I steer to the side of the road and throw the car in park. I turn her face to mine. “I have never felt anything for anyone like I feel for you, and that’s why you can’t be with me. You need to be free and happy. It took everything in me to let you go. Being with me means prison for you, do you understand that? I carjacked you. I got your address off your ID. I took you back to your house to rob you, and I ended up killing your husband. My fingerprints are everywhere in the car and your house. They were on the kitchen knife.” I sigh. “If you don’t want to be a victim of domestic violence, be a victim of a botched robbery. I don’t care which, just be a goddamn victim, rabbit, please.”
As much as it breaks me, she needs to go. Being with me means she’s a willing participant in all of it. She’ll be as culpable as me. A girl like her wouldn’t survive in prison, and we both know that.
If she refuses to be a victim, I’ll have to kill her. I’ll have no fucking choice.
I wait for her answer, knowing if I’m backed into a corner, I’ll give her a humane death before I let her go into the system.
Her eyes narrow. “I stabbed him too.”
“I know you fucking did,” I say as I brush a hand through my hair.
“We need to get going if we want to make it to the border before he’s found.” She sits back with a stubborn huff and crosses her arms over her chest. “I don’t want to be a victim anymore, Lex.” She speaks with such finality, so I don’t say another word. I can understand that. At least she hassomeoneto look out for her.
Even if that someone is me.
“Toss your shirt out the window,” I tell her, and she does. She seems so distant as she sits back and stares out the window. Maybe she realizes the gravity of what we’ve done. Together. What I tried to save her from.
We drive south, and I almost expect her to tell me to turn around and bring her back home. But that isn’t an option any longer. I’ve stayed long enough in the state I needed to leave the most. The state I left and then returned to.
For her.
I toss out my bloody shirt once we reach the northern tip of Pennsylvania, spreading our evidence across state lines. A stifling silence hangs between us. I don’t know what to say to her, and she sure as hell doesn’t know what to say to me. I look over, and she’s staring at me.
“What’s on your mind, rabbit?” I ask. I look at the rearview mirror, pull the rabbit’s foot from my pocket, and hang it up. Whether it’s lucky or not, it’s become an icon of our fucked-up little relationship.
Her eyes narrow. “What happened back there.”
“Elaborate.” I’m getting annoyed with her evasiveness when I know she wants to talk about it.
“You acted weird.” She swallows. “Like you wanted him to have sex with me.”
I shake my head. I didn’t intend for it to happen, I truly didn’t, but when I saw it happening, the sick part of me wanted him to keep going. I watched them at first because I thought I wanted it. I had thought about it enough times to at least learn how it made me feel when I actually saw it, but when I realized how much it broke her, I decided to break him instead.
“I thought I wanted to watch. It’s something I’ve fantasized about,” I say.
She chews the inside of her cheeks and drops her gaze.
“Turns out, I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
Her gaze shoots to me. “Why were you saying those things about him, then?”
I knew calling out her husband for being a pitiful lover would hurt his pride and crush him before I could even touch him. When he found out I knew how to touch his wife, how to make her feel good and make her come, I knew it would break him. Showing him the come stain on my jeans forced him to realize she’d been a willing participant. It was physical proof of our affair. I went too far with it, though. I disappeared into the shadow of who I was before I met Selena. I hid from the light she cast on me as she tried to draw me from the darkness. But then she stabbed him, dragging herself into the darkness with me. The moment she pushed that knife through him, I knew I’d caused that. I pushed her to be the woman who was on her knees, stabbing the man who hurt her. I transformed her into me, but I don’t want her to be me.
I wanted more for her, and that’s when I knew I had feelings for her. That’s why I tried to leave her. I don’t want her to be a predator. I need her to be Selena, the sweet little rabbit that slept with a wolf.
I grip the steering wheel. “You seem to selectively forget what I am. I’m a killer. I didn’t intend to just kill your husband. I wanted him to hurt, really fucking hurt, before I killed him.”
“I just don’t understand why you would tell him to keep going,” she whispers.
“Because that wasn’t me in there. That’s the person I was before you. I was thinking about inflicting pain instead of thinking about you.” I pull to the side of the road again and reach for her, ignoring her flinch of mistrust. I draw her into me. “He needed to know it would be the last time he’d be inside you. It was all mental warfare, and I’m sorry you were collateral damage in that war.” I press my forehead against hers. It’s such a battle inside me sometimes, and I have no way of explaining that to her. Not really. “The moment I realized how pissed off it made me, there’s no way I could let him fuck you, rabbit. Trust me on that.”
“Why’d you stop fucking me in the kitchen? Was it because of him?”
“God no.” I smirk at the thought of the moment she surpassed me in a way I never expected. She wanted me to fuck her in front of her dying husband. That turned me on more than ever before. Her vengeance was delicious, and I was happy to be a part of it. I gave her what she wanted, but I didn’t want it to end there. My balls ached to unload in her, and she felt incredible, but I wanted to fuck her in their marital bed. Even when I was ready to bust, I realized she was better off without me and that I had to push her away. I shouldn’t have let myself come then, but I couldn’t help it. That sick part of me wanted to leave her dripping with my come.
When I lean into her, I smell the soap she used to clean herself, a variation of the same flowery soap I used to wash away the blood. She’d have gotten rid of all traces of me before she changed her pants. I don’t care that she cleaned herself and changed her clothes, but she better not have any panties on. She knows how I feel about them.
When my hand slips down the front of her pants, she whimpers out a moan. There’s nothing between my hand and her pussy.Good girl.I growl before kissing her. I have plans for her. She’s along for the ride now, whether I like it or not, and I intend to claim her as my own—trulymy own—until death parts us.