Page 87 of Ride With Me

“Running from what?” I didn’t miss the way his fingers flexed on my throat, or how his thumb stroked along the rapid-fire beat of my pulse. But his honey-colored brows drew together, and the curiosity andconcernwas there.

I was small. Fragile. I was a big, dark stare, and black hair tumbling into too wide eyes.

I could do this.

“My ex-boyfriend’s brother. He wants…” I flicked my eyes to the side and licked my lips. “He wants me dead.”

The man on top of me stilled—it was almost like seeing a big cat getting caught in the middle of stalking its prey, not sure if it wanted to pounce or flee.

Pounce. I needed him to pounce.

“Please,” I forced the word out in a soft, breathy voice. “I’m sorry I snuck into your truck… I just didn’t know what else to do.” My lids fluttered shut and I drew in a soft breath. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

I didn’t have to open my eyes to feel his big body give—just slightly, just enough that the weight of him straddling me to pin me to the ground shifted. I could have squirmed out from beneath him, could have flung open the truck door and ran.

I could have done a lot of things. Instead, I lifted my hand and wrapped my fingers around his wrist, then looked up at him.

“Please?”

There was something in his gaze—in the way he looked me up and down once before slowly nodding—that told me his truck door had been opened for a reason, that I’d pickedhimfor a reason. I’d always been a lucky son of a bitch.

Finally, he frowned and sat back on his heels. His body still loomed over me, but he pulled back, leaving a sting of heat where his fingers had been on my neck.

I watched him glance down at his hand, flex and unflex his digits like he could still feel me, too. It was only a second, and then he looked back up at me.

“Where are you headed?”

I shifted up on my elbows and smiled up at him. “Guess that depends. Where are you going?”

CHAPTER 2

WARREN

It would have been soeasy to kill him. I had to wonder if he knew that, if he hadanyidea how much danger he’d put himself in by climbing into the cab of my truck.

Hell, any other man at the stop might have pulled a gun and not bothered with questions or doneworsewhen they found a pretty little thing passed out on the floor of their cab, curled in their blanket and looking for all the world like the most vulnerable thing in a fifty-mile span.

He was indanger,and he didn’t know it. Either that, or he did know it and he was so afraid of whatever he was running from that it didn’t matter.

It triggered something in my chest… something that I should have ignored.

If I was smart, I would have put him out on his ass—I didn’t know him. I didn’t know what he really wanted, and I certainly didn’t know what I was doing straddling him with my hand on his throat.

No, we werebothin danger, and it didn’t seem to matter.

I sat back and looked him up and down. Now that I was glancing around, I noticed the bag he’d stashed beneath my seat, the way he’d slid himself half beneath the sheet. He probablywould have hidden in the bed in the back of the cab if I’d had a mattress on it. I was in the middle of remodeling the interior of the semi, and I wasn’t sure if that had foiled his plans, or if he’d thought I just wouldn’t look in the back until we were far enough out of the way that it was worth the consequences.

I probably wouldn’t have noticed him if I hadn’t pulled into a diner to grab a coffee before I kept driving.

“Just because I asked where you were headed didn’t mean I was inviting you to tag along with me.”

Hadn’t that been exactly what I was thinking when I’d said it, though? Well, that and how easy it would have been for me to squeeze the life out of him without anyone noticing. Since I’d given up on that thought when I crawled off him, I was going to have to decide if I was going to give in to my initial reaction.

“I…” He trailed off, his dark brows coming together like he was trying to figure out what his next move was. If he was smart, he would have turned around and climbed out of the cab of the truck while I wasn’t holding him down.

He just looked up at me instead.

“What’s your name?”

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