Twisted (Delirium #1) Read Free Page A

twin dragons tangling over his heart, their necks nuzzling one another. Tear drops tumbled from the blue one’s grey eyes. My belly fluttered as I counted the blood red droplets.  
    Seven.
    I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Why are they bloody?”
    Silence greeted my question as my visual inspection continued, halting on the last drop above his naval. He closed the distance between us, but I didn’t have it in me to retreat. The dragons undid my resolve to avoid the past. A part of me wanted to slam the vault shut on the entire evening, this conversation, and quadruple lock it. If I commissioned NASA to shoot it to Mars or somewhere far, far outside my reach, maybe my heart wouldn’t pound in my chest—willing an answer I had no business wanting, much less hearing.
    Warm fingers fanned out on my cheek. His thumb settled beneath my chin and pulled upward until my gaze collided with the warm, gray ocean tinged with blue. A thousand worlds existed within the flecks and the masochist in me needed to know how many of them still revolved around me.
    Did any?
    His full lips drew closer, but I put my hand where the two dragons melded. “Why are they bloody?”
    “I’m thinking you aren’t ready for my answer yet. Hearing it’d probably make you turn tail and run so fast it’d give me whiplash.” He licked his lips. My pulse flailed, my mouth desert dry. He held my neck as his lips fluttered across mine. Hot breath swept across my skin.
    Arousal flared, a living breathing entity with a mind of its own. A growl rose from my gut as I seized hold of his shoulders and deepened the contact. Soap and shampoo wafted in my nostrils as my open eyes locked with Caleb’s. The eroticism flaring from the open-eyed kiss singed me clear to my toes.
    Wrapping my arms around him, I melted into his embrace. Tingles burst along my neck, behind my ear, chasing the hot, impassioned glide of Caleb’s mouth along my skin. Warm hands brushed from mid-thigh, trekking upward until they burrowed beneath my skirt and cupped my ass.
    “Holy shit, babe. You came to my gig wearing the hottest skirt around commando?” He growled in my ear as he fused our bodies together. A hardness settled against my lower stomach, my knees buckled. “You wear this shit often?”
    No answer calmed the turbulent storm swelling between us. A part of me wanted the gale-force attraction, but I wasn’t ready for the grown-up version of Caleb. I’d barely handled the kiddie-pool version years ago thanks in part to my ever-constant floaties—Bets and Penny. Penny pulse checked my BFF’s natural impulsiveness, but we’d lost her cautious ways a couple months after Twisted Delirium made tracks out of White Bluffs.
    Even the most cautious had their breaking point and Penny’s had been a shit-hot Harley rumbling between her legs with a ferocity matched by the man riding it. Last I heard they’d hooked up with an MC outside of Houston and she was entrenched in the lifestyle as his old lady.
    Caleb tugged my hair until I yelped in shock. Heat slithered through me, a warm shot of tequila on a cold night. Damn the man for remembering how hot I got when he did the tuggy thingy. Over the years I’d tried to recreate said tuggy thingy with a couple of other guys, but they lacked...
    The Bad Ass Factor Five, aka BAFF.
    Only Bets got the gist of BAFF. It was our thing and I doubted Caleb wanted to know he was the President and sole member of the Bad Ass Factor Five club as far as I was concerned. Bets had inducted quite a few over the years, but I’d shut my membership list down the second the founding entrant abandoned my ass in White Bluffs seven years earlier.
    “You aren’t listening to me, babe.”
    “I’ll listen if you answer. Why are they bloody?”
    The smirk on his face erupted into a panty-melting grin capable of getting all woman-kind horizontal in two point one seconds. “Tell you what. You come hang out with me at this thing I’ve gotta make an