Page 41 of Twisted
Smiling softly, I pull her close and whisper against the mouth I’m aching to taste. “I love YOU, Katherine. Not some faceless, empty-headed society woman with no conversation or backbone. I want my bright, sharp, wickedly funny, sexy girl who sets my pulse racing and my heart on fire. You’re no whore, you never have been. You’re just a broken woman who searched for herself in all the wrong places. I want to show you what it feels like to be loved completely and irrevocably by the man who wants nothing more out of life than to see a smile on your lips and that spark in your eyes. I want you, Katherine. The lost girl hidden inside the confident woman. You are everything.”
Her eyes fill with tears and soften with happiness. I watch with fascination as her lip trembles and the tears spill from those long, dark, lashes. She nods and says in the barest whisper. “I love you, Sam. I mean that with every part of my soul. I never knew what love was until I found you. Thank you for being the one.”
Ryder may as well be the furniture because I register nothing but my need to take the woman I love in my arms and kiss her pain away. As I go to do just that, there’s a terse, “Get a fucking move on, will you? The Feds need to wrap this up and we need to finish the job.”
Ryder laughs as we look up and see his right-hand man glaring at us from the open door. Katherine laughs softly as she sees the beast filling the doorway with more muscle than man. He’s a ferocious sight with the tattoo of asnakedecorating the huge arm holding onto the door handle. Katherine smiles. “Good to see you,Snake.”
He winks. “Same. You’re looking good, but then you always did, darlin’.”
I feel myself bristling with anger, but Katherine squeezes my hand and stands up. She says softly.
“I’ll grab my dress from the other room and like the man said, let’s wrap this up.”
We watch her leave andSnakefollows her. As soon as the door clicks shut behind them I turn to Ryder and before I can talk myself out of probably the most fucking stupid thing I’ll ever do, I take a swing and punch him hard.
I growl. “You fucking bastard. How could you use her like that?”
Ryder comes back at me and pushes me against the wall by my throat. He always was a machine, and I knew I’d only get one shot at it. I glare at him as he snarls, “Don’t you think I don’t know what a bastard I am. I always have been, and I always will. I know I broke that poor girl, and I still did what I wanted because I’m a selfish bastard.”
I kick his legs away and as he stumbles, I take my chance. Pushing him away from me, I kick him hard in the knee and as he falls, he pulls me down with him. We trade punch for punch until we hear a loud, “For fuck’s sake, guys, stop fooling around and get me the hell out of here.”
Her words are like a bucket of ice cold water and I pull back and look in her direction. Katherine is standing watching us with her arms folded and her eyes flashing, looking totally pissed off. Snake stands beside her and is obviously finding this whole thing very enjoyable as he grins at us.
I shake myself and look back into the cold, dead eyes of the man I owe my life to, yet I want to kill at this moment.
He smiles ruefully.
“I deserved that, Sam. Feel free to beat the shit out of me if I ever step out of line with your lady again.”
I nod, still fuming with him, but that’s in the past now. We snap from time to time, it’s always been the same, but we’re still brothers in arms and trust each other with our lives.
He holds out his hand and I see the remorse in his eyes as he says softly. “Come on, we shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves like this. We’ve still got a job to do.”
Nodding, I take his hand and as we stand to face the two-people watching us, I take a deep breath. Ryder’s right, we still have work to do.
Turning toward Katherine, I smile softly.
“Come on darlin’, I’m taking you home.”
Ryder interrupts.
“Kitty needs to leave with us, Sam. If anyone’s watching, that’s part of the operation. They need to think she’s being disposed of and can’t be seen with you.”
I glare at him angrily, and then Katherine moves across and takes my hand. As soon as I feel her soft hand in mine, nothing else matters. She looks at me with a look of such love it blows my mind.
She whispers, “Ryder’s right. We’ve come too far to ruin it now.”
She turns to him. “If I leave with you, is it possible to take me to Sam’s? Would anyone be watching his apartment?”
Ryder shakes his head. “Not a good idea. It’s the first place they’ll look. The safest place is the compound. Nobody would suspect a thing and think we’re just storing you until we ship you out.”
Katherine sighs and I see the pain enter her eyes. Turning to Ryder, I say in a hard voice. “You don’t need to do that. I’ve arranged everything already.”
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out an envelope with the instructions he needs. “There’s a plane waiting at a private airfield just out of town. The flight’s been booked under an assumed name set up for this purpose. Take Katherine there and the pilot knows where to take her.”
I look at Katherine and my heart beats wildly as I see the worry in her eyes.
She says shakily, “Where is it, will you be coming with me?”