Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

WARREN

The motel door closed 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 need anyone to 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 his nails. 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.

Why hadn't I 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 I obviously don'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 people see that 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 saw me ."

There was so much weight to that last sentence.

"Who are you?" 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 smiled when 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 to save him from.

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 felt good ." 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 fucking amazing telling 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 never good people. 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."

"Fourteen," I was caught on the number, on the way I couldn't see the weight of it in the innocence of his face.

"Warren." He pushed himself to his feet, and some small part of me wondered if I needed to move. The knife was still in his hand, and I'd seen what he could do with it. "I want to trust you, Warren. I want…" Benji paused, and the shiver that trailed through his body seemed to span the room and catch along my ribs, making my heart skip a beat. "I want you."

"Why did you get into my truck, Benji?"

I stayed still as he stepped toward me, didn't run when he stopped a few feet in front of me.

"I wanted to get Mitchy out of town so I could kill him somewhere that he wouldn't be found. Your truck was unlocked, so I knew I could use you. But Warren…" he looked at the knife he held, and his brows drew together. "I was just going to catch a ride for a few hundred miles and then call Mitchy. I didn't know when I got into that truck that I'd find you. I didn't know I'd want you this much."

He looked up at me then, and his expression was so raw, so open. I could see that chill I'd witnessed in the building earlier… but beneath that was the vulnerability I'd seen in the truck when we'd first met. It was all there, mixed together into an amalgamation of something beautifully broken.

"Benji… you're a killer. I?—"

"Nothing has ever felt as good as killing until I met you." He interrupted me. The sincerity in his voice nearly brought me to my knees. "The way I feel when you hold me down, when you use me… Fuck, Warren, I can just let go. I can leave my head and just feel . I've spent so much of my life feeling like there was a part of me that was empty, a part of me that was broken. But you fill it up and make me float ."

The knife in his hand fell to the ground beside him, and he turned his empty palms up to me.

Like an offering—like he was giving me those hands that were so capable of taking a life, that I'd just seen kill a man.

Logically, it made no sense that the gesture would pull at something in my chest, twist something behind my ribs and nearly steal my breath away.

Then again, logically, I should have called the cops the second I got back to the room instead of showering off and waiting for him.

Logically , I shouldn't have been turned on listening to a killer tell me that they wanted me, that I could take them higher than their urges, higher than the sensation of taking a life.

Impulse control… I'd never, ever had very good impulse control. And there was a reason I was more comfortable driving alone with the night sky as company. A part of me had always felt empty, always felt broken—I wasn't a killer like Benji, but I wasn't sure I was a good person, either.

I definitely wasn't sure I was when I stepped forward and cupped his jaw, brushing my thumb across his lower lip in a slow gesture that made him shiver.

"Can I trust you?" It was a simple question—could I trust him not to kill me? Could I trust him to give me this part of himself… Could I trust him to be clever enough not to get caught so we both went down for his crimes?

Could I trust him to be mine the way I'd wanted him to be since the second I first laid eyes on him, and apparently the way I still wanted him to be even though I knew he was a monster?

He turned his head and brushed his lips against my palm. "I want you to. I can see it in you, Warren… that same blank space that I see in me. We could fill each other up—we fit ." He whispered the last word like he was singing a litany to a god he'd never believed in until he looked at me, and I shivered.

"I've never wanted to kill anyone, Benji."

"But you liked watching, didn't you?"

Was I that transparent? Was he seeing things about me that I wasn't even ready to admit to myself? Because yes, I had.

I had liked watching.

And I didn't know what to do with that information other than run from it or accept it, and I already knew which I was going to do.

"I like you . I don't know why, but I do." I finally murmured, because it was the only answer I had. It didn't make sense.

None of this made sense, but maybe it didn't have to.

Benji dropped to his knees in front of me, and there was something so serene on his face. So trusting and open—vulnerable in direct contrast to the malign wickedness I'd seen in the building.

"I've never wanted anyone to see me before, Warren. But you? I want you to have me. All of me." His dark eyes were the night sky when he looked up at me. Endless and open. Spanning for what felt like eternity.

Capable of making me feel at home, at peace.

And if I had to admit that seeing someone who'd killed a man on his knees for me—someone who was obviously capable of something as powerful as ending a life without blinking an eye—turned me on…

Well.

We all had our demons, didn't we? It was rare that we got to learn their name, but it felt good knowing that Benji was mine.