Twisted Desire (The Twisted Series) (23 page)

The pressure alone has her insides twitching against his
swelling cock.  She squeezes onto him again.  He feels so hard, and
his groan is so strangled that she wonders if he’s already going to blow. 
She wishes he will, so she can find her own relief, since his hesitation seems
to keep her on the brink of ecstasy, without allowing her to find it.

Harley closes his lips and drives into her, slamming her
away from reality.  She moans wantonly, expressing how grateful she is for
his efforts.  He doesn’t let up, tightening every muscle in his amazing
body, holding himself there.  When his finger brushes her pussy, she comes
undone on top of him in a spiral of pleasure.  His eyes are alight with
satisfaction, as he follows seconds later, lifting upward from the magnitude of
his orgasm.

After a breath is caught, Aliah opens her eyes.  Harley
snares her lazy gaze for an electric moment.  She pulls away from him and
rolls aside, pressing her eyes closed.  Why does he always have to make it
so personal?  She feels her emotions churning, like a train chugging uphill. 
It’s only a matter of time before she reaches the top and has nowhere left to
go but crashing down.

Harley doesn’t speak as he takes her hand and pulls her to
the bathroom.  They share a steamy hot shower that is completely
functional.  After smoothing the soap over his sweaty chest and between
her thighs, he draws a finger up and down her spine.  Harley kisses the
part of her neck that becomes exposed when she rolls her head to the side.

There’s something affectionate about this moment that Aliah
refuses to admit.  But letting Harley wash her, tenderly caressing her
body out of affection rather than desire, has her head swimming.  She
wants to deny that she needs it, but it feels so right; much like their
relationship, despite all of its setbacks.

Aliah turns her face into the water and gives it a good
scrub.  She opens her mouth and breathes, though fully submersed in the
spray.  When she opens her eyes, she notices the flesh wounds marring
Harley’s otherwise magnificent body.  She makes to check the place where
the bullet has grazed his side, but he jumps from her touch.  He plays the
tough guy, but she wants to see who’s hiding beneath all that muscle and pride.

She leaves his war wounds alone and massages soap across his
shoulders and down his back.  Once they’re both rinsed clean, Harley turns
off the water and breaks the extended silence, as if he’s just then been
revived from a life-ending orgasm.

“That was unbelievable.  I didn’t realize I could cum
like that without making a single move.”

Aliah smirks, flaunting her beautifully naked form as she
dries her hair with a bath towel.  “Anything is possible with me,
sweetheart.”

Harley chuckles.  “It sounds like you’re stealing one
of my lines.”

“So you’re feeding me lines, are you?  What’s
next?”  She doesn’t mean for the conversation to turn serious, but he
instantly closes the distance between them until they’re but a breath away from
each other.

If she closes her shocked lips, they’ll be kissing his.

It looks like he has something important to say, but he
freezes.  An uncanny silence ensues.  His eyes become glued to hers.

“Someone’s here.  Keep your mouth shut,” he whispers.

He holds up a finger and listens some more, until the door
handle to their suite jiggles quietly.  His voice is low and raspy. 
“Follow me, and stay close.  We’re getting out of here.”

He wraps himself with the towel and raises his gun as he
peers out of the bathroom door.  He waves her forward and she immediately
runs to the black bags he’s packed for them.  She forgoes panties and
covers herself with a clean shirt and a pair of jeans with zippers slanting
across the legs.

Harley reaches his bag, after a few quick strides, and
stuffs some of her things into it, including their shoes, quietly kicking the
rest of her things under the bed to rid the room of evidence from their visit.

He covers himself with a pair of jeans and high tails it out
the balcony, after ushering Aliah out first.  She tries not to notice the
flex of his muscles as he helps her over the railing, but she can’t, even in
the dire circumstances.  She jumps to the ground and stumbles backward
when the bag lands next to her.  Harley hurls himself over the edge of the
railing, as a single blast shatters the glass door behind him.

“Run!” Harley shouts, as he covers her.

She races to his black SUV, as lights flash in the darkness
around them.  Rather than rounding the hood, Aliah opens the driver side
door and dives into the passenger seat.  Harley climbs in behind her and
has them squealing out of the parking lot before she even has a chance to snap
on her seatbelt.

They don’t speak while they’re on the road.  Their
salacious habits have obviously been getting them into trouble lately. 
They would be smart to keep each other’s bodies off the menu from now on.

Aliah watches Harley pull out his phone and glance in his
rear-view mirror.  He doesn’t ask for help, or look to her to explain what
the hell is going on.  She listens to him phone a friend.  A few of
the comments stick with her.

“I need a favor,” he says at first.

After an extended silence on his end of the phone, he adds,
“It’s an emergency.  Please?”

She hasn’t exactly known Harley for long, but what she has
noticed is that he’s not one to beg.  To hear him pleading makes her
realize the severity of this situation.  Aliah listens carefully and soon
realizes it is a woman on the other end of the line.  She strains to hear
the woman’s response.

“Well, if you’re using your manners with me, it must be
important.  You know where the key is.”

A flicker of jealousy shoots through Aliah’s veins like a
poisonous feed straight to her heart.  She feels like a mute piece of
candy, as she lets him drive her wherever he may.  She has no idea where
they’re going and she has no idea what they’re doing.  She only wishes she
could return to some semblance of normalcy.

If this situation, as it is, doesn’t resolve itself soon,
Aliah worries that there will not be a job for her back home when she returns.

Harley flashes a glance at Aliah, as he turns down a long
gravel road that seems to go on forever before it takes a bend and trails
perpendicular to the shore of the lake in a narrow, single lane.  There
are ditches on either side of them; ditches much too deep to drop off and
survive.

On one side of the road, all you see is cornfields. 
The stalks are already battling her for height.  The other side of the
road is covered in brush, except for a random clearing to expose the beauty of
the lake hiding behind it.

As Harley pulls up to the house at the end of the lane, he
glances at her again, suddenly feeling the need to explain himself.  She
had been too scared to ask.

“A friend owes me a favor.  This is her vacation home.”

Her.

Aliah’s jealousy doesn’t fade.  If anything, it hacks
at her chest harder.  She swallows her breath, trying not to feel the
wariness seeping into her veins.  A cold sweat sweeps across her entire
body.  Her limbs are limp, but she has to pull it together if she’s going
to stand her ground.  She doesn’t respond to him, but he keeps on talking.

“If someone has followed us, we will know it.”

But there is no one coming up behind them and even if
someone has, the sight of Harley’s oversized shotgun will be enough to scare
any man away.  The yard is eerily silent, except for the waves crashing
violently against the break wall and splattering everywhere.

Harley opens up the house and refuses her entry until he’s
searched the darkness for intruders.  Then he orders her to come in and
takes another survey of the yard surrounding the house.  He secures the
door and drops their things to the floor, now jammed into the one bag.  He
rummages through the cupboards looking for something edible and sighs. 
There’s nothing.  He turns to look at Aliah with raised brows.

“I have to go into town.  There’s nothing here.”

“I’ll come with you.”  She already feels a sharp
tension in the air.  She doesn’t want to be alone.

“It’s not safe.  You’ll stay here.”

“I don’t feel safe here, Harley.  Please don’t do
this.  Forget about the food for now.  Just stay,” she pleads.

“You’re starving and dehydrated.  I should have never
invaded your privacy.  You could have used the rest.”

“Don’t say that.  If you hadn’t joined me, there’s no
saying what could have happened back at the hotel.”  Her voice is now soft
and helpless.

When he cups her face, she closes her eyes and he strokes
her cheek with his thumb.  “I promised I would keep you safe, right? 
No one will find you here.  Will you stay?  Please?”

As if he isn’t already pushing all of her buttons, he adds,
“For me?”

Harley makes it to the grocery store in record time, but
something nags at him the entire way there.  Aliah had agreed to stay
back, but her pleading had very nearly killed him.  She needs food. 
There’s no doubt about that.  He feels responsible to keep her safe, but
he can’t bear to watch her starve.

Although he is certain she’ll be safe at the beach house, he
relies on his sharp instincts and only picks up the bare minimum.  The
late-night patrons are in his way and the cashier takes much too long, stopping
to chat about stupid shit he obviously could care less about.

After he loads up his trunk, he checks his phone. 
Aliah hasn’t tried to contact him.  Figuring she isn’t too interested in
talking to him right now, he pulls out his laptop.  Every time he’s pulled
out the thing, Aliah’s gotten all fidgety and nervous.  But there is some
serious work that needs done, and he can’t live another minute until he’s got
something.

He returns to the hotel parking lot to collect evidence, not
expecting the gang of police officers to hassle him with questions when he gets
there.  He feeds them a story that he and his lady friend were out when
the shooting took place and, lucky for him, the intruders had taken care of the
security cameras to corroborate his fictional story.

Harley doesn’t like the way Spencer Caldwell watches him,
brooding from afar.  He wonders if Caldwell too has a thing for
Aliah.  Focusing on the task at hand, Harley glances casually at the
ground.  Fresh tire tracks show that there were two vehicles there. 
One set looks bolder than the other.  They look awfully familiar, but he
doesn’t tell the cops that.

He’s certain the new set of tracks come from a GMC pickup
truck.  He’s seen those very same tracks printed across his office parking
lot over the past few years.

“Jillian.”

Harley rushes back to his vehicle and makes a call to a
buddy who works in a similar field.  He asks him to look up his assistant
at this ungodly hour to see if there’s any way he can make the connection
between her and Brandee Hawkins.  Harley recalls the time Jillian first met
Ms. Hawkins.  Jillian knows the girl, there’s no doubt about that. 
But he doesn’t expect what he finds out, while sitting in the hotel parking
lot.

There are no birth records in the name of Brandee
Hawkins.  Harley’s always known the police have been monitoring Brandee,
but he didn’t know she is living under an alias.  He opens the library’s
records online and searches the local high school’s annual year books, dating
back to when Aliah was attending there.  Once he narrows the search, he scrolls
through the pages for something to catch his attention.  His eyes grow
wide when he finds a single photo that puts it all together.

Without a doubt, this girl is a murderer.  A quick
Google search of Brandee’s maiden name brings up horrendous results. 
Though never convicted, it is a fact that three of her boyfriends have
strangely gone missing, only to be found murdered under mysterious
circumstances shortly thereafter.  It’s all there in the newspaper
articles.  He reads one himself, as vomit pools in his throat.

He’s been so wound up with his desire to claim Aliah that
he’s dropped the ball on this retainer.  He always does a background check
on his clients before taking on a case.  But this one seemed so simple and
Aliah was a case he didn’t want to give up for extenuating circumstances.

He skims to the bottom of the article to find out the result
of the heinous accusations.  The families have all pointed fingers, but no
one has been able to prove her guilt...  And now she has an unhealthy
obsession with Aliah.

Aliah!

This is all his fault.  He’s put her in danger and now
he’s left her all alone when she’d felt the threat and begged for nothing but
his company.  Even she felt the need to follow her hunch.  She wanted
him to stay; even while he was probably the last asshole she wanted to look at
right then.