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

Selena

It feels like it’s getting more and more rural the further south we go. There’s so much farm country in Tennessee, and I can’t help but get lost in the sight. Small homesteads with various livestock line the road on both sides. Cows, goats, and some horses stand in a large paddock, and I press my forehead to the glass to take them all in.

Lex takes a right-hand turn, and we follow along the fancy wooden fences. I don’t know what Lex has planned as we drive down yet another secluded dead-end road. The eternity of pavement feels endless. We drove for a long time today, and we’re both worn down. He just won’t admit it. I will, with a long exhale.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“We need a new car. When I got gas, I overheard two locals talking about a lonely farmer who lives up this road. Said he was away, and it sounded like a good opportunity. An easy one.”

I tighten my lips and rub the cuts on my ankles. “I need to wash these with actual soap.” Natural water sources aren’t hygienic. Not in the slightest. I need a real shower.

“You will.” Lex’s eyes jump to a rickety farmhouse ahead of us. “There it is, just like they said.”

Lex pulls to the side of the road, and we walk the last bit toward the house. My feet ache from my shoes rubbing everywhere the rocks and branches bit my skin.

“What happened to your biological parents?” I ask, trying to distract myself from my pain by hearing his.

Lex doesn’t speak at first. I don’t expect him to answer my question, but he surprises me when he does. “Never met my father and hardly knew my mother. She liked dope better than me. I’ve been in and out of the foster system since they found me alone in an apartment surrounded by needles when I was six.”

“Lex—”

“Don’t, rabbit. I hear the pity in your voice.” He shakes his head. “We all can’t be as lucky as you were growing up.”

I stop mid-step and turn toward him. He doesn’t need to attack me because he’s hurt. He doesn’t have to get so defensive. “You know nothing about how I grew up.”

“Don’t I?”

I scoff. “No. You don’t. I hardly knew my parents, either. They threw money at me to make up for being absent. I had one purpose as their daughter, and it was to marry whoever would better their business. They handed me to the devil even though they knew they were sending me to hell with him. They knew he’d burn me. Money has kept me alive while simultaneously killing me. I’d give it all up, and I have. There’s no more beyond what I took, and I’m fine with it.” My shoulders drop from the weight of the finality of my life before Lex. I still wouldn’t take anything back.

“Selena,” Lex says as I quicken my steps toward the house.

I ignore him. When he keeps trying, I turn on my heels and narrow my eyes at him. “You think I’m a spoiled little brat, don’t you? Fancy fucking show rabbit, right? Too special to get it dirty or allow it to be an animal. I’ve tried to show you that I’m not some fragile, well-groomed little thing!”

Lex raises his voice in a way I’ve never heard directed at me. “Selena, you need to calm the hell down. Where is this even coming from?”

It’s coming from him. The things he says about my life make me so angry. I see the way he looks at me sometimes, like I’m some spoiled brat who ran away from a perfect life. It’s a deep-seated insecurity from always being told my life was fine because I had money and nice things. When I told my mother what Bryce was doing to me, she said, “But he’s supporting you, Selena. I know how you can be. Sometimes you just need to change your behavior a bit to make him happy.” Because he “supported” me, I had to accept the pain. I had to change, not the one inflicting the abuse. Fuck Lex for thinking I was somehow shielded from pain because of fucking money.

No, it was the root of all evil in my family and my marriage.

The weight of it crushes me, and I lose the strength to hold myself up. I fall to my knees. Lex runs to help me up, but I push his hands away. “Let me be for a few minutes. The house is right there. I’ll meet you inside.”

Lex shakes his head and looks up at the farmhouse. “I’m not leaving you out here alone.”

“That’s precisely what I need right now. I need to be alone,” I whisper. I sit back on my heels and breathe in the heavy farm air. It smells like grain and manure. A tear slips down my cheek, and I wipe it away before he can see it. I don’t need him to stay and comfort me. I need to comfort myself.

“Selena,” he commands, but for once I don’t listen.

“Go!” I yell back, surprising myself with the ferocity.

Lex draws a breath and reaches for the knife in his pocket. “Just in case a different wolf tries to bite.” He tosses it toward me and it lands in front of me, flattening the grass. It brings back a rush of memories. The way my hand concealed the intricately carved wooden handle. The way the blade blossomed red as I stabbed Bryce over and over again.

Once Lex leaves to go inside, I drop onto my butt and lie down. A broad-winged bird soars overhead, silent and menacing. Cows moo in the pasture beside the house. It’s pretty fucking peaceful, and I need this peace. I wish Lex understood. I don’t want to fight with him over our pasts. I don’t want to participate in a competition about who had the worst childhood. Clearly he did, but it doesn’t negate what happened to me. And I feel negated. We chose different paths—I chose complacency, and he chose violence—but we both chose murder, and that’s where our paths cross.

Something crashes inside the house. I wipe a rogue tear from the crease of my eyes and get to my feet. I pluck the knife from the grass and grip it against my palm. When I get to the porch, I creep up the steps and open the door, controlling it as it closes so it doesn’t make any noise. The crashing grows louder and more violent. It can’t possibly be coming from Lex alone. With quiet footfalls, I follow the loud noises to the living room.

What I see surprises me. A burly farmer has Lex in the same hold Lex held Rodney in, but this fight isn’t nearly as one-sided. My mouth gapes because after everything I’ve witnessed, I would never expect someone to get the upper hand on Lex. The farmer’s hat falls off as the men wrestle. Greasy strands of hair fall over the man’s face. His overalls are ripped and stained.

When Lex catches my eyes for a moment, he mouths, “Go,” to me. I shake my head, never more certain of anything in my life. There’s no way I’m leaving him to save myself.

My heart thumps in my ears as Lex tries to stay in the fight. His pistol glints in the back of his jeans, but I’ll never be fast enough to get to it, nor would I know what to do with it if I managed to get my hands on it.

In my panic, I forget about the knife in my hand. Its weight against my palm finally reminds me of its presence. I slink along the wall, trying to keep the farmer from seeing me. When I accidentally knock over a can of beer, I hold my breath, expecting him to hear. Thankfully, no one hears a damn thing over the grunting and adrenaline. Once I’m flat against the wall behind the farmer, I open the blade and hold it within a familiar grasp. I have no idea how to stab this man, though. I don’t even know if I can. Vengeance propelled my arm when it came to Bryce, but there’s no vengeance now. There’s only the need to protect Lex, and those are two very different reasons for killing.

Fear freezes me in place. I don’t know what to do.

The farmer goes for the gun, and I’m out of time to think. The intense need to protect Lex propels my arm forward as I rush for the farmer and sink the knife into his neck. He lets out a roar, and I squeal as blood streams from beneath the handle.

“Pull it out, Selena! Pull the knife out!” Lex yells, and it sounds like he’s miles away.

With my hand still wrapped around the handle, I try to tug it out, but a suction that wasn’t there when I put it in holds it in place. I wiggle it and it finally gives way with a disgusting squelching sound. The moment the blade leaves his neck, blood escapes the wound in a waterfall, spurting a geyser of crimson with every beat of his heart. The man wobbles on his feet and reaches for his neck. Lex pulls away and rips his pistol from the farmer’s hand, putting it in his waistband where it belongs.

It feels like minutes, but it’s merely seconds before the farmer crashes to his knees. Without uttering another sound, he falls onto his face. I’ve never seen so much blood. Every bit of what was in his body spreads around him on the floor.

“Arterial wound. Very fucking effective, rabbit,” Lex pants. He’s covered in blood, and my arms are sprayed with it, too.

The bleeding I caused.

I back against the wall, the knife still in my trembling hand. As if Lex forgot what murder feels like to unseasoned killers, he doesn’t seem to notice the anguish I’m facing. My stomach churns and I heave, nearly throwing up all over the old hardwood floors. Lex grabs my hair and holds it for me as I fight back the vomit. He rubs my back like he’s comforting someone who bowled a bad game. How can he be so cavalier?

It’s selective of me to forget who Lex really is. It’s too easy to ignore the violent and dangerous side of him that seems as normal as breathing to him.

I stand, feeling the weight of that giant farmer on my shoulders. How will I carry that with me? My eyes widen with fear, not of Lex, but of what I’ve become because of him.

A killer.

I’m not just a battered wife who got revenge. I’m a full-blown fucking murderer.

“It gets easier,” Lex says as he pats my back. He strolls toward the cabinet and starts rooting around. My mouth drops open. He is fucking clinical. Literally sociopathic.

“Easier?” I ask, disgusted.

“Yeah, easier. Meaning you don’t get all worked up about it anymore.”

I blink at him. “You are fucking insane, Lex.”

He closes a cabinet and begins to eat from a bag of chips, bloody hands and all. “Yeah, and?”

Anger courses through me. He’s maddening. “You made me do that!” I scream as I point at the dead farmer, quickly cutting my gaze when it lands on his fixed eyes, the life drained from them.

Lex laughs through a mouthful of chips. “I didn’t make you do a damn thing,” he says with an infuriating calmness. “I told you to go. You had the choice to leave.”

He walks closer, pushes me against the wall, and wrangles the knife from my hand. His breath rolls over my heated skin. “I didn’t make you fuck me or stab your husband. I didn’t make you come with me or stab that man. If you’re going to stay with me, you need to start accepting what you are.”

“And what the hell am I?”

Lex flashes his darkened eyes at me. “You’re no better than me.”

I draw a sharp breath, as if he’s stabbed me beneath my ribs. The air deflates from my lungs, and I shrink in front of him. “I just wanted to protect you . . .” I whisper.

Lex leans in, and I flinch against his touch as he kisses my forehead. “You already knew I’d kill for you, and now I know you’ll kill for me.” Lex drops his mouth to mine and kisses me once before running a hot hand up my throat. “And as sexy as it is, don’t ever ignore me again when I tell you to leave.”

“But—”

“But nothing, rabbit. If I tell you to go, you go. Do you hear me? If he’d killed me, what would he have done to a girl like you, huh? If it were me? Shit. I’d have fucked you half to death out of principle. So I need you to listen to me, Selena. For once in your fucking life.”

Lex

Stubborn goddamn rabbit. I breathe in her scent as I scold her. I’m not a piece of shit. I appreciate her saving my life, but not at the risk of her own. A shiver dances up my spine at the thought of what would’ve happened to her if he shot me and turned to face her.

Beautiful little bunny, ripe for slaughter.

I imagine him fucking her, tearing her apart in ways I couldn’t bring myself to do despite really wanting to. I force away the intrusive thoughts of his hands on what’s mine. I can’t handle the thought of his mouth on her plump lips or pale neck. His eyes all over her tits and his fingers touching her perfect cunt.

The thoughts alone make me homicidal.

My hands ride up her neck and grip her face. The weight of the risk of her being with me begins to bury me. To suffocate me. This is why I wanted her to stay back in her idyllic home where she was safe. I can protect her if I’m not gravely injured or dead. I’m certain of that. But what would happen once I can’t protect her anymore?

If something happens to me.

If my rabbit becomes prey to someone else.

“If you can’t promise you’ll listen when I tell you something, I’ll leave you at the nearest bus stop,” I say as I drop my forehead to hers.

“Lex,” she whispers in soft protest.

“Promise me!”

“I promise,” she finally whispers.

“Atta girl,” I say as I pull her into my chest.

“You’re bleeding.” She dabs at my shirt. I lift it and see that my cut is oozing again.

“It’s nothing. Probably from the fight.” I draw away from her and go to the bathroom to find some bandages. After I dress the wound, I return to the living room. Selena has seated herself on the couch after covering the farmer’s body with a sheet.

“How are you so unbothered?” she asks without looking back at me.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” I say as I walk up behind her and grip her hair in a fist. “I’m a documented sociopath. A convicted killer.” I lean down and kiss her neck as she fights against my touch. She tries to pull away, but I hold her there. She isn’t strong enough to escape my hold.

“You aren’t making this better,” she snaps.

“But I’m not making it worse, either,” I say through a smirk against her skin. “I’m a killer and so are you. There’s no arguing away the blood on our hands, no rationalizing that it was our upbringing or a lapse in sanity. We made the conscious decision to rip away someone’s life. We made our bed, and now we’ll fuck in it.”

I crane her neck and kiss her throat, completely unbothered by the blood painting her skin. In fact, I like it. I love that she’s covered in his blood. That she killed for me. I lick at the crimson, enjoying the metallic taste on my tongue, and her body tenses in disgust. As my licking becomes a soft bite on her neck, she relaxes. The softest moan, hardly audible, rolls off her lower lip.

“Speaking of beds, I fucked up the last time we were in one. What do you say we take advantage of the one here? Give me a chance to fuck you right. Like you deserve.”

Despite enjoying my touch for a moment, her eyes snap to mine. “No, Lex, absolutely not. There’s a dead man on the ground behind us.”

“Oh, rabbit, must we make it another game? Something new for me to do to you?”

She narrows her eyes. “No.”

“Well, go take a shower while I take care of this, and I’ll figure out what game I want to play with you.”

The call to shower is too enticing for her, and like a scared animal, she leaves the room without turning her back to me, as if I’ll pounce on her if she isn’t watching.

Believe me, I’m tempted to. I’d love to fuck her with the farmer’s blood still on her skin. Unfortunately, dealing with the body is my job to do.

I turn him over and stare at his vacant eyes. Poor bastard, I think as I roll him up in the sheet. He had gotten the rare upper hand on me. I didn’t expect him to be home. Like an idiot, I hadn’t even considered it. Had I been alone, I would have been done for. And I probably deserved it. Then again, if I’d been alone, I wouldn’t have been in the farmer’s house, and he wouldn’t be dead.

My course of action has shifted with Selena involved. If it had just been me, I’d have taken her car and driven straight to the border. With her in tow, I need to give her a comfortable place to sleep every night and keep her fed, fucked, and happy. I desperately want to keep her safe, which is why I wanted to get a new vehicle for us in the first place. That landed us on this poor sap’s doorstep.

I wipe my forehead. My fingers work to tie off the sheet toward his feet, then I drag the body outside. The rickety screen door slams. I haul his body behind the house, near the Bilco doors that open to the basement. I cover him with a tarp and stick the shovel over it as if there’s nothing but a pile of mulch beneath it. I’ll fully deal with that later—when I’m not so sexually frustrated.Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

I rub my hand on my jeans, smearing the blood. I enter the house and eye the pool of red on the floor. There’s far too much to clean. The wood has sucked it into every crevice, every pore. I look around for a rug instead. When I see the one under the coffee table, I tug it out and lay it over the bloody mess. It hides nearly all of it. Out of sight, out of mind—for Selena, at least. I would have fucked her on that couch with or without his body there. Let his soul watch me make her come.

My shirt sticks to my sweaty skin. I follow the sounds of the shower until I reach a rundown hallway door. When I reach for the knob, it’s locked. “Sneaky rabbit,” I whisper.

She needs to stop trying to lock me out. Hasn’t she learned she can’t keep me out of anything? Not the room, her heart, or her cunt.

The slit in the lock is easy to turn with just my knife. When I open the door, I stare at her naked body through the shower’s dingy glass. Arching her back to wash her hair, she doesn’t notice me at first. I adjust the front of my pants and watch her. Knowing the blood washing off her body is the life-force of the man she killed for me makes me hard as fuck. The way she stabbed him and listened to me when I told her to rip it from his flesh . . . God, I have never seen a more beautiful act. In the same breath, I feel more guilt for changing her into something she wasn’t before meeting me.

I’ve never felt guilt, nor true remorse, until I met her. I hate seeing pieces of myself in Selena. Her good pieces mix with my bad.

The water turns off, and when she opens the door, she jumps. “Jesus, how’d you get in here?” she asks. By now she should know that nothing can keep me from her when I want her.

I shake the knife in my hand and set it on the countertop. “Get back in there, rabbit.”

She reaches for a raggedy towel, but I yank it across the bar and out of reach. “Why? I’m done.”

“Maybe. But I’m not,” I tell her with a smirk, unwilling to hide how hard I am from watching her. I slip off my shoes and unzip my jeans. Her gaze rolls downward and locks on my hard cock. I slip off my bloody shirt and let it fall beside my pants.

“Lex, I’m not in the mood,” she whispers.

“But I am,” I say with a growl. I pull the shower door open the rest of the way and run my gaze over her naked body. Without taking my eyes off her, I turn the shower on again. She looks scared and small, like when I first fucked her. That farmer’s gotten to her, which means she’s still more human than I can ever be.

Good.

I drag her into the shower with me. I lean back and let the hot water rain down on me, taking the blood with it. When I hear the shower door open again, I reach out and grab her waist. “You aren’t leaving like that,” I say.

“Like what?”

“Scared.”

She scoffs. “I’m not scared of you.”

I draw her against my body. “I know you aren’t scared of me. You’re scared of yourself. Afraid of what you’re capable of.” I kiss her, but her lips don’t welcome me like they usually do. “You’re capable of anything, rabbit. You can be the sweet woman who softens me and the unsavory—sometimes homicidal—little rabbit that hardens me.”

She draws a sharp breath that leaves me wondering if I offended her. As she tries to pull away from me, I realize I have. I let her out of my grasp to pin her against the shower wall.

“Stop, Selena. Stop fucking running from what you are when you never ran from what I am. You have darkness inside you, whether it’s in here”—I graze her chest before lowering my hand to her pussy—“or in here.”

Her eyes roll up my chest, and she pushes out her lower lip. The tension in her body melts away, and I step back to finish washing the blood from my skin.

“What’s going to happen to us?” she asks. She’s so quiet I almost don’t hear her over the water.

“Nothing, Selena. I won’t let anything happen to us. Do you trust me?”

“Not really.” Her lips tick up in a small smile.

“Yes you do, bunny,” I say as I drag her into me and kiss her again.

She meets my affection this time. I reach back and pull the showerhead off the holder. I turn it to a more focused stream and run it along her body, sending the warm water against her hardening nipples. I move it over her stomach before lowering it to her inner thighs. She grips the metal and stops my ascent toward her pussy.

“What? Have you never got yourself off in the shower?” I ask.

She stares at me with a trembling lower lip and shakes her head.

“Please tell me you get yourself off.” My tone is almost mocking, but I don’t mean for it to be. This girl cannot be that innocent.

“With my hand,” she says as she looks away.

“So you’ve never used any kind of toy?” I ask.

She shakes her head once more, and I remove the showerhead from her hand. I grab her wrists and pin them above her head. She struggles within my grasp, her back arching as she tries to pull away. I put my knee between her legs and spread them.

“Stay open for me,” I tell her. I keep both wrists encased in one hand as I run the showerhead down her body once more and aim it at the soft mound of hair between her legs. Her eyes clench shut, and I let her keep them closed.

I palm the back of the showerhead and slip deeper between her legs. The moment the stream parts her lips and washes over her clit, she lurches forward, nearly ripping her hands from my grasp.

“How does that feel, sweet bunny?” I ask as I hold the pressure between her legs. Every so often I stroke her with the stream, moving it in a small circle.

“It feels good,” she whispers. A moan leaves her lips, and she bucks her hips forward.

“Keep your hands against that wall.” I release her and wrap my hand around my cock. I stroke myself to her grinding against the showerhead. I focus on my head as she moans and whimpers. “Open your eyes,” I command. I want to see her looking up at me. I want to see the pleasure lighting her eyes on fire.

She does, but she doesn’t look me in the face. Hey eyes drop to my hand on my cock. With a deep, passionate kiss, I stroke my dick against her lower stomach and keep the water aimed at her clit. Her hips curl against me and she moans, getting me too close. I stop myself before I come, taking my hand away from my dick for a moment.

I lift my fingers to her face and trace her jaw. “You have the sweetest face, bunny. Do you know what I want to do to you?”

She shakes her head and swallows.

“I want to paint your skin with my come.” My fingers graze her chin and cheeks. “Did your husband ever come on your face?”

She shakes her head. “No.” The word comes out with a frustrated buck of her hips.

“Would you let me?” I ask.

I expect an instant no—it’s probably too demeaning for a girl like her—but she surprises me with a slow, unsure nod. Her building orgasm must have made her more pliable.

“Tell me with your words, bunny. You know I like to hear it.”

She moans and her thighs tremble. “I want you to come on my face, Lex.”

The way she says my name at the end makes me twitch against her stomach. I want that so goddamn bad, and hearing her ask is nearly enough to make me come without touching myself.

“Come, sweet bunny,” I tell her as I stroke myself again.

She leans back against the wall and closes her eyes. She drops her hands, and as much as I want to scold her for it, they land on my shoulders, digging her pleasure into me through her fingertips. I allow it because I need to feel it too.

“Talk to me. Tell me how it feels.”

Selena digs her fingers deeper as she bucks her hips. “I’m gonna come, Lexington,” she moans.

I hate my full name . . . except when she says it.

“Come for me so I can put you on your knees, sweet bunny.”

I rub my cock, fighting the urge to come as her body ripples with her orgasm. She trembles, screaming out in pleasure and grabbing my hand to pull the showerhead away as she gets too sensitive. I keep my hand there, letting the water wash over her spasming clit.

“Stop,” she begs.

I lean in and kiss her. “Ride it out to the end,” I groan against her mouth.

And she does. Like the good girl she is, she rides out the earthquakes of pleasure ripping through her. She rides out the pain as I keep the pressure on her clit after she comes.

“Get on your knees,” I say, knowing my release is coming. I feel it in the base of my balls, and I try to slow my strokes to hold out for her.

I stare at her, following her with my eyes as she drops to her knees. Her gaze meets mine, her large eyes looking up at me with satiated desire. There’s a hint of fear there, too. Fear of something new. Something her husband never did to her.

I release my cock and let it settle in front of her face. I’m so tempted to push it between her full lips, but then I’d come in her mouth. My hand grazes her cheek as the other pushes her dark hair away from her face.

“I want you to keep your eyes on me. I don’t want you to close them for even a second, even as I spill my come on your face.” I stop stroking her cheek and stroke my cock instead. “Talk to me, bunny.”

“I want your come, Lex,” she whispers.

I growl. “You’re mine, Selena. You know that, right?” My abdomen tightens. She looks so obedient at my feet. Her hands grasp the outsides of my thighs as she keeps her eyes on my face.

“I’m yours,” she whispers, and I rub my thumb along her lower lip.

I grab the back of her head, ball her hair in my fist, and crane her neck just a bit more so I can see her pout over my cock. I touch the tip to her mouth, grazing the seam of her lips. I stop stroking my head, only jerking off the shaft so I can see it all. All that I need to give her. Her warm lips rest against the tip of my dick, and it’s enough to make me come whether I stroke myself or not.

“I’m gonna come,” I growl.

Pearls of white shoot from me, and just like I demanded, she doesn’t even blink as my come hits her cheek. It spills over her mouth as I rub it against her soft, warm skin. She looks so fucking beautiful covered in my come.

I help her to her feet and wipe some of my come from her mouth before pushing it past her lips and onto her tongue. “Taste me, bunny.”

Her lips tighten around my fingers. She doesn’t like the taste, but she still moves her mouth up to my fingertips. I growl. I don’t care that I still coat her lips and tongue. I lean in and kiss her. She whimpers against my mouth.

“Goddamn it, rabbit,” I whisper as I bite her lower lip, taking in the salty taste mixed with the sweetness of her mouth.

I grab the showerhead again, turn it on a softer setting, and tell her to put her head back. I wash my come from her perfect face, and she wipes at her cheeks beneath the stream. The window above the shower sends a halo of light onto the wall above her head. She looks angelic, and it’s the closest I’ll ever get to an angel.