Twisted Desire (The Twisted Series) (31 page)

Aliah’s smirking too, as she pulls a shirt over her
head.  When she reaches her arms up, she regains the attention of both
men.  She doesn’t realize it, until she pokes her head out the top. 
She freezes in place, but neither man removes his eyes from her chest. 
Her nipples harden from the sensual scrutiny, gearing her body up for another
round.  She covers her breasts with an arm, still shocked by the invasion.

“I can’t believe you!  You’re actually writing me up?”
she balks.

“No.  I’m writing
him
up.  Have a good
night.”  He salutes them and walks away from the car, making a quick
adjustment of his pants.  His sexy accent did nothing to ease her
disbelief.

The pair look up at each other at the same time and burst
into laughter.

“We’re fighting this one.  Even if I have to go flash
your abs to the judge,” Aliah jokes.  “No one will call my man’s ass
indecent and get away with it.”

Aliah’s overreaction has Harley howling with laughter.

“We do have some pretty bad luck when it comes to
cops.”  He slaps the ticket across his opposite hand, then tosses it into
the backseat.

“I would have to agree with you there.”  Aliah leans
over the seat for a kiss, no less provocative than before, and crawls into the
front with him.  He gropes her braless breasts, appreciating what God gave
her.

Harley kisses her too, ready to get back inside her. 
She can tell by the pressure of his tongue and the length of his cock.  He
looks out the rearview mirror but it doesn’t look like Spencer’s going anywhere.

“I can fix that,” Harley says, as he puts the window up.

He pulls the gear into drive and signals like a law abiding
citizen.  He drives down the road at a granny’s pace, until Spencer
finally gives up and passes them.  As soon as the SUV is out of their
sight, Harley pulls the car back over and pins her against him, his tongue
showing her how much he wants her.

They’re getting hot and heavy across the front console, when
lights flash in their back window.  Aliah pulls away and turns back to see
if the car is stopping and instantly ducks, with a scream, as the car rearends
them at full speed.  The impact alone sends Aliah’s head cracking against
the passenger window.

The car backs away, dragging Aliah’s car a few feet with
it.  Then it spins around and squeals off.  It looks like it’s
leaving.  But then it spins back around and starts coming for them again.

“Harley!” Aliah cries out.

He’s already one step ahead of her.  With the car
slammed into drive, he drops a heavy foot on the accelerator, as if he knows
exactly what is going to happen next.  “Are you okay?”

Aliah feels herself growing tired, dizziness causing her
brain to falter.  She can’t answer him.

“Aliah, stay with me.”

She touches her hand to her forehead.  She finds a
handful of blood.  She takes a deep breath.  “Oh God,” she
whispers.  It’s barely audible against the noise of her whining engine.

Within seconds, their playful night has turned into a high
speed chase.  She looks in the side mirror through the now speckled glass.

“Recognize that car?” he asks.

“Brandee.”  Without a doubt, that nut bag has come to
finish her off once and for all.

Aliah snaps on her seatbelt.  “I hope you know what
you’re doing.”

He digs his phone out of his pocket and dials up his
assistant.  “Jillian.  Call 911.  Tell them Brandee’s lost her
marbles.  She’s trying to run me off the road, most likely with the intent
to commit murder.  We’re heading east on Highway 42, just before the Rouge
river, and she’s right on our tail.”

“I’ve already got the police on the other line. 
They’re dispatching an officer as we speak.”

Aliah feels some relief, but as Brandee starts to gain on
them, that feeling quickly passes.  Her car has taken the hit pretty hard,
and the side panel is rubbing against one of the back tires.  The scent of
burning rubber hangs in her nose and the tang of blood is apparent in her
mouth.

“Ask them to send an ambulance too.  Aliah’s hurt
pretty bad.”

“Okay,” Jillian answers, and even Aliah can hear the fear in
her voice.  “David?”

“Yeah,” he says, leaving it on speakerphone.

“Be safe.”

Just as he goes to end the call, Brandee pulls up next to
them.

“Harley!” Aliah screeches.  But it’s too late.

As he looks toward Aliah, their gazes collide, and Brandee
rams into them, sending their car ramping up the river bank.  She would
never forget that penetrating stare that lasts a mere millisecond but burns
into her brain for all eternity.

That one hit sends her car sailing into the water.

The force of the crash locks her seatbelt and bruises her
neck.  Harley’s head smashes off the windshield, as her airbag deploys in
her face.  She’s stunned for a minute, but she recalls the severity of the
situation.  She pushes the airbag out of her way, to catch a breath, while
it tries to suffocate her.  When she finally makes contact with Harley’s
slumped form, she knows that he is unconscious.

Aliah’s freaks, but she doesn’t cry.  She can’t
cry.  She’s his only hope.

The car teeters on the surface of the water, but she’s read
about this a million times before.  The likelihood of them both escaping
this accident alive is not good.  One of them might be lucky to live.

She crawls on top of him and fumbles with his
seatbelt.  His arm is bleeding pretty bad and his recent facial wound
appears to be seeping red.  With the sharp edge of her battered car door
still piercing his skin, Aliah doesn’t know how she’s going to free him.

Aliah gets Harley’s seatbelt off of him, but he feels like
dead weight.  The car starts to sink and she starts to panic.  The longer
the car sits there, the more water seeps in through the cracked windshield and
demolished rear-end.  She doesn’t dare try to escape, until she has a plan
on how to get Harley out.  They’re both running out of time.

“Harley!”

She screams and shakes him, but he’s not responding. 
She yanks off her jacket and rips it in two.  She ties off his arm and
presses the other scrap against his bloody face.  He’s losing a lot of
blood.

“Oh, God.  We’re going to die in this car. 
Please, Harley.  You have to wake up.”  She holds her fingers against
his throat and finds a very weak pulse.

Suddenly, like an angel, Jillian’s voice comes from out of
nowhere.  Aliah wonders if she is dead.  Then she hears it again.

“Aliah, where are you?  You have to tell me where you are.”

Shaking out of her dizzy spell, Aliah presses the airbag
away and scours the floor for the phone.  “Jillian!” she shouts. 
“We’re in the river at the Anderson crossing.  Please send help.  We
don’t have much time,” she cries.

“David?”

“He’s out cold.  I can barely move him.”

“They’re already on their way, hun.  They shouldn’t be
long now.”

“Jillian.  Please tell Hannah I’m so sorry.  This
is all my fault.  I’m taking her dad away from her.  I’m sorry for
you too.”

“No.  I’m the sorry one,” Jillian answers.  “I
never meant for David to get hurt.  He wasn’t supposed to be driving.”

Aliah is stunned by her confession, but a throb in her head
won’t allow her to think on it.

“You listen to me, you hear?” Jillian states.  “Don’t
give up.  You’re David’s only shot.  I need you to save him. 
Get yourself out of there and scream for help.  That’s the best you can do
for him right now.”

“I can’t leave him,” Aliah whispers, feeling selfish for
wanting to share these last few minutes with him alone.

“You must!  He would be so irate right now if he knew
you were risking your life for him like this.  Don’t be stupid.  Stay
calm.  You can do this.”

Her words ring in Aliah’s ears.  A nervous laugh
trembles from her lips.  That is exactly what Harley would have said to her. 
She can’t give up.  She has faith in the emergency response team.

“What do I do?”  She pants, as the emergency vehicle
lights appear from up above like a white flash from the sky.  “Another
minute and we’re going under.”

“Get out,” Jillian answers.

Aliah refuses to listen to her.  “I have to get him out
first.”

“Get yourself out, Aliah.  Listen to me.  Harley
would never forgive himself if anything ever happened to you.”  There’s a
slight spark of jealousy that seems to lighten her words.

The tears start crashing down Aliah’s cheeks and mingle with
the water splashing in through the dashboard.  “I can’t leave him. 
Oh, God.  I don’t know what to do.”  She tries again to move him, as
the cabin begins to flood with water.

The cold tenses her already petrified muscles.  She
tries the door, but the pressure is too strong.  She starts kicking at the
cracked windshield, screaming, in an attempt to flag down some help.  It
takes all the energy she has, to break a small hole through the glass.

She cranks her head around when she sees someone next to the
car, yanking on the door.  But he’s not having any luck either.  With
another kick at the windshield, it breaks open, letting the water rush
inside.  She covers her head with an arm and passes through the broken glass. 
It claws across her skin, as she crawls out of the sinking car.  She gasps
for air, kneeling on the hood of the car, surrounded by water to her waist.

Forgetting about the glass, Aliah reaches back inside the
car and tries again to pull Harley from his seat.  He’s easier to move
now, with the water flowing freely around his body, but he’s pinned somehow, or
he’s too heavy.  She doesn’t know.

“I can’t get him,” she screams, her heart seizing in her
chest.  “Help me, God damn it.  Please, Harley.  I love
you.  You can’t die on me.”

She’s so blind with fear that she doesn’t notice Spencer’s
the one dropping in the water and swimming toward her.

“I’m going to help you, Ally.  Grab onto this.”

When he offers her a buoyant object, she tosses it away and
screams at him.

“Don’t worry about me!  Save Harley!  I need you
to help me save him.  Please!” she screams, as she feels the dizzy spell
take her.

She chokes on some water and feels her muscles seizing
up.  She feels herself going under the water, and she can’t bring herself
back to the surface.  She feels like she’s thrashing for help, but her
body is completely limp and she submerges with her eyes wide open.

She turns her head under the water and sees a blurry version
of Harley, still stuck in the driver’s seat, as the car begins to sink to the
bottom of the riverbed.  She squints at him, lost between dream and
reality.  Harley opens his eyes and smiles at her.

“I love you,” he mouths, as his eyes close again.

She closes her eyes, and slips completely unconscious, not
much caring about her own life anymore, since she can sense that Harley will no
longer be in it.

If Hannah Gates knows one thing, it’s that her father is a
fighter.  She sits by his bedside in tears.  He’s all she has
left.  If he leaves her, she has no one.  She just finally started to
feel like they had moved toward a new step in their life, with the addition of
Aliah in his.  And then this has to happen.

Is she doomed to a life without a parent?  It’s bad
enough God had to take her mother’s life too early.  She intends to put up
a fight of her own, if he thinks her dad’s time is up now.

Hannah watches the way her dad’s chest rises and falls, the
only thing maintaining her sanity.  The machines are constantly beeping,
but she has no idea what that’s supposed to mean.  She still welcomes the
noise to douse the horrible sound of him sucking on that oxygen mask.  A
tear slips from her eye as Jillian bursts into the room, unannounced.

“I came here as soon as I could!”

Was she supposed to care?

“Is he going to be okay?” Jillian asks her.

Hannah tries to keep a straight face, but the scowl is
unavoidable.  She has never liked her dad’s flirty blonde assistant with
long legs and an even longer nose.  That bitch lies.  She trusts her
as far as she can throw her, which isn’t very far at all.

“Hannah?” Jillian demands, dragging her out of her reverie
and back into her nightmare.  Jillian looks perturbed by her ignorance.

Give me a God-damned break.  My father is dying.

“He’ll be fine, as soon as he wakes up,” Hannah spits out,
unsure how else she can word it.

Jillian gathers that Hannah doesn’t like her very
much.  “Is that what the doctors are saying?”

“How did you even get in here?”

Jillian doesn’t trust her.  Hannah finds that
laughable.  Leave it up to a liar to have trust issues.

“Let’s drop the act,” Jillian croaks.  “Just tell me
that he’s going to be okay.”

Hannah shrugs her shoulders indifferently.  “You’ve
never listened to me before.  Why start now?”