Page 100 of Ride With Me

I wanted tokeephim.

I’d also wanted to corner Mitchy and take my time with him, then hide the body before Warren ever knew what I’d done… so I wasn’t sure how muchwantingmattered.

CHAPTER 8

WARREN

The motel doorclosed behind me, and my eyes instantly trailed down to my hands.

Blood. They were covered in blood, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

I went to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I stripped mechanically, and the feeling of hot water scalding against my skin didn’t really penetrate the near haze hovering through my mind.

Benji had killed that man. Not only that, but he’d looked completely different while he did it. There’d been something cold in his eyes, something so strong and powerful that, for just a moment, I’d felt like falling to my knees in front of him.

He wasn’t the same man who laid soft and sweet beneath me every night. He wasn’t the same man I’d seen that first time in my truck, with his eyes wide and his face desperate to be saved.

He didn’t needanyoneto save him. He could obviously save himself.

I stayed in the shower until the hot water started to turn tepid, and when I came out, Benji was sitting on the bed. He’d stripped out of his bloody jacket, but I could still see red on his hands, caught in the lines of his palms and streaking beneath hisnails. He had my cellphone in his hand, and I had a feeling he’d probably gone through it to see if I’d called the police.

Whyhadn’tI called the police?

He tossed it to the side when I opened the bathroom door and held the bloody knife up between us.

“Did you use the room phone to call someone?” It was strange, but that same open, vulnerable expression was on his face again—the one I’d seen when I caught him in my truck. I’d wondered in the shower if it was all a lie, but there was something about it…

Something about him and the way he was looking up at me…

Why was he looking at me like that?

“No. I took a shower to get the blood off my hands.” I paused, but only for a second. “What were you doing?”

“I made sure no one was going to easily find Mitchy’s body, and then I came here to wait for you.” He paused, but only for a second. “I need to know if I can trust you.”

That ripped a laugh from my chest that was almost painful. “Trust me? You don’t even know me, and Iobviouslydon’t know you. Why would you trust me?”

He smiled then, and it looked a little lost.

“I don’t know. Believe me, Warren, I don’t know. I don’t get close to people. I don’t let peopleseethat part of me and live.” He flipped the knife he held in his hand in a practiced motion, and I watched the low light of the room catch the crimson on the blade with apprehension warring against some sick fascination in my stomach. “But here we are. You sawme.”

There was so much weight to that last sentence.

“Whoareyou?” The question came out on a whisper, and Benji paused for just a second, then dropped his gaze to his hands.

“I’m a killer. Mitchy wasn’t my first—Aaron wasn’t my first, either. It’s something I’ve dealt with all my life.” He smiledwhen he looked up at me, and I could see the edges of that cold expression he’d had in the building before he’d taken a knife and gutted that man in front of me… that man who I’d been about tosave himfrom.

I probably would have gotten hurt.

“All your life?” I asked, because I couldn’t seem to help myself.

I probably would have gotten hurt, and I’d seen the flash of concern on Benji’s face when he’d realized what I was going to do.

“Yeah. The first time I killed someone, I was seventeen… and I think I only got away with it because we were out on the bluff and I pushed him. Everyone thought it was an accident, but I did it on purpose, Warren.” He fixed me with that dark stare, and I felt almost weak under the intensity of it. “His name was Rory, and I knew he messed with the younger kids on my street. So, I told him I was going to blow him. I lured him up to the bluff and I killed him… and fuck, it feltgood.” He was still watching me, but I saw it the moment bliss shot across his features, making the corners of his lips curl up into a soft smile. “And it feels fuckingamazingtelling you about it.”

“How many people have you killed, Benji?”

“A few,” he said. “Well, more than a few. Fourteen, counting Mitchy. I don’t have to do it often, and they’re nevergoodpeople. They’re people like Rory, who wanted to hurt kids. Or like Aaron and Mitchy,” he shook his head when he said their names, his lips twitching in annoyance. “Aaron got off on finding pretty little boys like me and using them up. He liked to get them hooked on drugs and pimp them out to his friends. Mitchy helped.”

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