Twisted Secrets

by Keta Kendric

  “Aaron?” I didn’t know if I was asking a question or making a statement. His skin sliding under my fingers felt real. His familiar masculine scent drifting into my nose smelled real. His handsome face filling my gaze looked real.

  “If you’re alive, tell me how? We left you. We…left…you, and you’re not dead?”

  He pulled me to his strong chest, enfolding me into his arms. Breathing him in, I melted into his warm embrace. If I was going crazy, I didn’t care anymore. I’d gotten Aaron back whether it was all in my head or not. I tightened my grip on him, savoring his scent and loving the warmth he always enveloped me in.

  “It’s a long story of how I survived and I’m still alive.” He released me and backed away, and I followed him out of the door, not wanting him to leave me again. My hands reached out desperately as fat tears pooled in my eyes. My fingers wiggled, frantically trying to will him back into my arms.

  He signaled for someone to come closer, causing me to finally take my eyes off him. A pretty lady who resembled J-Lo, only darker, walked closer with a wide smile on her face. I stared from Aaron to the lady, wondering why my twisted mind would bring another woman into my fantasy.

  “Megan, this is Dr. Regina, D-d…um…Davis. She saved my life.”

  The lady could have been Native American, Middle Eastern, or Hispanic. Her beauty was praiseworthy. The sight of her brought back that nagging voice, telling me that I’d lost my whole mind.

  She reached out, and I stared at her hand for a paused moment before I forced myself to take it. She felt as real as Aaron had felt. I felt her warmth and the grip of her hand over mine was real. I wasn’t crazy, was I?

  Aaron retook his position in front of me. He isn’t dead? He isn’t dead? He isn’t dead. I repeated the words internally until I made myself believe them. The idea of having him back caused an overpowering amount of happiness to stream through me.

  Aaron continued to stand in front of me and appeared as stunned as I was. His blue eyes softened, holding me in place and keeping me in the moment with him. I stared, not saying anything. I wasn’t even blinking. I teetered as my mind fought to keep me in the right head space and time, and I almost fell into Dr. Regina.

  My body wavered, and Regina caught me. “I’ve got you,” she said, catching me with a strong grip. She slid one of her arms under my shoulders and kept it there. It hadn’t dawned on me that Aaron had taken hold of my other arm until his hand slid around my waist, jarring me from my trance.

  “Let’s go in and have a seat,” Aaron suggested as he pointed into Ansel’s living room. “That way, I can tell you the story of how I’m alive and where I’ve been for the last six months.”

  Sandwiched between my seemingly resurrected boyfriend and the doctor who saved him from death, I struggled on weak legs as I was nearly carried to the couch.

  My feet scraped against the shiny ceramic floor as I stared up into Aaron’s face, fascinated that he was here with me. I wanted to talk. I wanted to tell him how much I’d missed him. I wanted him to know how much I loved him. I had so much to say to him, but I had developed a serious case of word jumbling. “Itz, I leez,” Everything I attempted to convey sounded like a load of gibberish.

  Eventually, I stopped trying to talk because talking was obviously not working for me. I relied on my other senses, and at the moment, sight was what I focused on. Aaron had a large scar that ran from his temple to midway down the left side of his head, but he was still the most handsome man I’d ever met. I breathed him in and relished his all-consuming presence.

  Once Aaron and the doctor had me standing in front of the sofa, I fell back into the stiff, leathery cushions, releasing a loud sigh with my eyes fixated at Aaron. I didn’t want to lose sight of him.

  “Megan, where’s the kitchen? I’ll get you some water,” the doctor asked on the other side of me. Without glancing in her direction, I pointed absently towards the kitchen, not sure I had pointed in the right direction. My gaze was trained completely on Aaron. He’d been shot to death, yet here he stood, staring down at me, and looking like a handsome god. In loose-fitting jeans, a white T-shirt, and black boots, he had my full attention.

  When he sat beside me, his warmth enveloped me, making me perk with an energy I hadn’t felt in months. His hands closed around mine that were still shaking.

  “The doctor said my body must have found a way to shut itself down after I was shot, to preserve my life for as long as it could. Whatever happened, it worked. By the time I was handed over to the doctor to toss in the incinerator, she’d noticed I wasn’t dead and took care of me.”

  The story Aaron was telling me was almost unreal. He’d cheated death more times in one day than a deer crossing six lanes of rush hour traffic. I couldn’t stop smiling at him, staring, and squeezing his hand, ensuring myself over and over that he was real.

  I’d all but forgotten about the doctor until she returned from the kitchen. She opened and handed me the cold bottle of water, which I gulped while my gaze volleyed between her and Aaron. I didn’t stop until I’d taken in more than half of the bottle. The doctor was there, standing in front of me. She took the half-finished bottle back, leaving me sitting there, dumbstruck, without anything to occupy my mind except the image of Aaron.

  “Regina was a prisoner of DG6 like I was, so when we escaped, we escaped together. I wouldn’t have made it off that farm without her. I wouldn’t be alive if it hadn’t been for her.”

  When I didn’t respond, he reassured me. “It’s me, Megan.” He pulled me to his chest, folding me snuggly in his strong arms. I was starting to accept that it really was him, but I was so flooded with emotions, I couldn’t decide what to do first.

  I jumped up onto the couch, my crazed movements causing the doctor to lean away from me. Kneeling next to Aaron, I cupped his face. My fingers tapped across his strong shoulders and rubbed the firm lines of his muscular arms. I was like a kid who’d gotten the one gift that made all the others worthless.

  “Come here,” he said in that low husky voice that always did things to my body. My lips collided into his as my body followed. Next thing I knew, I was straddling him, so deep into the hot kiss that I’d forgotten the doctor until the sound of her throat clearing registered.

  Aaron and I glanced at her, who had a wide smile spread across her lips. “Now, I see why he couldn’t forget you, memory loss and all.”

  “Memory loss?” I questioned, glancing back into Aaron’s unreadable gaze.

  “Minor setback,” he said with confidence, but I knew him well enough to know that he’d been to hell and back.

  Dr. Regina stood. “Is it okay if I take a shower?” She patted the black bag she carried that I’d noticed for the first time. “August wouldn’t stop at any hotels, so I had to rough it, taking turns driving and catching naps in the four vehicles we acquired along the way. Not to mention, us driving hundreds of miles off course to throw off potential followers.”

  August?

  It didn’t matter what the doctor called him. She’d saved him. The last thing I wanted to do was leave Aaron, but the doctor was the reason he was here, so I left his warmth to accompany her to one of Ansel’s spare bathrooms.

  I kept glancing back at Aaron who was smiling the entire time as I led the doctor deeper into Ansel’s house.

  I could sense her gaze on me as I remained standing in the hall and opened the door to one of the spare bathrooms.

  “I’ve never seen a couple like you two,” she volunteered. “That man was at death’s door, couldn’t remember his own name, but he was calling your name in his sleep. I’ve seen and studied a lot, but this is the first time I’ve seen a couple react to each other the way you two do. It’s pretty amazing.”

  I didn’t know what the doctor saw when she’d observed Aaron and me. We were just us. I didn’t know what to say to her, so I shrugged. “I can’t explain it. We just get each other.”

  I gestured for her to enter. I was so anxious to get back to Aaron that m
y left leg started jumping.

  “Towels are in that cabinet and soap choices are inside the shower on the caddy,” I informed her, my leg picking up its pace, trying to tame my anxiousness to get back to the one thing that meant everything to me.

  “Thanks,” she said as she walked past me. I closed the door and started to take off at a run, but I didn’t have to because Aaron was standing in the hallway waiting for me. I literally flew into his arms. We squeezed and hugged and kissed, enjoying each other.

  “You are everything to me, Aaron—the peace I need for my mind to heal and the strength my heart needs to mend old wounds. The—” He kissed me, stopping my words that had finally started to flow. Only when I was thoroughly kissed and breathless did Aaron ease back.

  His lips sat next to my ear, “I need you to call Ansel. His men said he was at a business meeting. See if you can get him to come back, but don’t tell him I’m here. I want to shock his ass.”

  Chapter Two

  Ansel

  An urgent call from Megan was never a good thing. The poor girl had finally started to function like a normal person again. “I knew I shouldn’t have left her at the house alone,” I fussed at myself. I’d done it before, now that she wasn’t on suicide watch anymore, but I was always wary of leaving her alone. Aaron’s death had sent her so far into the depths of depression that I’d had to hire a nurse to take care of her for the first three months.

  I’d been so busy lately working on my master plan to take the head off DG6 that I hadn’t had much time with Megan. Like Aaron, she’d somehow wiggled her way into my heart, and as much as I hated to admit it to myself, I’d been weakened by the connection I shared with her.

  There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to keep her safe, just like there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to avenge my cousin. That’s why after nearly six months of patience, the heads of DG6’s empire were about to get chopped clean off. I, along with D, Dax, Scott, Marcus, and more of my friends who were acting as guards at my house, were going to take DG6 down.

  When I drove up to my gate, Rob avoided my eyes and hurriedly waved me through. His post near the front gate was an underground station, so why was he standing out in the opening? The tension around the edges of his mouth gave way to a forced smile.

  “Something wrong, Rob?”

  “No, nothing. All good,” he answered, but I didn’t believe him.

  Dude stood at his post, ramrod straight like one of those soldiers that guarded Buckingham Palace.

  I drove through the gate at a leisurely pace, taking in the men’s bemused expressions. I sat my gun in my lap in case they were trying to signal me somehow. What the hell could have been wrong with Megan if the men were outside and still alive at their posts?

  The house wasn’t on fire. Because of the men’s weird expressions, a certain level of uneasiness plagued me. I was anxious to see what the hell was going on, but I intended to be careful about it.

  I pulled my car into the garage, left the garage open, and walked around to the back of the house. What the fuck was going on around my fucking house? Nothing was in disarray. However, the sense that something was amiss rode my back with bucking legs, heels dug into my sides.

  My best bet was to go in through the back door in case something was going down. If someone had gotten in there with Megan, they’d better have a fucking army with them because my trigger finger was itching like a motherfucker, and I damn sure had backup.

  My gaze traveled to JG’s and Hwang’s hidden posts, although I knew the men weren’t on duty. Everything appeared to be okay, so why was my fucking danger meter going haywire? I turned the knob to my back door after easing the key into the lock and turning it as quietly as I could. Slipping into my kitchen, I didn’t hear anything, but the sight of a beautiful woman sitting at my table eating a plate of whatever Megan had cooked, stopped me in my tracks.

  “Hello,” fell from my lips as I loosened the grip on my gun, but I wasn’t foolish enough to put it away.

  “Hello,” she greeted as her sexy lips went into a tight smile. Her gaze panned down to the gun in my hand before lifting and reconnecting with mine. Although the sight of my gun put some tension in her body, a hint of mischief lingered in her gaze and hinted that she knew a secret that I didn’t know. The woman was gorgeous, smoking hot. But, who the hell was she and more importantly, where the hell was Megan?

  On cue, Megan walked into the kitchen. She rushed me, throwing her arms around my neck before placing a sweet kiss on my cheek. When she backed away, she waved her hand towards the woman who ran her hands over her jean-clad legs as she stood.

  “Ansel, I’d like you to meet Dr. Regina…Davis.”

  Doctor? I took her offered hand after I switched my gun over to my left hand, squeezing her hand between mine. Her hand was soft and warm like the way I just knew the rest of her was.

  “Pleased to meet you, An…sel?”

  “Ansel,” I repeated, eyeballing the hell out of her. I bit into my bottom lip, unable to keep myself from admiring the full-frontal view of her. Those big, brown, gorgeous, bedroom eyes called my name. That long flowing ponytail that sat over her shoulder was waiting for me to give it a tug. That honey-hued skin that did a remarkable job of hiding her true ethnicity was aching for my caress. She was brown enough to be African-American, but her features were exotic, so she could have also been Hispanic or Native American. She had real woman curves, nice full breasts, a slim waist and curvy hips. I couldn’t see her ass, but I knew she had a nice round one, the kind I could picture myself spanking.

  Keeping the doctor’s hand in mine, I turned to glance at Megan. Her gaze skimmed the gun in my hand and the doctor’s hand still locked in my other. I noticed the doctor hadn’t bothered pulling her hand away from mine. She was either brave or unaware of just how crazy I was.

  When I finally let the doctor’s hand go, she backed away and retook her seat at the table. Megan needed to start explaining some shit. I’d been working on my patience since Aaron’s death, but that had been in small doses.

  Megan glanced up at me with a tight smile. The amount of fucking innocence the woman could dredge up should have been against the damn law. “I’m sorry if my call stressed you out, Ansel, but there is something you have to see.”

  She’d sounded stressed and anxious on the phone. Now, all I wanted to know was who this doctor was and how the hell she’d gotten into my house. The guards had specific orders to shoot to kill if they didn’t know who it was and if that person or persons insisted on coming in.

  Megan must have read my mind because she started to explain. “Ansel, I wanted you to meet Regina because she gave us a priceless gift, one that I know you’re going to be as happy to receive as I was.”

  “What in the hell are you talking about Megan?” I asked as my gaze bounced back and forth between Megan and Regina. I didn’t know this woman. However, I could see her tied to my bed as I sexed her crazy. Mind over impulses, Ansel, I reminded myself, thinking of the situation at hand.

  “How the fuck could this woman who I don’t know give us a gift?” I asked Megan, my patience wavering.

  Megan was used to my abrasive tone, so her expression didn’t change.

  “Megan, if your secretive little ass has more friends out there that I don’t know about, I’m going to throttle you.” I leveled a mean glare at Megan, knowing my ass couldn’t stay mad at her for any length of time.

  She raised her hand towards me in a pleading manner. “Ansel, will you put the gun away please?”

  A heaving sigh left me, but I reluctantly reached under my jacket and tucked the gun into the back of my pants, ensuring it could be easily reached.

  “Come in here!” Megan called over her shoulder. My gaze followed her voice towards the entrance to my kitchen. The first sight of him froze me in place. My fucking heart was about to slide clean from my chest. This couldn’t be a sick and twisted joke, could it?

  “Ansel,” he called. His voice was one I’d
never forget, one that had fed strength into me many times over.

  I was staring at a fucking ghost. I couldn’t move. My bad ass couldn’t talk. I couldn’t even think. My lips moved, but my words remained lodged in my bobbing throat. Those eyes had invaded my dreams for months. I’d stared into them as life drained from his body. That fucking face had been haunting me since the day he’d died.

  He approached with a cautious stride and stopped within a few feet of me as I stood, staring at him staring at me. To say that I was speechless was a fucking understatement.

  “Aaron?” I questioned, my mind not fully accepting that my cousin was standing in my kitchen right in front of me. At nearly the same height, we mirrored each other. His hair was chopped low now like mine, and he’d just started to grow his beard back. Except for a wicked scar on the top of his head, he looked like my damn cousin.

  “Yes. It’s me,” he said, his tone low but assuring.

  “I thought you were…were…” I couldn’t form a complete sentence to save my fucking life.

  “I was,” Aaron confirmed. “At least, I thought I was dead until I woke up four and a half months later at that damn farm under Dr. Regina’s care. It’s a long fucking story, Ansel.”

  My gazed scanned him, still trying to decide if he was there. Before I could catch myself, I launched myself at him, holding him in a tight grip that he returned. I didn’t know how the fuck he’d survived death, but I’d seen him die. Now, he was here, flesh and fucking blood, still among the living. The toughest motherfucker I knew.

  “What the fuck is going on? How the fuck did you?” I sputtered, backing away to get a better look at him.

  My neck snapped back and forth between the sexy doctor, Megan, and Aaron to make sure my ass hadn’t caught Megan’s crazy disease.

  “How man? How the fuck did you survive that shit? We left you because we thought you were dead. I can’t believe we fucking left you. D and I went back for you, but they had taken your body.”

  I was a sack of shit for leaving him, but Aaron must have noticed my regret because he placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder.