Hitched: A Dark Hitchhiker Romance (Ride or Die Romances)
Hitched: Chapter 7

Lex

My mind remains on Selena as I drive us toward the next motel. We didn’t get many miles under our belt because it was already late by the time I finished fucking her. It was everything I imagined, and I stayed inside her for as long as I could. As long as my dick cooperated. I had her hot, sweaty body pressed against mine, letting her cry into my chest until well past midnight. I wasn’t the snuggling type—not in my nature—but I could have stayed there like that forever.

Once we get to the motel, I have no idea how she’ll act toward me. She broke in front of my eyes, had asked me to do the unthinkable to her, and then came on my dick afterward. But on our drive to the motel, she hadn’t given me any indication of how she felt. Was the sex only a moment in time where she felt empty and let me fill that void? Possibly.

Not that it can be anything more than that, anyway. I’m a dangerous hunter, and she’s a sweet little rabbit.

I open the door to our room and go in before her. I flip on the light, and it flickers above our heads. She looks around with much less disgust than before. I think she’s getting used to being ripped from her luxury lifestyle and transplanted into motel rooms from hell. There’s still no communication between us. It’s a stale static that I’m sick of listening to.

She pushes past me to go into the bathroom, but I grab her arm and pull her back to me. Confusion muddies her eyes when she looks up at me. Her expression is racked with guilt, and it pisses me off more than it probably should.

“Why are you beating yourself up over what we did?” I ask as I shake her arm. She flinches from my touch. I’m not trying to hurt her, but I’ll never understand why she cares so much about what we’ve done. People have had affairs in far less dire circumstances and never beat themselves up like this.

“Because I wasn’t faithful to my husband.” She’s filled with regret and saturated in guilt.

“Get over it, rabbit.” Her regret isn’t my problem or responsibility. She knew what I would do to her, and she knows I won’t feel bad about it. Not now. Not ever. I’m not sorry for fucking her, and I sure as hell don’t regret giving her the strength to climb into that passenger seat and keep going.

“You don’t understand,” she whispers with a shake of her head.

I fist her hair. “I do understand. I’ve done a lot of shit I should regret. And maybe I even did for a minute. Don’t tell me I don’t understand the gravity of doing things I shouldn’t. What do you think I’m running from?”

Tears gloss her eyes. “What are you serving life for?” she asks.

I nearly release her hair at that question. I didn’t expect it. I should have, but I forgot what she’d heard between Rodney and me. She found out more about me than she should have.

“Which life?” I say.

Her lip trembles. Yes, I’m serving multiple life sentences. My soul will be in prison for the next two lifetimes after this one. She has no idea what she let inside her, no idea who she let make her come. Twice.

“If you already regret fucking around on your piece of shit husband, don’t ask me something like that when you know the answer will make you feel worse. Way fucking worse.”

“I want to know. I deserve to know,” she says with a defiant lift of her chin.

Who the hell does she think she is? She’s out of her mind if she thinks she deserves anything more than the time she has left before we reach the end of the line.

She’s lucky to get my cock in the interim.

I laugh, which makes her puff her chest. “Go on, rabbit.” I push her toward the bathroom, but she digs her heels into the shitty carpet. “You keep your secrets, and I’ll keep mine.”

She flashes her eyes up at me. “Tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine.”

Stupid girl. Yeah, her husband sounds like a controlling piece of shit, but she doesn’t know what it’s like to let the man who makes the devil blush sink into her pussy. When she hears what I’ve done, she’ll just try to escape again. She’ll probably puke from disgust when she replaces out what kind of man she let inside her.

She swallows hard, and I stare at her throat as it bobs. “My husband beats me,” she whispers.

“I know.” I figured as much. I’ve seen glimpses of discoloration on her body. She isn’t telling me some secret I didn’t already piece together from her behavior. The things she’s said. The fear on her face. The fact that he tracked her, for fuck’s sake.

“No . . .” She shakes her head. Her gaze cuts away from mine as she raises her right sleeve, exposing bruises that are beginning to fade. It’s hardly much to get upset about. It’s not hard to bruise up a girl like her if you’re rough enough, and it’s easy to lose control. It’s hard for me to avoid leaving marks on her.

Her lip trembles as she lifts the hem of her shirt, exposing some of the worst bruises I’ve ever seen on a living person. Her stomach and sides are shades of purple and pink. A yellow haze outlines anything that has begun to heal. This makes my heart quicken. Marks like that would have caused her a lot of pain. My mouth hangs open. I can’t believe what I’m looking at. I can’t believe how much it bothers me. It shouldn’t. I shouldn’t care.

But I do.

She has a way about her that makes me want to rip her away from all that hurt her so I can shield her under my own tattered wings.

“Goddamn it, Selena,” I say through gritted teeth. I step into her and run my hand along her bruises. “How the fuck do you feel an ounce of guilt over what we did when he does that to you?”

She keeps her gaze locked on the floor and doesn’t answer me. I force her to look at me by raising her chin. She looks ashamed.

“Don’t pity me,” she whispers, which is a really weird thing to fucking say, but not the weirdest thing she’s said tonight.

“I don’t pity you. I’m fucking pissed, though.”

She trembles at the sharp rise in my voice. She looks like she fears I might hit her. I am mad, but not at her. I’m pissed at her piece of shit husband. I’m a bad fucking person, the worst of the worst, but I would never hurt her like this. I could never lay my hands on her like that, even if I’ve done worse to others.

I don’t need to pity her, and she doesn’t need anything from me. She’ll gain her own wings, and then she won’t need mine.

Against my better judgment, I decide to spill my guts to her, expose my underbelly and let her inside, even while knowing she won’t like what she discovers within and that it will only push her away. She needs to know who she slept with.

I lean into her and get close to her ear. “Rabbit,” I begin, “I’m a murderer. More than what you’ve seen tonight. I’ve killed innocent people. I killed my foster parents. I went to prison and killed fellow inmates. I’m a killer. It’s what I’ve always been.”

Her gasp pulls cool air over my skin.

“I’ve fucked women when they didn’t want it. I’ve fucked women who couldn’t tell me they didn’t want it.”

She shakes her head as if she can’t believe what she’s hearing. She fights the realization that she’s let me inside her, a person so much worse than she imagined. Worse than anything she deserves.

A tear falls down her cheek and when I go to wipe it away, she rips away from my touch and runs into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. It’s a fair response to replaceing out you came on the dick of a heartless killer.

Selena

Oh god. Oh my fucking god. I pant against the door in a panic. In my heart I knew he was a killer when I saw him so casually choke out and then kill that man. As calm as watching a commercial on TV or mailing a letter. But I had no idea how much of a monster he was. Or that he’d killed so many. He’s sick and twisted. A fucking psychopath.

And I’m stuck with him.

No wonder he was so willing to kill me. He’s a seasoned killer. Realization pulls me under when I get the sick feeling that he plans to kill me at the end of this.

He has to. He can’t let me go. I know his name. I know too much.

I get in the shower and let the hot water run over me, listening to the heavy tick of the invisible clock above my head. I should feel more fear and less acceptance about what I’ve realized, but if my time is limited, I’ll make the best of what little is left. No matter which way the pendulum swings, death waits at both ends.

I wash up and get out of the shower. I slip the stiff towel around me, trying to hide the bruises beneath the rough terry cloth. When I step out of the bathroom, steam follows me. I carry my clothes in my hands. My eyes catch sight of my blouse and slacks folded on the dresser. I pick them up and sniff them. He must have washed them in the motel laundromat. Probably at the last shitty one.

He doesn’t look at me as he walks past and goes into the bathroom to shower. I slip on my blouse and slacks, but then I remember what happened with my underwear. I curl my lip when I recall wearing my panties after he jerked off into them. He made me keep the saturated fabric against my pussy all night. He loved that little show of ownership and control. But he doesn’t own me.

Asshole, I think as I pick up my clothes.

I’m not a fan of his, but I hate myself more for liking what I see when I look at him. For what I feel when I’m around him. I hate him for bringing out these feelings that rip me in two. One side tugs me toward being the good wife I was told to be in front of a room of people I hardly knew. The other side yanks me toward letting myself play with the lawless, and that side, like Lex, is stronger.

I get dressed and lie in the single bed. I push the stained cover toward my feet. The sheet beneath it looks clean enough, at least. I curl up in bed, my dark, wet hair soaking the off-white pillowcase beneath my head. I stare straight ahead at the peeling paint on the wall . . . until I hear the bathroom door slam.

Lex is naked. I pretend to be asleep, but I peek at the cords of muscles in his arms. He has a prisoner’s body—the type of physique a convict attains when there is nothing else to do but work out. His damp hair is brushed back. His taut back muscles connect to one of the most perfect asses I’ve ever seen on a man. I wish I had gotten to see how a body that perfect would have merged with mine. Perfect versus the most imperfect. Regret at that longing immediately fills me.

He’s a killer, I remind myself.

I squeeze my eyes closed as he turns around. I’m not in the right frame of mind to talk about anything more tonight. I’m drained, overwhelmed, and more tired than I’ve ever been in my life.

Lex gets into bed beside me, tugging up the disgusting blanket I’d kicked away. When he turns over and backs into me, I realize his back and ass are bare. And against me. I can’t believe he got into bed naked with me. I try to scoot over an inch, but I meet the edge of the mattress. My eyes clench shut, and I hope he doesn’t notice the change in my breathing. I’m worried he’ll feel the discomfort radiating from me as I draw my arms against my body.

“It’s just nudity, rabbit. Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” he says without turning over.

His words infuriate me. I scoff. “I don’t have panties to get in a bunch, thanks to you.” I draw my legs toward my chest, making myself as small as I can.

He laughs. He fucking laughs. “Oh yeah, that’s right.”

His body stills as he sobers. He never tries to turn toward me. He allows the gap of space between me and his naked body. “Goodnight, bunny,” he whispers before silence falls between us.