Page 18 of Resist Me Not (Bloody Desires #4)

Chapter ten

WALKER

G oing into the bathroom, blissed out of my mind and wanting nothing more than to return to Trey’s arms after I’m done relieving myself, I feel like the biggest idiot in the world for ever doubting him.

That I actually thought he was stalking that guy or a secret agent—ha!

Too much studying and the whole mess with Curtis must have melted my brain.

Though not nearly as much as Trey just did.

He is charming and thoughtful and fucking amazing in bed, just like I hoped from the moment I heard him call me a good boy and I called him Daddy in return.

I don’t even care that all we can have is a part-time romance once I’m back at work and he’s in another city half the time.

It’s almost more perfect that way, a compromise I never could have imagined for myself but that just works.

I know it might be weird to assume culminating our fourth date means this is a romance or that we’re dating and not just strangers passing in the night.

I don’t even know for sure if more is what Trey wants.

But I want it. And I think he does too, even just from how he held me before I had to escape.

It’s perfect. He’s perfect.

And he’s all mine.

A faint sliding shuffle draws my attention outside the bathroom while I’m washing my hands. A closet shares the wall at my right. I dry my hands and then creep toward it, listening closer. More shuffling and then… a thud? Like something landed against the door.

“I think something fell over in the closet,” I call to Trey as I reach it and stand back as I open the door, assuming whatever tipped over is going to fall out.

“Wait—”

Then it does.

The body of the man Trey was so absolutely stalking lands at my feet.

Dead.

D-dead…

“Walker—”

“Oh my God…”

Everything goes gray and dizzying with white noise static.

Everything except for the red. There should be more of it, like the man was already mostly…

drained. His body is ashen and stiff. He’s been dead for at least two hours.

There is red on his shirt, where he looks to have been stabbed in the heart, and a long, clean, thin cut is sliced across his throat.

His collar is caked in brownish red too.

Flaky. Drying. There is too much of it but still not enough.

Where did the rest of all that red and brown go?

The blood …

Darkness seeps into the static and I’m falling, unable to stand, unable to breathe. Something catches me, sits me down, lays me against a solid surface at my back, but I can’t see anything but the darkness now. I’m detached from my body, and I can’t… I can’t fucking breathe .

My inhaler is forced past my lips and a puff expelled. I try to gulp it down, to let it ease open my air passage. It helps, but I still… I-I still can’t… I can’t —

“Walker, it’s okay. You’re safe. Just breathe. No harm will come to you, I promise.”

Trey’s voice is deep. Steady. Comforting.

But he’s lying. He lied to me.

He killed that man.

“Shh… you are only harming yourself by panicking. Breathe . I am not going to hurt you.”

But he could. He could. He could so easily hurt me with me half-passed out on his hotel room floor, in the little hall between bedroom and bathroom, with a closet he stuffed a dead body into!

I know I need to calm down. I haven’t had a panic attack like this in so long, and the last time it meant an ER visit. I can’t risk that. I can’t trust that Trey will call an ambulance when his hotel room is a murder scene.

Oh fuck.

Oh fuck, fuck, fuck !

I love and hate how the mostly inaudible whispers from Trey and the slow soothing circles of his hand tucked behind my back help bring my vision into focus again.

Colors return. The presence of his other hand gently cradling my neck helps too.

My chest is still tight, but the more I force myself to breathe in and out, the easier it becomes to feel normal.

Except that I’m naked. And Trey is naked, kneeling beside me. And there is a dead body in the first stages of rigor mortis staring blankly at me from half a foot away!

I try to scramble away from it, but not yet able to get to my feet, my only option is moving closer to Trey. He wraps me in his arms and pulls me against him. It helps but it doesn’t because he is what I need to escape.

I look past the body out the hallway toward the front door.

“Don’t try to run,” Trey says, his voice different with those words, emptier and cold. Oh, fucking just get me out of here! “You have seen dead bodies before. This is no different.”

This is vastly different! A dead body at work, while always tragic, is expected. That is normal! It isn’t murder! Even seeing attempted murder victims in the ER isn’t the same because then I hadn’t just slept with their killer!

“Walker…” Trey says my name in a low rumble that should ratchet my terror, but it is somehow sweet again and soothing. He is being so gentle with me like always, but I’m not immune to how being told not to run is a threat. “Do you need another puff from your inhaler?”

I hesitate, because I can’t think right now, not clearly, but as the panic tries to creep up again, I know the answer is yes. I nod.

Trey helps me to do so, and this puff is easier to swallow, to breathe it in properly so it can do its job.

My head is throbbing from how close I came to losing consciousness.

I maybe was unconscious for a few seconds.

But if I can’t get my shit together and escape whatever nightmare I willingly walked into, what the fuck do I do?

“Would it help to know why I killed that man?”

For the first time since finding the body, I allow myself to look at Trey. He appears as calm as his voice sounds. Detached? Completely unaffected by what he did? “Wh-why?” I ask, not answering if the knowledge will help this current FUBAR of my life, but I need to know.

“Because he deserved it. He is an abuser. An alcoholic. A philanderer. He doesn’t care about his illegitimate child other than how her existence might ruin his image if she is discovered.

He has been this way for years, and he will not change.

He very easily, however, could have gotten worse over the years.

Now, he won’t. Now, his wife can move on, his mistress can find another pocket to pilfer from, and his daughter will grow up safer. Do you understand?”

Most of that was obvious from the little I saw of the man. If Trey stalked him since our first encounter, he must have learned the rest. But why? It still doesn’t answer why ? “Why… why did you kill him for that?”

Trey tilts his head, like a puppy not understanding that killing the family rabbit was wrong. “What I explained isn’t answer enough? We don’t pander to disease or infection. We cut it out. We get rid of it. You do it your way for the betterment of the world, and I do it mine.”

“Y-you’ve… done this before?”

Trey smiles. He smiles , and I am chilled to the bone and completely frozen.

“H-how many times?”

“Never enough, but as many as I can.”

Oh fuck. Fuck . Trey isn’t a secret agent.

He’s a fucking serial killer.

I don’t know what to say, but I can feel the lingering panic turning to tears. I can’t stop them. One streaks down my cheek, right over my scar, and I know Trey is going to wipe it away before he does. I know him, can anticipate him, and yet… can I? Do I? Do I know him at all?

“No need for that.” Trey strokes my cheek as expected.

“You are safe. You are a light in this world, Walker, not filth like him. He deserved it, but he wasn’t going to have his due justice served to him without help, and if I hadn’t offered my help, innocent people would have continued to suffer for it.

Do you understand yet?” He’s still holding me, still stroking my cheek, but his voice is empty again, cold, like anything beyond that detachment is the real act.

“I-I do.” I nod, probably too hastily.

Definitely too hastily, because Trey grins.

“I know you’re lying, because you’re afraid of me now.

But you have nothing to be afraid of. Not so long as you remain smart with your reactions tonight.

” He stops his stroking of my scar to hold my chin and keeps my head tilted up at him.

“You won’t say anything to anyone, will you? ”

I shake my head just as hastily. I don’t know if I mean it, but I doubt I could say much to anyone right now.

“That I believe is the truth. For now. Get dressed. Wait for me in the main room. Have another glass of wine. Relax. And I will take care of everything. But don’t run. Okay?”

I take another slow breath and nod again.

Trey helps me to stand, helps me into the bedroom, and sits me on the edge of the bed.

He goes out to retrieve all of the clothes we left in the other room.

He doesn’t redress himself yet, but he hands me my clothes and stays with me until it’s clear I can move on my own as I start to put them back on.

Then he drags the body into the bathroom and closes the door.

I don’t bother with my tie or tucking in my shirt. My tie is covered in precome anyway, so I shove it into my pants pocket opposite my inhaler and wobbly make it back to the beautifully decorated table. Along the way, I grab the remaining glass of wine from the coffee table, still mostly full.

I down about half of it before I sit.

I know I’m in shock, but all I can do is drink and stare at the door.

How can I run? Part of me wants to, but Trey knows where I live.

If he stalked this man easily enough to kill him, he knows everything about me too.

Most of it I told him. He knows the hospital.

My favorite places. My favorite things. My ex…

I look to the window. It’s magical with the fairy lights around it, aimed at the city, at Curtis’s freaking apartment. Even without the camera setup there anymore, now I have to wonder for real… what had it been pointing at?