Free Completely Consumed (Addicted To You, Book Eight) by Lucy Covington

car.
    It was surprising, given how fearful she’d been and the fact that Elijah was a total stranger with unclear intentions. And yet, after they’d been on the highway for a while, Caelyn had found her eyes starting to grow weary and heavy.
    She’d begun drifting, startling awake, trying to keep alert and ready for anything.
    But every time she looked over at Elijah, something about him made her feel relaxed.
    He would never hurt me.
    She didn’t understand how she could know such a thing. Why couldn’t he hurt her? She knew nothing about the guy.
    But her body had known, it seemed, even if her mind was suspicious. Eventually, Caelyn must have simply given in to the weariness and exhaustion that were the result of everything that she’d gone through that evening.
    When she first opened her eyes again, Caelyn could tell that Elijah hadn’t noticed she’d woken up. He was driving along, humming quietly to himself. The radio was playing softly, and she realized that he’d probably put it on very low volume so as not to wake her.
    It was touching in a way, she decided. He was trying to be careful, trying to be nice to her.
    She kept her eyes half-closed so as to continue watching him without his knowledge. It was voyeuristic and perhaps a little bit wrong, but she couldn’t help herself.
    Something about Elijah was mysterious and enigmatic, and she wanted to know more about him. Any glimpse she could get would help her understand that extra little bit.
    Caelyn continued to pretend to be asleep, letting her head loll a bit as the car jostled slightly on the road.
    Suddenly, Elijah’s eyes locked on the rearview mirror and his expression changed to one of alarm.
    There was a loud WHOOP! WHOOP! sound from behind them, and Caelyn snapped her eyes open, turned to look behind her and find a police car approaching quickly, its lights flashing.
    “Shit,” Elijah whispered. His strong jaw settled into a tight line, and he put his blinker on and slowed down, pulling over to the side of the road as the cop pulled up right behind him. The police car was just sitting there, and there wasn’t any movement at first.
    “Were you speeding?” Caelyn asked Elijah.
    “Nah,” he said. “Well, maybe just ten miles over the limit.”
    “So you were speeding.”
    He gave her an exasperated look, like he couldn’t believe anyone would consider ten miles over the limit the same thing as speeding. “Just let me handle this,” he said.
    His eyes went back to the rearview mirror. “I should just hit the gas and leave this douche in the dust,” he mused.
    “You’re joking, right?” Caelyn asked, her stomach suddenly churning. He didn’t sound like he was joking. Visions of a high-speed chase danced through her head, along with a trip to the police station, where she’d be forced to call her mother and confess everything. Only this time she wouldn’t have just run away from school. This time she’d have been arrested with a strange boy.
    Elijah didn’t answer. His eyes were still glued on the rearview mirror. Finally, he turned to her. “Whatever I say, you just go along with me. Understand?”
    “What does that even mean, go along with whatever you say?”
    “Listen, Caelyn.” His dark eyes grew intense. “I’m not messing around. You go along with whatever I say, no matter what. Got it?”
    She didn’t like his tone of voice and she didn’t particularly understand his instructions either. “No way. I’m not just going to do whatever you say because you say it. That’s crazy.”
    There was the sound of a door opening, and when Caelyn craned her neck to look, the officer was slowly getting out of his car.
    Elijah looked at her and shook his head, then leaned across her and opened the glove compartment. He reached into the glove box, and she could see his heavily muscled forearm and a dark flash of tattoo ink on his upper bicep as the sleeve of his tshirt rode up.
    Something about his proximity, the nearness of