Twisted By Love, Reincarnation Tales, Book 1 (28 page)

“No more secrets, I promise.” He reached out
to hold her finger, in case she poked him with it. “Does that mean
you believe me?”

She blinked. But she never answered. In the
silence, they both heard it, the click of Livie’s dead bolt.

“Livie, are you home? Oh my God, I heard it
on the news. Is he okay?”

Toni stopped in the bedroom doorway, her hand
on the jamb, one heel suspended six inches off the floor. As if she
were completely surprised to find him lying on her sister’s
bed.

Then she put a hand to her chest and gasped.
“Oh thank you God, you’re all right.”

Livie looked at him. Something sad bloomed in
her gaze.

Bern slid to the side of the bed and stood.
Even with his head in bandages and his entire body one big ache, he
wasn’t facing off with that bitch while he was flat on his
back.

Yet it was Livie who spoke. “Toni, where were
you on Wednesday when you called me about dinner?”

Toni cocked her head and stared at her
sister, her brows knit in confusion. “What are you talking about?
Wednesday? I called you?” She put two fingers to her temple. “Oh,
you mean in the evening, because we were supposed to meet at seven.
Why I was on my way to the restaurant, but I was running late.” She
was good. She had it down. “But you said you couldn’t make it.
Remember?”

She was skillful, trying to make Livie her
alibi. He wouldn’t let her get away with the innocent act. “You
were in Red Cliff. Up at the rock house. Did you think I didn’t see
you, Toni?” The lie didn’t bother him in the least.

“Red Cliff? Rock house? What are you talking
about?” Then she let her mouth drop. “You don’t think I...” With a
horrified gasp, she put a hand to her chest.

He let the silence wear her down. Livie rose
beside him, took his hand.

“Livie, tell him,” Toni said, a woebegone
pleading in her voice. “You know I didn’t do anything to him. I
don’t even know where Red Cliff and this house are.”

“How long did it take you to pile all those
rocks on top off the doors?” he asked softly. “So many of them.
Searching for them, carrying them back. It must have taken at least
an hour. What did it do to your manicure?”

She clenched her fists. “My manicure’s just
fine.” She’d had more than a day to fix her nails.

But he kept pushing at her. “Surely there
were scrapes and scratches.” He held out his hands. “Look what
clawing at the doors did to mine?”

Livie clung to his arm, staring at the lines
and grooves now beginning to scab over.

“Come on, Toni,” he cajoled. “Let me see your
hands.”

She kept them balled into fists. “I can’t
believe you’re accusing me of trying to hurt you.” She turned to
her sister. “Livie?” Such a pitiful plea, yeah, she was damn
good.

He didn’t dare look at Livie, didn’t want to
see her waver in her trust of him.

Then she spoke softly. “Did you hit him and
leave him down in that cellar?” His chest tightened at her
words.

“What cellar?” Toni wailed. “I don’t know
what either of you are talking about.”

He could feel the tension in Livie’s body as
she clung to him, but her voice was strong. “I’m asking if you left
him to die down there.”

“Of course I didn’t.” Toni stepped closer,
held out a hand to her sister. Bern couldn’t make out a single
scratch on it, and her nails were freshly painted a deep
crimson.

They looked blood-tipped. With
his
blood.

He waited with his heart in his throat.
Believe me, Livie. Choose me, Livie.

Livie pulled away from him, and he had to
hold fast to his last shred of strength not to hold her, force her
to see.
Don’t desert me now.
He wondered how many times in
their past lives Toni had forced her to choose. And how many times
she’d believed Toni over him.

Instead of going to her sister, Livie reached
to the bedside table behind him. He turned to find her cell phone
in her hand. She pressed a button.

Another phone began to ring, its tone
muffled. But he knew that ringtone. He’d never used anything fancy,
just a straight ring like an old-fashioned rotary phone.

Toni clutched her purse to her chest as if
that would muffle the sound. Livie pressed End, and the ringing
stopped.

“How did you get Bern’s cell phone?” she
asked her sister, her voice exceptionally soft yet deadlier than
he’d realized Livie could be capable of.

Toni’s lips worked a moment. Then she
pivoted, her ankle twisting on her high heel. It didn’t stop her
headlong flight down the hall. It took him too long to react, and a
moment later the front door slammed, its echo resounding through
the condo.

He started after her.

Livie grabbed his arm. “No.” Her tone was
sharp. “You’re already hurt. I won’t let her do anything else to
you.”

She was right. He’d never catch Toni in his
current condition. “I never even thought of trying my phone,” he
said.

“On all the crime shows, the murderer keeps a
trophy.” Her gaze was watery, then a single tear slid down her
cheek.

“I’m sorry.” The words were inadequate, but
he had nothing else.

She put a hand to his cheek. “I’m the one
who’s sorry. I kept searching for our past together like it was a
game. I never really considered the ultimate outcome, that she’d
actually try to kill you.”

He folded her into his arms, held her
tightly. “I’ll never leave you again. I’ll never let her hurt you.
I’ll never let her get rid of me.”

It was a vow he would keep. George and Myra
would be the last lifetime that he allowed Toni to come between
them.

* * * * *

They’d called the detective. He’d said he’d
have the police in their area looking for her. It wouldn’t do any
good. Toni would ditch the phone.

The beat of Livie’s heart still hadn’t
calmed. “I’m so sorry.” She couldn’t seem to stop repeating
herself. “All those coincidences,” she said. “Finding that old
realtor, the house, Clare working for the library. I just kept
pushing and pushing until I almost got you killed.”

“Don’t be absurd. It had nothing to do with
you and everything to do with what Toni was planning all along.”
With a hard grip on her shoulders, he held her away. “But you
really didn’t believe me when I said it was her.”

Despite the bandage wrapped around his head,
he was so tall and powerful above her. He’d never asked her, not
once, not when he told the police his story, not when he told his
family. “I believed you. Who else would have done it? No one had a
reason. I just don’t know how she figured out where you’d be. I
swear I didn’t tell her. I said you were up north. That was
it.”

Just as quick and hard as he’d held her away,
he hauled her close. His embrace was tight, desperate. “When I knew
I was going to die, I thought of you. Both times. Now and all those
years ago. You were my last thought.”

Livie leaned back, cupped his face in her
hands. “You didn’t die this time.” Then she kissed him, long,
sweet, and openmouthed.

Bern pulled her down onto the bed. “Make love
with me. Now.”

She stilled against him. “Your head. You’re
hurt.”

“I don’t hurt too much for that.”

Her face close to his, she searched his eyes.
She wanted what he wanted. They needed this between them. She
wouldn’t think about Toni. “Let me make love to you.”

She crawled down his body, undoing the
buttons of his shirt as she went. She licked his flat, brown
nipples, then bit lightly.

He hissed in a breath. “You make me crazy,”
he murmured.

“Shh. Let me take care of you.” She kissed
her way down his belly to his belt. Unbuckling it, she gazed up at
him. She could almost see herself in the reflection of his eyes, a
wanton woman. She’d never felt more beautiful.

He threaded his hands through her hair.
“Don’t stop.”

She wouldn’t. Not until he cried out her
name. She pinned his legs, held him down, then unzipped his jeans.
He was hard, ready, a pearl of need glistening on his tip. She
licked it away with a swipe of her tongue, savored his taste.

“God.” His hands still in her hair, he guided
her.

Livie swallowed all of him, taking him deep
into her mouth. He groaned, his body moving, mimicking the rhythm
of lovemaking. She used her tongue, her lips, the light rasp of her
teeth, the suction, until he writhed beneath her, his breathing
harsh.

She would never give him up. Not for Toni,
not for anyone. She would take care of him, cherish him. It was a
vow she made him from the deepest part of her heart.

He gasped and surged deep, taking her that
way, feeding himself to her. She felt each pulse against her
tongue.

Then he pulled away. “Jesus, not yet. Inside
you. I want inside.”

As he reached for her, Livie slid back. “No.
I’m making love to you. I’m doing all the work. You just lie there
and take it.” She wriggled out of her jeans.

“If I’m in you, I won’t able to just lie
here.”

A hand on his chest, she pushed him down,
straddled him. “I do the work. All you have to do is come.” Leaning
down, she took his mouth with a deep kiss, her tongue swirling with
his. She knew he would taste himself as well.

Then she reached between her legs, found him,
stroked him, caressed herself with his length. God, she was wet.
His body quivered, on the edge.

“Now,” he demanded.

She hovered above him for one long moment,
then plunged. The sharp penetration stole the breath from her
lungs.

“Holy hell.” His fingers spasmed on her hips.
Then he was pushing, pulling, forcing her to rise and fall,
directing her to a faster, harder, blissful pace.

He filled her in a way no man ever had. All
the way to her heart.

Their breath, the gasps and sighs, flesh
meeting flesh, it was like sensual music. Her thighs ached
deliciously with the ride. Her tension grew. She could feel the
throb and pulse of his possession, and it drove her higher until
suddenly all sensation seemed to shoot straight down, to their
joining, his flesh, her flesh, one beat, one pulse.

At last, he called out her name.

They were one. Toni could never take that
away from them.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Toni pressed her foot to the pedal and darted
around a blue Prius. As she blew by, she shot her middle finger at
the old man. Her blood was screaming in her veins, and she’d wanted
to ram the little car out of her way. She wanted to do damage to
something, anything.

She’d been speeding all the way up the
highway from the Peninsula, no real destination in mind. She’d had
to slow down when she hit a fog bank in Daly City and now Highway
280 was dumping into 19
^th
Avenue. In front of her, cars
slowed to a crawl for the first traffic light. When it turned
green, she made the left turn onto 19
^th
. She could think
now, after the pell-mell flight from Livie’s.

Bern hadn’t seen a thing. He came up blind
out of that hole. She’d have been fine if not for that damn cell
phone. She’d let herself get too cocky, but she’d never dreamed one
of them would think about calling it, especially not Livie.

But everything was not lost. All she had to
do was get rid of the phone and the tire iron she’d hit him with.
They could tell the police whatever they wanted, but nothing could
be proved without the phone and weapon.

No one had noticed her following them last
weekend. She’d watched the bed-and-breakfast. She’d seen the family
home, the two old ladies hanging around. One of them had to be
Bern’s mother. Before he’d morphed into an asshole and treated her
so abominably, he’d given her a brief family rundown. She’d
remembered his family was from Freedom.

It was midafternoon, and the traffic along
19
^th
moved at a snail’s pace. Toni kept missing all the
green lights until she got down to Golden Gate Park. There she
managed to catch the green, and it became a smooth ride out to the
bridge.

On Saturday, she’d followed Livie and Bern to
Red Cliff, then to the house on the hill. They’d both been
clueless. She’d parked her car a couple of twist and turns behind
Bern’s, then trailed in their wake.

He’d screwed Livie up there in broad
daylight.

She’d had the oddest sense of having seen
them in that very spot, going at each other, completely oblivious
to anything around them.

In that moment, she’d hated each of them with
equal passion. She should have taken her tire iron to them right
then. But no, when they were done rutting like animals, she’d stood
in that exact spot, watching, waiting, as they climbed to the
top.

For such a long drive, they hadn’t spent a
lot of time up there, and when they’d started back down, she’d run
for her car.

Yeah, completely clueless. They hadn’t seen a
thing.

She’d made her plans on the long drive home.
First she’d sucker Livie into forgiving her. She’d get in good with
her sister once again. Then she’d strike. Little did she know the
opportunity would come so quickly, but Livie had told her he was
going back up north.

Toni had known exactly where he’d go.

She’d felt such power in that place, standing
outside the cellar doors, waiting for him, gripping the tire iron
until her fingers ached.

Toni smiled to herself. Bern was right; her
hands were a mess after carrying all those rocks. But she’d had her
nails done, and she’d carefully dabbed the scratches with makeup
until they were practically invisible, at least without a close
inspection.

All she’d missed was the damn phone. She’d
been cocky. It was her downfall. But there was always a way
out.

She was a hair before the heavy commute hours
would begin, and traffic on the Golden Gate hadn’t yet become a
snarled mess.