Twisted Desire (The Twisted Series) (16 page)

Harley leans over top of her and plants a kiss on her
forehead.  Then he climbs onto the bed and huddles against her back. 
The moment feels so intimate, the room so quiet.  Everything about this
moment feels
just right
.  He hasn’t felt this way before. 
He’s putting Aliah’s needs before his own.  He can hear what her body’s
asking for.

Sex.

And
he
wants it too.  But more importantly he
can see what she needs even more.

Love.

Aliah is doing right by herself.  She is a smart girl
to protect her heart from the Big Bad Harley.  He’ll surely huff and puff
and blow her life in.  But she has failed herself.  She
has
let him in.

Why did she let me in?

Aliah reaches for his hand and wraps his arm all the way
around her.  He has a sudden urge to tell her the truth.  Right all
his wrongs.  Lay it all out on the table.

“Aliah?” he whispers.  He starts to think she’s fallen
asleep already.

“Yeah?”  Her voice is as soft as her curves.

“There’s something I have to tell you.”  He sighs and
he feels her cheek lift into a soft, contented smile.

Why is she smiling?

“Not tonight.  Okay?” she insists softly.

He doesn’t answer, and neither of them speak again, as they
fall asleep in each other’s arms.

Harley wakes and glances immediately at the alarm
clock.  It’s three in the morning, but Aliah is nowhere to be seen. 
He pads barefoot out of her bedroom and instantly finds her in the
kitchen.  She’s sitting in the dark chewing on her fingernails, the light
of the moon illuminating her beautiful features through the kitchen window.

She glances over her shoulder.  “I’m sorry.  Did I
wake you?”

“I can’t sleep,” he admits gruffly.

“Me either.”

He takes a few hesitant steps toward her and toys with a
piece of her hair that is dangling in her eyes.  She’s been crying, but he
won’t bring attention to the unattractive smears across her cheeks. 
Instead, he takes her hand and leads her back to the bedroom.

He slides into the bed first and tucks a few of her
decorative pillows against the headboard.  He opens up the covers and
drags her underneath them with him.  He props himself against the headboard,
and pulls Aliah toward him, until she’s flattened against his chest.

When she sighs softly, he knows he’s exactly what she
needs.  Whether she knows that herself yet or not is another thing.

Her eyes close, as he kisses her forehead, but there are no
more tears.  He isn’t sure he’d know what to do if there were.  He
strokes her hair and closes his own eyes, comforting himself with his
continuous caress.  He isn’t used to being this gentle.  It is a
different feeling, that is for sure.  But it feels good.

He’d never tell her this, but he can see himself wanting to
make her feel this good for many more nights to come.

Aliah awakes to an unfamiliar ringing sound and a sexy as
sin man standing in the corner of her room with his back to her.  She
gawks at the winged bird spread across his expansive upper back.  She’s
never seen anything more sexy.

After ending his call, he picks up his pants off the floor
and pulls them over each long leg.  His agile fingers have his shirt done
up in seconds flat.  She fears if she doesn’t say something quick, he’ll
be blasting out her door without saying goodbye.

“Harley?”  She rolls up to a sitting position and rubs
a tired eye.

“I have to go.”  Harley doesn’t say another word as he
pulls on his jacket.

Angered by his avoidance, she yanks off the covers and
retrieves her silky robe from the floor.  She heads to the kitchen before
wrapping her naked self up.  After getting her coffee going, she struts to
the bathroom, wearing nothing but the crumpled silk from the previous night.

When she returns, she finds her bed not only empty, but
made.  She takes off sprinting to find out where the hell Harley thinks
he’s going now.  She isn’t done with him yet.  He can’t just up and
leave when he pleases.  Not until she says so.

She stands in the door of the garage, with her arms folded
across her chest, watching the way he paces the driveway.  She wonders
what has him so muddled.  Then his eyes connect with hers.  It’s broad
daylight but still he looks dark and menacing.  It’s then when she
realizes she’s not wearing any panties.  A scalding heat pools at the
juncture between her thighs and her lips part for a breath.

“Why don’t you come back inside for a cup of coffee?”  Her
voice sounds soft, because she’s trying to act like it’s no big deal either
way.

The way he stares at her, she knows he’s heard her. 
His glance continues to sear her as he considers what he’s going to do
next.  She’s not about to make that decision for him.  In the blink
of an eye, Aliah flips her attitude upside down.

“I’ll be inside, in case you decide
not
to be a
prick.”  She goes for the dramatic bitch voice, hoping to make a
point.  Then she turns away and slams the door between them.

She can’t believe he was just going to take off.  Was
she the only one who thought they’d shared a special moment last night? 
He was probably too drunk to notice.

Why do I even care?

When the door opens behind her, she starts up the
steps.  She was not expecting that!  She hurries upstairs, but not
nearly fast enough.  Harley’s hand flattens against her ass, making a loud
smacking noise.

“Harley!” she screeches, feeling the sting across her naked
flesh.  The tingles sprinkle across her senses, only amplifying the delightful
ache she’s been suffering from since she’d opened her eyes.

“I’m sorry, but you can’t be flaunting that sexy thing
around my face and not expect me to touch it.”

She finds it hard to argue with the man, when he makes such
a good point.  She continues to her kitchen and immediately pulls two mugs
from an upper cabinet.  She reaches for the carafe and pours them each a
cup of coffee.  The only reason she knows he’s still seated behind her
now, is the scent that is undeniably Harley clouding her judgment.

Her eyes give a provocative look over her shoulder, but
she’s not quite smiling.

“Which one of those is for the prick?” he asks, trying to
get a rise out of her.

She smiles.  He always manages to get her body curling,
whether it’s her lips or her toes.  She hands him a mug.  But it’s
not just any mug.  She’s pulled out the special hot pink one with zebra
stripes, just for him.  She smiles, as she adds sugar to hers.  He
drinks his black.

Neither of them speak, but he’s looking down at her, waiting
for her to give him the time of day.  She can’t stop smirking, as her nose
hovers over her cup, hiding her smiling lips behind her plain black mug.

“You’re seriously going to make me drink from this one?”

Aliah glances up into those beautiful eyes and grins. 
“If you’re thirsty, you’ll drink it.”  She takes a sip from her simple
black mug.  “Mmm.  This is so good.”

Harley reaches out to take her mug and she has to turn away
to avoid him.  “Why can’t I drink from yours?”

She walks around the table and takes a seat at the opposite
end, while clinging to her coffee.  “I’ve already had my lips all over
it.”  She sticks out her chin, to teach him a lesson.  “That makes it
mine.”

He sips the coffee from his girly mug, and takes a seat on
the wobbly stool next to her.  He sears her with a glance that has her
desperate for air.  The memory of what had happened on that chair the
other night has them both fidgeting in their seats.  He tears off his
jacket, acknowledging the rising heat in the room, and it pulls at his shirt,
exposing a set of washboard abs.

He clears his throat.  “Following your theory then,
wouldn’t that make you
mine
?”  Another layer of clothes comes off,
until he’s beautifully bare chested.

She’s sure the deer-in-headlights look wasn’t the most
brilliant response.  But he freaks her out and she doesn’t know how else
to respond.  She anxiously licks at her lips.

“You really shouldn’t do that around me.”  The promise
in his growl terrifies her even more.

What the hell is he up to this morning?

Not quite sure how to handle Harley at the moment, Aliah
takes her leave to the washroom.  She blames it on the coffee she’s only
sipped on, but she knows
he knows
she’s only trying to hide from
him.  It is no wonder he’s started stripping.  The temperature in
that room seems to have spiked beyond one hundred degrees in a matter of
seconds.

Aliah stares at herself in the mirror, trying to look for
something, but not finding it.  Not having anything else to do, she turns
on the water and splashes her face.  The coolness helps a little, but she
still doesn’t know what to say to get Harley to stop with the sexy mushy shit.

Everything was going just fine until he’d said that!

She blows out a breath.  She knows she can’t hide in
the bathroom forever.  In fact, it was only a few minutes earlier that she
was practically begging him to come back inside.  Maybe she could tempt
him for another round in the bedroom before he takes off.  That would be
enough to take her mind off of other things.

With renewed confidence, Aliah opens the door. 
Harley’s not in the kitchen, and after peering in her bedroom, she realizes
he’s not there either.  She hasn’t heard the front door open or close, so
she assumes he’s roaming her house.

As she rounds the corner, she catches him casually slipping
into her spare bedroom.  She peers in the door and decides to keep quiet
and see how long it takes for him to realize that she’s there with him. 
He takes a good look at her desk, like he’s looking for something, then he
flips through her mail with a fleeting glance.  There’s nothing out of the
ordinary he’s going to find there.  Junk mail.  Bills.  More
bills.

She finds it difficult to concentrate on what he’s doing,
when he’s shirtless, with the sexiest of tattoos painted across his back. 
Then he seems to redirect his attention to the diploma framed on the wall.

Shit!

As he reads it over, she watches his mug drop to the ceramic
floor.  It crashes with a horrific clash of sounds, as chunks and shards
scatter and black coffee splatters across the floor, staining her desk and
wall.

“Looking for something?”  Aliah stands in the doorway
with her arms clutched across her chest, trying really hard not to
overreact.  She still appears on edge, as if he is nosing around where he
doesn’t belong.

That’s because he is.

“I see you have a university degree, and you’ve graduated
from a prestigious law school.”  He points it out like it’s an utterly
shocking find.

“Yeah.  So?”  Her posture doesn’t budge.

Harley raises his eyebrows.  “I’m impressed.” 
Then those sexy eyes scour her body.  “That’s a mighty accomplishment for
a lowly bartender.”

That is a low blow!

“Lowly?  Get out of my face.”  She spins away,
scoots to her bedroom and slams the door shut.  “Asshole,” she adds, under
her breath.  She is truly pissed.

He has really done it now.  He invades her privacy,
mocks an honorable profession and calls her names, all in a matter of
minutes.  He really has no clue what he’s doing when it comes to
women.  Especially this one.

She doesn’t claim to be special.  But Harley really is
clueless.  Master in her bedroom, he is.  A danger to her heart, for
sure.  But it is clear he hasn’t had the life experience to know how to
deal with women.  Even Aliah’s four brothers have more concern for her
feelings than he, and you would think they had been born in a barn.

As she contemplates staying locked up in her bedroom
forever, Harley’s on the other side of the door, without any ideas up his
sleeve.  He grabs his jacket and pulls it on over his shirtless
chest.  If she needs some time to settle, then he will give it to
her.  He stands outside her door, with his forehead almost pressed against
it.  He can’t hear anything.  That makes him worry.