Page 189 of Ride With Me

Fine, I was simply horny. I wanted to bury myself so deep inside of my little prince, we’d never come up for air again.

Now we had breakfast and were considering to just book into the motel down the street.

“Lawyer?” I echoed. “Shouldn’t… Haven’t you been away for college?” He could have collected a shit ton of experience there.

“Stayed close to home. Especially because I didn’t want to take out a massive loan. Living at home and working my high school job on the side helped.”

My mouth went dry. I never had studied law—never even considered it because I too often was on the wrong side of it—but I knew how much work that was, even in less prestigious schools. “You must have been exhausted a lot,” I whispered.

His expression was somber. “Hence me not having any experience at all. You know, virgin and all.”

I forced a grin. “If you took your toys up the ass, you aren’t a virgin,” I pointed out. I’d snuck a glance at the bag earlier and realized… There were so many possibilities.

He glowered at me. “Fine, a human dick virgin.”

I assumed the only reason why he said it so easily was because there was no one but the server and us in this diner.

“Not much longer.” The words were out before I even realized I was thinking them.

He sat up straighter in his seat, as if he was ready to bold right now. “Seriously?”

I laughed at his eagerness even while something squeezed tight inside my chest. “Don’t look so surprised. You are hot as fuck, and so damn sexy. If I don’t bury myself in you soon, I’m gonna punch someone.”

He leaned forward, fluttering his lashes in an attempt to flirt. It was cute, adorable at best, and yet, somehow on him, also sexy. “How soon?”

I pecked his lips because he was that close, then pushed him back into his seat. “You wanted to talk.”

At least it was what he’d said when he’d parked the car.

His expression fell. “True.” Then he picked up where we’d left off with the original topic. “It was hard, for a while, but I loved it, enjoy the idea of righting wrongs. I haven’t quite settled on what exactly I want to do, except criminal law, but… You know, if I can just save one innocent soul from going to jail, I’ll have done good.”

My heart thundered. “You are such a savior.” The words were meant to be a tease, but came out half a snarl instead. I felt defensive because I was one of those people he probably would try to get behind bars instead of saving them.

“We had this girl in our class, and… She’d been beaten, regularly. We all saw it. People knew. The teacher knew. No one did anything. Her father… He was… I mean… When I askedlater, in high school, why no one helped her, she told me she and her mother couldn’t afford it, couldn’t afford help.

“It made no sense to me, and I figured if a lawyer at least would get him for domestic violence, they might have been safe, but…” He shook his head.

I could imagine the rest of the story by the way his eyes closed for a long moment.

Clearly, she’d not made it.

“And you want to help those kids. Pro bono?”

He nodded, but then sighed again. “However, I also know there are people who get accused of crimes they never committed. People who cannot afford a lawyer. So… I could be one of those lawyers.”

My phone burned a hole in my pocket, my mother’s updates constant and unanswered, and I wondered what he’d think if I told him that he actually was sitting here with a guy who’d beaten a man into the hospital.

A guy who was hoping every day that he’d get a notification that the guy hadn’t made it.

I shouldn’t be here, not with him.

I didn’tdeserveto be here with Rhodes.

Because I was so focused on my thoughts, I didn’t realize that my phone was ringing. I scrambled for it, surprised because my mother never called, and worried something had happened to her.

“Mom?” My heart was racing.

“You can’t come back,” she said, her voice breaking. She was sobbing heavily. “You can’t come back. Someone saw. The police are looking for you.”

---