge.

To her surprise, Harley sighs and lowers the loaded gun to
his side.  “Let’s go.  We’d better get out of here.”

Harley lifts his trunk and hides the machine gun under a
heavy blanket, together with a few smaller weapons he finds in the car. 
She doesn’t ask any questions.

He walks her to the driver’s side door of his SUV and helps
her up into the seat.  “You stay right behind me, you hear?  Right on
my ass.  I don’t care what you have to do.  You understand?”

She nods and he kisses her again.  She closes her eyes,
unable to stop the onslaught of relief, even in the circumstances.  She
has never found such comfort in a kiss, but the touch of his lips gives her a
false sense of security.

“Let’s move, before someone else comes out this way.” 
He states it like an order, but she can’t help herself.

“Like, your friend maybe?  The one who lives on the
beach?”

“You mean my sister’s girlfriend?  She won’t be coming
out here for a while.  It’s only a vacation home.  I’ll have her
place fixed up before she ever knows that anything’s happened.”  He grabs
onto Aliah’s chin and presses a kiss against her lips.  Then he hurries to
the running car.

She closes the door to his SUV and snaps on her
seatbelt.  It takes a four point turn to get the beast turned in the other
direction down such a narrow road, but she isn’t taking any chances of putting
it into the ditches, that line either side of the road.  The car in front
of her doesn’t move until she’s inches from rear-ending it.  Then Harley
steps on the gas, knowing that she can handle a little speed.

Aliah follows him, having no clue what he’s thinking. 
A few minutes pass before more distance is put between them.  She can’t
seem to keep up.  Then they reach the end of the gravel road, where Harley
slams his breaks and veers right.  He opens the passenger window and
indicates that she is not to follow him, with a vicious point of his finger.

She watches the car tires spin and then gasps when Harley
dives out of the driver’s side door.  Aliah’s car now barely moves, but
she slams her breaks, kicking up dust not far from where she has just watched
her man expel himself from a moving vehicle.  Are her eyes working
right? 
Is that man crazy?

The car heads downhill, speeding toward the cliff. 
When she comes to a full stop, she watches the car climb over the edge of the
bank and disappear down the bluff.  A few seconds pass and a horrid
feeling creeps its way into her gut.

“Come on, Harley.  Where the hell are you?”

He needs to be okay right now.  She doesn’t know what
she’ll do if he doesn’t make it out of this alive.

Suddenly, Harley appears from the forest looking like a dark
angel.  He’s gazing directly at her, dimly lit by the headlights and
surrounded by a cloak of darkness.

He opens the driver’s door and she quickly shoves over to let
him take charge.  He has them flying out of there and far away, without
either of them feeling it necessary for words.  His hand is gripped around
hers like she is his lifeline, when really he is the only thing keeping her
from the edge.  If it weren’t for him, she would have jumped already.

It feels odd being in her own home again.  It has been
trashed and everything that she has appears to be torn apart or missing. 
Harley doesn’t think they’ll come looking for them back there for a while, and
she trusts his judgment.

They bathe together, but it’s completely out of necessity.
 She doesn’t want to be alone.  He washes her and she rests against
his chest, but their touch is not provocative or sexual in any way.  She
seems as upset with herself as he is with himself.  She lets the tears
flow, thinking he can’t see them mingling with the spray of water.  But
it’s like a stream of red from her eyes, spiking his adrenaline and making his
alpha core flood with anger.  Though he tries to hide it, there’s no more
hiding from her.

After towel drying her hair, Aliah slides onto the bed next
to where he has stretched out his muscular frame.  She smiles, when she
notices how he takes up the whole damn thing.  Her bed is not nearly big
enough for the two of them.  She has never found a good use for a queen
sized bed in the past.

She outright giggles, and that seems to capture Harley’s
undivided attention.

“What are you laughing at?”  He looks amazed by the
fact that she is able to laugh after what she has been through.

She was nearly killed.

“You.  You look like the Big Bad Wolf.”

He is both too tired and too troubled to follow up with her
in an instant.  But then she winks at him and it seems to draw out the
molten lava from his veins.

He lets out a smile of his own and leans over her, trapping
her beneath him.  “Did you just call me hairy?”

“Maybe.  It looks like you haven’t shaved in a few
days.  It’s okay though.  I think a little hair on you is incredibly
sexy.”  She draws her hand over the soft hair covering his chest.

Harley smirks.  “It’s funny.  Even when you’re
being a controlling witch, I’m still attracted to you.”

“Oh, Harley.  You’re such a sweetheart,” she teases
playfully.

He locks onto her wrist, and draws her hand to his
pants.  “This is no joke.”

She gasps for a breath when he presses her hand against his
oversized erection.  Then she takes a gulp in anticipation of what he
might do next.  He’s always surprising her with the magnitude of his
desire.  He wouldn’t have it any other way.