Twisted Games (Twisted, #2)

by Ana Huang

“So.” Bridget tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her hand trembling. “Now that we’re here, what do you have planned, Mr. Larsen?” I smiled, slow and wicked, and a small, visible shiver rippled through her body. “I have lots of plans for you, princess, and every single one ends with my fingers, tongue, or cock inside your sweet little cunt.” I didn’t waste time beating around the bush. This had been two years in the making, ever since I stepped onto her driveway and saw her staring back at me with those big, blue eyes. 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 into 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?”

“Trust me, princess. I would rather end my own life than ask you to do anything that might hurt you.”

I wet my lips, dying to touch him, but knowing it was in my best interest not to move until he told me to. “Bra. Off.” Two seconds later, white lace joined green silk on the floor. I reached down to shimmy out of my underwear, but a low growl halted my movements. “I didn’t tell you to do that.” Rhys’s eyes lingered on my breasts, and my nipples, already so hard they could cut glass, pebbled further. “Keep your underwear, gloves, and heels on,” he said, still in that deceptively soft tone. “And crawl to me.”

“Shh, it’s okay.” I kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair, a heaviness sinking into my bones at the sound of her soft sniffles. I’d weathered artillery fire, nighttime missions in subarctic temperatures, and more broken bones and near-fatal injuries than I could count, but Bridget crying came closer to breaking me than all those things combined.

“Let me figure out the how. As for the why…” I pressed her tighter to me. “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.”

She let out a soft laugh. “You’re insatiable,” she said, turning the word I’d used for her against me. “When it comes to you?” I kissed her jaw. “Always.” Bridget’s eyes turned liquid beneath the moonlight, and her hold on me tightened. “I love you.” Another breath rushed out of me. “I love you too,” I said, my voice gruff with long-buried emotion. I kissed her again. Her mouth against mine, her limbs wrapped around my body, our breaths and heartbeats mingling until they were one…I’d lived in hell my whole life, and it wasn’t until now I glimpsed what heaven felt like.

“I’m not the best at flowery language, so I’ll keep it simple.” Fuck, was my voice shaking? I hoped not. “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.”