Page 42 of Resist Me Not
“I believe you would have, but not everyone can do that. It took my mother years before she could.”
“Okay, it’s cheating to keep bringing up your mom.”
Trey snorts.
“Of course, I think it’s okay what she did. She was protecting herself and her child.”
“We can go round and round all night about the morality of killing, Walker, but in the end, this is simple. I want to be with you. You want to be with me.”
“I—”
“You do. You know you do. You chose to stay last night. You chose to not call the police. You chose to not tell the police about me even when you were safely in their midst. Again and again, you kept choosing me. So, all that’s left to answer is will you again? Or should I go?”
The same panic as before surges up like it could drown me. I hate that he’s right. I hate that I have to make this choice at all. I hate that I like him so much.
Why is he acting so freaking perfect when I should be running for the hills?
Why am I stupidly choosing again to not?
“Just eat your butter chicken,” I say and go back to enjoying mine.
We eat. We even small talk a little, like about his visit with his mom and where he’s going afterward for work. He’s only visiting her for a day. He’ll be in another city for a week. Then he wantsto come back to see me again. If I hadn’t found out he was a serial killer, it wouldn’t even be a question that I would want that.
But even after my favorite meal and trying to reconcile my feelings, the tension keeps creeping back into my shoulders. This otherwise wonderful man kills people. He killed my ex. Curtis and I were together for three months, and as much as I grew to loathe the sight of him by the end, I never would have wished him dead. Yet the man sitting in my living room who fucked me within an inch of oblivion last night killed him.
He fucking killed him.
For me.
“If I am going to be staying,” Trey says, while bussing our plates and taking care of all the cleanup for me—because of course he does, “and you retain the right to change your mind about that at any time, I would like to help further ease your anxieties, Walker. I don’t want you to have another panic attack if I can hold it at bay. I don’t want to be the reason you need extra puffs on your inhaler. I want to be the remedy that helps you to not need it.”
“What… did you have in mind?”
He grins, and after he’s finished cleaning up, he returns to me. The curl of his fingers with mine as he leads me from the living room into the bathroom causes a familiar shiver. Maybe part of my responses to Trey always had a little fear included, like the lizard part of my brain knew what the rest didn’t, what the rest didn’t want to believe. It has to be the stupid monkey part of my brain that enjoys it when any amount of fear should be a warning sign worth running from.
In the bathroom, Trey starts to fill the tub. It’s huge for being in an apartment, the whirlpool kind that’s more the size of a small hot tub. It was this place’s biggest selling point for me. I love a good soak after a long day.
When Trey starts to unbutton his shirt though, I have to laugh.
“You want to take a bath?”
“I had planned to simply batheyou.”
“Bathe me?” I choke on the absurdity of how that sounds right now.
“But seeing as how there is room for two…” Trey continues to slowly unbutton his shirt while keeping my gaze.
He really means it. I didn’t get to see much of him disrobed last night. It’s a view I wouldn’t mind seeing again, and it’s weird how Trey dressing down in no way makes him feel less dangerous, but I’m not really scaredofhim anymore. I don’t think. I know he doesn’t want me to be. He just wants to take care of me.
None of the seemingly otherwise normal jerks I’ve dated have ever gone out of their way to take care of me when I most needed it. Least of all Curtis.
Fuck it. If I’m going to Hell, I might as well enjoy this dance with the devil.
I undress too.
“Slower,” Trey says, and my mind is brought back to last night—how was that only last night—when he ordered me to go slower while I was desperately trying to jerk off and come before he fucked me. My cock gives a twitch at hearing the order now. “There’s no need to race when the point is relaxation.”
I don’t know if I’m feeling particularly relaxed with my heart hammering and blood rushing south. I peel my shirt over my headslowerand then undo my jeans just as leisurely, while watching the steady pace of Trey losing piece by piece too.
