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

Selena

The loud pickup truck idles nearby as I walk down the long road leading away from the house. It only creeps forward when I get too far ahead. I’m sick of being pushed away. I can make my own decisions and suffer the consequences of my own choices. But he can’t understand that.

“Come on, Selena, get in the truck.”

“I’m not getting in the truck, Lex. You want me gone, and I won’t sit beside you while you get rid of me.”

“I’m not letting you walk out here alone. Remember what I said about the predators out here?”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, there are worse predators than you.” I scoff. “I think I’ll chance it. Maybe I’ll get taken by someone who doesn’t have commitment problems.”

The truck slams to a halt beside me.

“God, your age is showing. I do not have commitment problems.”

I swivel on my heels to stare at him, the darkness beginning to wrap around us as the sun goes down. “My age? Fuck you.” My steps kick up dust again. The headlights illuminate my back and cast a long shadow in front of me.

“I’m not fine with it. But this is what has to happen,” he calls over the sound of the engine.

“Then let it happen! Bye!” I admit this outburst shows my age, but I don’t care anymore. None of it matters. “Don’t call yourself a predator when you can’t handle your prey.”

“I can handle my prey just fine. When they fucking listen,” he snaps, kicking up dust as he slams on the brakes again.

I laugh. “If you want a compliant woman, I’m a poor choice.”

“Were you?”

Oh, fuck him. How dare he throw my past in my face when I’ve never thrown his at him. Until now. “Real low blow, felon.”

I hear a heavy exhale from the truck. “I’m telling you one more time, Selena, get in the fucking truck so I can bring you to the bus station.”

I turn toward him. “No.”

Lex’s jaw ticks as if he’s controlling every ounce of what’s inside him that wants to punish me.

“How fast can a rabbit run? You want to play games? I’ll play too.” His voice is low and laced with frustration. His eyes roll up to meet mine, and he becomes the fierce predator once more, transforming in front of my very eyes. He throws the truck in park, turns off the ignition, and gets out, leaning against the door. “You may be faster, but I’m stronger. You’ll get tired before I even break a sweat.”

I look around. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Wire livestock fencing rises from every direction and as the darkness blankets the landscape, it blends into the blackness. Dark trees sway against the wind. Their leaves shake, sending an eerie rustling toward us on the breeze. It’s not like the chase in the morning, when the sky still hung low in gray light. I could see then, at least.

I don’t think Lex will hurt me—even when he gets rough in the bedroom, something holds him back—but his taut muscles ripple, making him look dangerous.

Real fucking mad.

“Ten,” he begins to count. “Nine.” There is a harshness in his voice that wasn’t there last time.

I survey the landscape once more and take off through a field behind me. From memory, I’m trying to recall the wire fencing’s location. I don’t think it stands in my way in this direction.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Eight. Seven.” His countdown grows fainter as I race away.

Tall grass whips at my ankles. I take a sharp right, heading toward the trees. They beckon with their shaking leaves, inviting me to hide among the foliage and giant trunks. But it’s also darker beneath their canopies.

I hear a howl. It’s not an animal. No, it’s Lex . . . signifying the start of the hunt.

Lex

“Ready or not, rabbit, here I come,” I whisper. I take off the way she went. I calculate the moves I know she’ll make. I’m not just a hunter, I’m also a tracker. Stealthy and smart.

I pick up my pace and follow her. It’s so fucking dark. I don’t see traces of her until they’re directly in front of me. When the tall grass sinks, ending abruptly, I know she took a right turn that shoved her heels into that very spot. What a stupid game to play. All because she called me what I am.

No, it’s because of her smart-ass mouth. It’s because of her defiant fucking behavior. If she wants to be a child about everything, I’ll make her play hide and seek. I haven’t decided what I’ll do to her once I catch her. Because I will catch her. I’ll make the choice the moment she’s in my grasp.

Will I please her or hurt her?

A sharp pain races across my thigh, and I bite back the urge to scream out. I look down and run my hand along a barbed wire fence. A twisted point of connection is the cause of my injury. It tore a nice slit in my jeans and brought warm blood to the surface. A piece of fabric blows in the breeze, attached to another sharp piece of fencing ahead of me. I pick it off the wire and lift it to my nose. It smells like her, mixed with the metallic scent of her blood.

She’s hurt.

My eyes scan the tree line, and I spot the faintest clearing of brush ahead. I run along the fence. If it connects to an adjacent paddock, I’ll see it before I run into it.

“Rabbit?” I call out as I reach the cleared section. She went in there. I can feel it in my bones. My heartbeat throbs in my cock as the chase gives me a rush of adrenaline I haven’t felt since I was younger.

When I became a murderer.

To be clear, I didn’t get hard from the killings, but they released all these good hormones that made me wonder why more people didn’t kill those they hated. It’s the ultimate release. Like an orgasm for my brain. I’m hard now because my body anticipates the moment I’ll get my hands on her.

As I barrel through the brush, I knock back branches and make my way through the dark, silent forest. The old me burns beneath my skin. Dark thoughts creep from the deepest recesses of my mind to argue with me. Images of what I’ll do once I catch her swirl through my thoughts.

I want to fuck her one last time.

Lexington tells me that our backs are against the wall. I have to get rid of her because she’ll never just leave. My thoughts weave through the evil ones. It would be better for her if I just . . . ended it. Quick and painless. For her, not for me. It will gut me and fracture the illusion of happiness I’ve had since I met her. Well, since I took her.

But can I do it?

I’ll figure that out once I catch her.

Branches rustle. It’s disorienting and difficult to tell which direction the sound came from. I leave it up to my instinct, which drags me to the left. In the following silence, I wonder if the sound was just an animal after all. Maybe even a real rabbit. But it happens again, louder and closer, with footfalls behind it. It’s a rabbit, alright.

Mine.

The toe of my shoe catches beneath a root and sends me forward, my palms landing on a rock. Her footsteps will be quieter on the rocks than on the forest floor littered with brittle twigs and dried leaves. I smirk and look up. The wall of stone nearly blends with the darkness.

“Very wise, little rabbit,” I call to the top. As I climb, I realize her smaller stature has given her the advantage here.

Prey 1, Predator 0.

I slide down the rock, scraping my hands into a bloody mess on my way down. “Fuck,” I growl.

I follow the wall of rocks, trying to find an easier way up. Just as I expect, there’s a trail of mud and pine needles that, as steep as it is, is cake in comparison. I know that sneaky little rabbit is up there, hiding and hoping I don’t find her.

Or maybe she hopes I will.

If so, that’s not very wise on her part because I have no idea whether I’ll devour her, kill her, or release her unscathed.

Ignoring the pain in my hands and the blood dripping down my leg, I reach the top and scan the new landscape. It’s less dense than the forest floor, lacking massive trees on all sides of me. A scraping sound draws my attention to the lower rock wall. Selena slides down the last bit of scree and hops to the forest floor once more.

Sneaky fucking rabbit.

Prey 2, Predator 0.

I’m proud of her because she’s showing her true wit and strength. She isn’t just a compliant woman. She isn’t just a prim and proper girl in a fancy fucking car. She’s keen and willful. She’s someone who can get dirty and outrun me. She doesn’t seem so weak and vulnerable now. Prey can’t survive by being weak. They survive on their cunning.

I dig my fingers into my waistband. As frustrated as I am, I make my way back down the cliff, sliding every few steps along the muddy path. I follow her footprints, neither of us running any longer. We depend on our wits, not speed.

Our tact.

Our instinct.

Her footprints stop, as if she vanished into thin air. As if I had imagined her from the start. I look around, letting my eyes adjust to the new layout.

Where are you, rabbit?

My eyes drop to the tree trunks lining a section of the path. I put my foot against one on the left, the other on the right, and hand over hand, tree over tree, make it to the other side where her footprints resume.

She’s fucking resourceful, I’ll give her that.

Prey 3, Predator 0.

I nearly call it off, ending the hunt as a predator with an empty belly. But then I see her. She’s perched low behind brush, looking in the direction she thinks I’ll come from. She probably didn’t expect me to continue this way when her footprints vanished. She underestimates me as much as I underestimated her.

My breath quickens, and my heartbeat thunders. Drool forms beneath my tongue. I creep up behind her, every meticulous step avoiding the twigs beneath my feet. Like a jaguar, I skulk among the shadows to sneak up on my next meal.

And I pounce.

I catch her and don’t bother to cover her mouth as I knock her onto her back and fight her flailing arms and legs. There’s no one to hear the sounds she’ll make, so I let her scream. With her body sinking into the mud, I still haven’t decided what I’ll do with her. Lexington wants to play, and the dark part of me fights the temptation to do more than fuck her. The haunting sounds of my past whisper in my ears. I growl.

“Fuck you, Lex!” she yells as she strains against my grasp on her wrists.

“Sneaky fucking rabbit.”

She whimpers as I turn her onto her stomach. I tug down her leggings, exposing her pale ass and thighs.

I unzip my jeans and rip open the button. “Nothing has changed, but I’m going to fuck you how I want one last time because I won your body, fair and square.”

“I don’t want you to fuck me if it’s going to be the last,” she says.

I laugh. “After all that, rabbit? I’m going to fuck you. The predator doesn’t catch the prey to let it go. Not a good predator, at least.”

I pull her hips up, spit in my hand, and rub it along my cock before pushing inside her. She gasps as I fuck her in the rough, hellish way I want, with every thrust forcing my frustration and anger through her. I push the thrill of the hunt inside her, relentlessly fucking her as if every moment she outsmarted me deserves a moment where Lexington—the man I hide from her, even as she whispers his name—can come out and play.

“Lex,” she whimpers, turning her head to the side, and I don’t know what she wants. I can’t care at this moment.

I can’t.

I answer her by fisting her hair with a hand coated in blood and mud. When I crane her neck, I go deeper than she can take. I fuck her like her pussy is mine, even while knowing I have to give it back. Her body tenses with the fear I’ve caused her. Me. Not the men I worried would hurt her. Instead, I’m the one hurting her—emotionally and physically.

Which is worse than the men who would just break her body.

A tear rolls down her cheek, and I fight the urge to wipe it away. My hips drive her into the soft ground, and I try to ignore the parts of her that will force back the side of me I need to feel to let her go. I ignore the soft waves of her dark hair, sticky with sweat, blood, and dirt. I force my gaze above her head instead of at her clenched eyes. Instead of the whimper of pain that leaves her lips with every thrust, I focus on the leaves rustling around us.

The world goes silent, and a nauseating echo of whimpers projects around me. I can’t continue to ignore those sounds in this eerie silence. Lexington can’t stand to hear them, either.

I stop thrusting and rest my pelvis against her ass. Even when she isn’t so willing, she’s warm and inviting. She never cries or begs for me to stop, and I can’t help but find respect within her anguish and stoic fear.

My cock twitches inside her, and I want to keep going, but the need to comfort her overcomes that primal urge to feast on my last meal.

“Goddamn it.” With a deflated breath, I release her hair. I’m disappointed with myself for the inability to do what I need to do to make her hate me so she’ll run.

I pull out of her and turn her onto her back. My hand rubs along her torn shirt, blood drying along a huge gash in her abdomen. Mud spreads over her pale torso. Fear and tears gloss her eyes, but she doesn’t tense as I lean over her. I lift her thighs and pull her against me. She’s slick with mud, and I paint my handprints along her inner thighs as I spread her and push myself back inside. No matter how scared she may have been, she’s still warm and wet for me.

She gasps and digs her fingers into the soft ground. I drive my hips into hers, as deep as I can. She’s the only thing in my life that feels right. Safe.

And she can’t be.

“I can’t keep fighting you on this, Selena,” I whisper. The moment I look her in the eyes, I weaken. “I’m sorry I got rough with you, but it doesn’t change anything.” I lean down and bite the side of her neck. I curl my hips into her and make love to her because I know it’s the last time I’ll be inside her. I wrap my hand around the back of her neck and bury my face into her as I thrust. “I want you to forget me after tonight.”

“No, Lex.” She lifts her chest. “I can’t forget you. I’ll remember you whenever my hands touch cool mud. I’ll think of you when the leaves crunch beneath my feet. Whenever I run, I’ll always imagine you’re behind me.”

I sit up and meet her gaze. “Rabbit, don’t say that to me.” As much as I want to live in her mind forever, I need for her to let me go. The nagging voice in my head returns, threatening her life, telling me that letting her live will hurt her worse. “What can I do to get you to let me go? How can I make you forget me?”

“You’d have to kill me,” she says. The sickeningly calm way she says it sounds like me.

And that makes me feel worse.

I wrap my hand around the front of her throat and squeeze. She doesn’t even fight me as her abdomen draws in and her body begs for a breath. She just accepts it. Whatever all this is to her, it’s somehow worth dying for.

If I keep my grip on her throat just a few seconds longer, the conflict inside me will die with her. My resolve is weakening, though.

I release her neck, and she pants for air.

“I said I’d do anything for you, but I can’t do the one thing I need to do,” I whisper. I give her a forceful thrust to draw her full attention to me. “Promise me one thing?”

She nods before she even hears my request.

“If we get caught before we reach the border, tell the police I abducted you. Tell them I abused you, forced my way inside you, and threatened to kill you. Say anything you have to against my name to preserve yours. If the police come and shit hits the fan, don’t be the wolf. Be the scared little rabbit and run.”

She shakes her head.

“Promise me, rabbit. I’m not playing around with you. You still have a chance at freedom. I don’t.”

She looks up at me, her eyes rounding with sadness. She pulls me into her and kisses me. “I promise,” she whispers.

That’s all it takes to silence Lexington and the altruistic way I want to save her from me or any other person who can hurt her.

The chase. The hunt. The catch. Her promise.

Maybe she’s precisely where she needs to be: a place where her demons can play freely with mine. Under the watchful eye of the wolf, the rabbit will live another day.