Twisted Games (Twisted, #2)

by Ana Huang

Any attraction I’d felt toward him crumbled into ash, dying the quickest death in my history with the opposite sex. Not that it would’ve gone anywhere. He was, after all, my bodyguard, but it would’ve been nice to have eye candy without wanting to drop-kick him into the next century.

Men. They always ruined it by opening their mouths.

Dark, mysterious, piercing. Rhys had the kind of eyes that saw straight into a person’s soul, stripping past layers of elaborate lies to reach the ugly truths underneath.

“I’d rather you hate me alive than love me dead.”

I could not be attracted to my bodyguard. Not in a way that gave me butterflies.

They’d only fluttered when we first met, but they’d died quickly after Rhys opened his mouth. Why were they returning now, when I had a full grasp of how insufferable he was?

“I suggest you stop lookin’ at me like that, Princess,” I said, my voice lethally soft. “Unless you plan on doing something about it.”

Forget propriety and protocol. If there was ever a time to live my life the way I wanted, it was now. And if Rhys had a problem with that? Too bad.

“Can I help you?” His tone dripped with disdain as he looked me over, obviously unimpressed by my lack of designer clothes and fancy accessories. Tough shit. Maybe he’d be more impressed by my fist in his face. “Yes.” I bared my teeth in a semblance of a smile. “Remove your hands from her before I remove them for you.” “And who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?” Vincent sneered. The man who’s about to pummel your face into a pulp.

“I’ll take good care of her.” Fuck pummeling his face. I wanted to knock all his teeth out.

I had as much romantic interest in Steffan as I did the succulent plant in my room.

If looks could kill, Rhys would’ve put Steffan six feet in the ground by now.

That’s what happens when I’m nervous. I start spouting all sorts of useless facts.

“I know he fits the image of Prince Charming, but you might want to keep looking.” Rhys unlocked the car doors. “I’ve seen you kiss a cat with more passion.”

“Perhaps…” Rhys’s touch skimmed down my neck and over the curve of my shoulder. I shivered, my skin blossoming with a thousand more goose bumps. “I was always meant to find my way to you.”

Bridget von Ascheberg was mine and mine alone. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t mine to take. I was taking her anyway, and if I could tattoo myself onto her skin, bury myself in her heart, and etch myself onto her soul, I would. Her eyes widened, but before she could respond, I closed the distance between us and grasped her chin with my hand. “But first, I want to make one thing clear. From this point on, you’re mine. No other man touches you. If they do…” My fingers dug into her skin. “I know seventy-nine ways to kill a man, and I can make seventy of them look like an accident. Understand?”

“Good.” I swiped my thumb over her bottom lip. “I want to hear you say it. Who do you belong to?” “You,” she whispered. I could smell her arousal already, sweet and heady, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. “That’s right,” I growled. “Me.”

“Remember. In public, you’re my princess, but in private, you’re my whore.”

But fuck, if she was an addiction, I never wanted to be cured.

I didn’t give a flying fuck. Bridget was mine. She wasn’t mine to take, but I was taking her anyway. Her laughs, her fears, her joy, and her pain. Every inch of her body and beat of her heart. All mine.

“You belong to me. I don’t give a fuck what the law or anyone else says. You are mine. Understand?”

Four days of not seeing her, talking to her, or knowing whether she was okay. Four days of fucking hell.

I might not know what love was, but I knew I was in love with Bridget von Ascheberg, to the point where even I—the man who was so good at denying himself anything good in life—couldn’t deny it.

It’d only been three days, and I already missed her so goddamned much I would’ve cut off my right arm for the chance to glimpse her in person,

“So you’re staying for six months?” She sounded both relieved and sad. Six months was a long time and nowhere long enough. “No, Princess. I’m staying for as long as you’re here.”

“I’m not leaving you. If you’re in Eldorra, I’m in Eldorra. If you’re in Antarctica, the Sahara, or the middle of the fucking ocean, I’m there. I’m as much yours as you are mine, Princess, and a law isn’t keeping me away. I don’t care what a piece of paper says. I’ll burn down the entire fucking Parliament if I have to.”

“If we do it, we do it together. You and me against the world, Princess.”

“Have you ever been in love, Mr. Larsen?” “Only once.” I slid my hand up from her neck to the back of her head, cupping it. “And you, Princess. Have you ever been in love?” “Only once,” she whispered.

“Kiss me like the world’s watching.”

A proposal was inevitable. I knew it, Bridget knew it, the world knew it. But just because something was inevitable didn’t mean it wasn’t important, and this was the most important moment of my life.

“I never believed in love. Never wanted it. I didn’t see the practical value, and to be honest, I was doing just fine without it. But then I met you. Your smile, your strength, your intelligence and compassion. Even your stubbornness and hardheadedness. You filled a part of my soul I always thought would be empty, and you healed scars I never knew existed. And I realized…it’s not that I didn’t believe in love before. It’s that I was saving it all for you.”

It wasn’t something I’d ever dreamed of or thought I wanted, but I would follow Bridget anywhere, from the smallest, shittiest town to the grandest church. As long as I was with her, I was happy.

We always end up where we’re meant to be.

Kidnapping, blackmail, betrayal…our path to where we were now was anything but conventional. I wasn’t a storybook princess, and Rhys wasn’t Prince Charming. I didn’t want us to be. Because while what we had wasn’t a traditional fairy tale by any means, it was ours. And it was forever.