Page 96 of Ridin' Free

His perfect brown eyes.

“You wanna know why I call you sparky?”

I hesitated as I blinked, sending more tears down my cheeks.

“To annoy me,” I whispered.

He smirked, and I wished I could hate it.

“I call you sparky because the first time you took my dick inside you, my world caught fire. And baby, it’s been burnin’ ever since.” He paused, leaned in close, and murmured, “Ali-Mae, you are not a monster. You got it right. You’re a Phoenix. And the woman who has risen from the ashes iseverything.”

For a split second—one blissful blink of the eye—I let myself believe the lie.

But I’d known since the very beginning, this was never going to last. It couldn’t.

He didn’t understand, and I didn’t have it in me to wait around until he did.

“Stop,” I muttered, pressing myself back flat against the wall.

“No. Not until you believe it.”

“I’m a murderer, Ben,” I spat.

A spark of anger lit inside of me, and I grasped hold of it with everything I had. I resented him for making me do this; for pretending his opinion of me hadn’t diminished.

“You’re a survivor,” he countered.

“I’m a fuckingwhore!” I screamed, unable to take much more.

He didn’t even flinch.

“No, baby, you’re not.”

I coughed out a humorless laugh.

“Stop lying to me. Stop lying to yourself. Ifuckedhim. I fucked Scorpion in exchange for his silence over and over and over again. Every time he was in town. For two years, Benson!”

“Don’t care,” he said easily.

“Liar!”

“Sparky, you did what you had to do. That’s not you anymore.”

“Don’t you get that’s what I’m trying to say?” I argued, uselessly shoving at his chest. “You don’t know me! You think you do, but you don’t. You can’t. No one does.”

“I know you, Ali. You can be as hardheaded as you wanna be, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I know you drink your coffee black with a drop of liquid stevia. I know your favorite dessert is fuckin’ dry cereal—just not the kind with food dye, cause my woman likes that organic shit.

“I know you like to feel the wind in your hair out on the open road nearly as much as I do; and when the ride is over, I know home is where you want to be. And home to you isn’t merely aplace to lay your head at night. It’s a feeling. It’s an experience. It’s where the purest most beautiful part of you comes to life.

“And, baby, the fact that you could walk through all that shit and come out the other side so vibrant and alive, so feminine and strong—it damn near makes me wonder if there’s a God out there, after all, cause you’re one hell of a miracle.”

By the time he was finished, I was numb.

It took every ounce of willpower I had to keep his words from penetrating into the weakest parts of my mind. I didn’t want to remember this moment. I didn’t want to remember the way he saw me. It wasn’t a complete picture—it was only the fragments of me he wanted to believe were real. The pieces of me I’d been reckless enough to let him have.

“You’re wrong. Let me go,” I insisted, desperate to be free of his touch.

“No.”