Page 18 of Twisted

“That’s normal, you just need to get used to it.”

“O-ok,” she said, shaking like a leaf.

With one thrust, he buried himself in her. She cried out, but he kissed her, rocking his hips faster and faster. His hands continued to roam her body, somehow soothing.

“You’re doing so good,” he cooed time after time before he would grunt and hiss and cuss. “Fuck, so perfect, Maisie, so tight. You’ll be mine, right? You won’t leave me after tonight?”

“N-no,” she stuttered, so perplexed, so many emotions flowing through her body it was impossible to settle on one.

Instead, she chose numbness.

Carter seemed to quicken his pace, and then he let out a gurgled grunt, pausing deep inside her before he slumped back on the seat, chuckling to himself in his apparent bliss. Maisie shifted, unsure of what to do. Was she pregnant now? Didn’t her friends say she needed to pee right away? What was so warm and wet between her legs?

“I say we go get ice cream now, huh?”

Shaking, she offered him a nervous smile and a nod. Anything to get away from here, to get closer to home so she could talk to Marie. She felt so guilty, giving up her virginity so fast, but he loved her.He loved her!

With a quick yank, he pulled himself free, and Maisie glanced down, eyes watering at the sight of her virginal blood and his seed mingling on his slacks and dripping onto the leather seats. Carter’s gaze followed hers, and he jerked away, shoving her off him as he cussed. She caught herself on the headrests of the front seats, horrified and utterly embarrassed.

“Fuck, this is a rental, fuck you got fucking blood everywhere!”

Her throat tightened with the threat of tears.

“I-I’m so-sorry,” she croaked. “I’ll clean it!”

He closed his eyes, breathing in deep through his nose for a few moments. Maisie’s heart thudded as her tears spilled over. Finally, he glanced at her, his face softening.

“Come here, Maisie, it’s not your fault. I’ll buy the damn car if I have to. It will be my gift to you—a memento of our first date,” he said with a grin, his face once more composed. Shaky, she nodded, scooting forward into his awaiting embrace. He cradled her head, wrapping her in a strong embrace, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“You’re my girl now, Maisie. ‘Till death do us part.”

6

Maisie

Present Day

Her car rolled to a stop at an unmarked trailhead, the end of a long, winding dirt road. The sun streamed down through the canopy of leafy greens above them, and the humidity was beginning to choke her, even in the cool climate of her car. She shifted, both to alleviate the pain in her wrists brought on by the biting cuffs (how he had these handy, she didn’t care to think on), and also because she was simply terrified.

What was it they always said? Never let a kidnapper take you to a second location? And here she was, gulping down her fear at the very spot she’d trekked in to burn all of Carter’s documents—ones that would point back to her, evidence so incriminating she would fry in an electric chair for her sins.

Sins, she reminded herself, that were nothing in comparison to the horrors of Carter, or Randy—even Lindsay. Running her tongue over her top teeth, she squeezed her eyes shut and wracked her brain for everything she’d burned, just to be sure this freak next to her hadn’t somehow found a charred corner of a damning piece of evidence.

There was the hard drive for his computer; Carter’d had two, but much to Maisie’s dismay, she’d never been able to recover the second. She figured it was still at his office, and assuming the authorities never found it in his hiding spot (that she’d found accidentally once upon a time) then she was in the clear for a little while. She had been amping herself up to go for a visit with the secretary, to say she wanted some solace in his office to feel close to him. But that opportunity had been ripped from her by tattooed hands and all-consuming eyes.

There was the flash drive for their security camera system. That had been all too easy to swap out, and the police were none the wiser. Lindsay—the night of the murder—had been caught on camera entering their home and leaving fifteen minutes later.Dumb bitch, Maisie thought with acidity.

Then, there were the medical records; the plastic surgery, the lies on the forms to the doctors saying it had been an accident. The police knew the truth as Maisie had told it, and with no other person to corroborate, her truth was all they had. Lindsay, Randy, and Carter had all threatened Maisie on separate occasions to keep her mouth shut, but now that she didn’t have to, the floodgates were open, and she wasn’t even close to done.

The last thing Maisie had burned out of sheer spite and utter pain had been her positive pregnancy test and the subsequent forms filed for her abortion. That part of her soul where those memories resided was dark, depthless as a black hole, and she knew better than to think on it here and now. It had consumed her, haunted her waking dreams since it had all happened—her downfall.

The day she began plotting their murders.

She was snapped out of her harried thoughts as the man exited, strode around the front of her car, and opened her door. She refused to meet his gaze, to acknowledge the way he smelled as he leaned in and over her, unbuckling her seatbelt, their chests close to touching. He was warm, and he smelled like mint toothpaste, leather, and something musky—like sandalwood. It made her shiver, made her eyes close briefly in peace as her head swirled. That one sniff, his closeness, it had made her forget for a moment the direness of her situation, made her forget he was dangerous, that he had already hurt her and had promised more.

With a gentleness unbecoming of his rough appearance, he gripped her hips and helped to scoot her out until she was standing, teetering without the balance of her arms.

“This the place?”

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