You meet Cooper while he's on the run from the police and the F.B.I.
He terrifies and excites you to the same degree.
For whatever reason, the unnerving man lets you help him, and takes you under his wing in a way.
So obviously there's something wrong in the head with reader in this one. Cooper is a serial killer. He just also happens to be played by a very attractive man.
Rain hits the windshield in violent sheets, turning the highway into a blur of smeared lights and silver streaks.
You should not have stopped.
Every instinct you possess tells you that.
But the man standing on the side of the road doesn’t look stranded.
He looks dangerous.
There’s a difference.
Your fingers tighten slightly around the steering wheel as you slow anyway.
Because despite the storm, despite the empty stretch of road somewhere outside Philadelphia, despite the unease crawling slowly up your spine—
You can’t quite make yourself keep driving.
The man turns toward your headlights.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Dark curls soaked through with rain.
There’s blood on his sleeve.
Not a lot.
Enough.
And then there are his eyes.
Steady.
Focused.
Too calm.
The kind of calm that makes your stomach twist.
You stop ten feet ahead of him before your better judgment can win.
For a second, nothing happens.
Then he walks toward your car.
Slowly.
No panic. No rush.
Like he already knows you won’t drive away.
The passenger-side door opens.
He slides inside without asking.
The smell of rain and cold air floods the car.
Then him.
Something sharp beneath the damp—metal, sweat, cedar soap.
You stare straight ahead.
“…You could’ve asked.”
The man shuts the door carefully behind him.
“Would you have said yes?”
His voice is even. Controlled.
You swallow.
“…Probably not.”
“Then askin’ seemed unnecessary.”
A chill runs down your arms.
Not fear exactly.
Not entirely.
Something stranger.
Something electric.
You pull back onto the road.
“Where are you going?” you ask quietly.
“Need somewhere to lay low.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re gettin’ right now.”
You glance sideways.
He’s watching the road ahead, one hand pressed loosely over the blood staining his sleeve.
Not tense.
Not frantic.
Just… alert.
Like a wolf sitting in your passenger seat.
The realization hits slowly.
Not all at once.
It comes in pieces.
The police sirens screaming past in the opposite direction ten minutes later.
The emergency broadcast buzzing through your radio.
The words: ongoing manhunt.
And then—
The name.
The Butcher.
Your hands nearly slip on the wheel.
You turn the volume up instinctively.
Authorities continue searching for suspected serial killer Cooper Adams, known publicly as “The Butcher”—
Your passenger calmly reaches forward and switches the radio off.
Silence crashes into the car.
You stare at him.
He stares ahead.
“…Cooper Adams,” you whisper.
“Mm.”
“That’s you.”
“Yes.”
No denial.
No excuse.
Just truth.
And somehow—
That’s worse.
You should stop the car.
You know that.
Pull over. Run. Scream. Something.
Instead, your pulse kicks harder.
Because he doesn’t look panicked.
Doesn’t look like a monster.
He looks… normal.
That’s the terrifying part.
“You gonna crash this thing?” he asks mildly after a moment.
You realize your grip is white-knuckled.
“No.”
“Good.”
“You killed people.”
“Yes.”
Your breath catches at how casually he says it.
“How many?”
Cooper finally turns his head slightly toward you.
Rainwater drips slowly from his curls onto his collar.
“A dangerous question.”
“Why?”
“Because now I’m curious why you still haven’t stopped the car.”
You don’t have an answer.
Not one you want to examine too closely.
The motel is your idea.
A rotting little roadside place with flickering lights and a bored clerk too distracted by his phone to care.
Cooper lets you do the talking.
Lets you hand over cash.
Lets you lead him upstairs.
You don’t understand why.
You especially don’t understand why he follows you into the room without a single hint of concern that you might betray him.
Until the door shuts.
And he locks it.
Then turns toward you fully for the first time.
The atmosphere changes instantly.
Not louder.
Not more violent.
Sharper.
Like stepping too close to the edge of something.
“You nervous?” he asks.
You force yourself not to step backward.
“Yes.”
His gaze drags over your face slowly.
“Good.”
Your stomach flips.
God.
There’s something deeply wrong with that reaction.
He notices.
Of course he notices.
“You scare easy?” he asks.
“No.”
“But I scare you.”
“Yes.”
A pause.
Then the corner of his mouth twitches slightly.
“Smart girl.”
You hate how much that affects you.
The wound in his arm turns out to be deeper than you thought.
Gunshot graze.
Not fatal, but ugly enough that blood keeps seeping through his sleeve.
You stare at it while he sits calmly in the motel chair like this is an ordinary evening.
“You need stitches.”
“I need sleep.”
“You need medical attention.”
“I need people to stop trying to arrest me.”
“That too.”
Another almost-smile.
Brief.
Gone quickly.
“You always this talkative?” he asks.
“Only when there’s a serial killer bleeding on my motel towels.”
“That sounds dramatic when you say it out loud.”
You laugh once before you can stop yourself.
And that—
That changes something.
Because Cooper looks at you differently afterward.
More interested.
More attentive.
Like he’s trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with you.
You clean the wound anyway.
At first, you expect him to flinch.
To react.
He doesn’t.
Just watches you quietly while you disinfect the cut.
“You’re very calm,” you murmur.
“So are you.”
You meet his eyes briefly.
“That should probably concern both of us.”
“Yes,” he says softly. “Probably.”
Over the next three days, you should leave.
Instead, you stay.
And somehow—
So does he.
You learn things accidentally.
Cooper likes black coffee with too much sugar.
Sleeps lightly.
Always positions himself between you and the door.
Keeps his emotions folded so tightly beneath the surface they barely exist at all—
Until they do.
And then they flash sharp enough to cut.
“You don’t ask many questions,” he says one night.
You’re sitting cross-legged on the second motel bed while he cleans blood from beneath his fingernails in the bathroom sink.
“I know enough already.”
“Most people would want details.”
“Most people wouldn’t still be here.”
Silence.
Then:
“No,” he agrees quietly. “They wouldn’t.”
You start moving every few days.
New motels.
New towns.
Different roads.
The FBI gets closer more than once.
Every time, Cooper stays unnervingly composed.
Even when helicopters thunder overhead.
Even when police checkpoints force detours through isolated backroads.
Nothing rattles him.
Except you.
You notice it slowly.
The way his eyes find you first whenever he enters a room.
The way he listens when you speak, even when he pretends not to.
The strange gentleness hidden beneath all that control.
Not softness.
Never softness.
But restraint.
Deliberate restraint.
One night, somewhere in Ohio, you finally ask the question sitting between you for weeks.
“Why haven’t you killed me?”
Cooper looks up from where he’s seated at the tiny motel table.
The lamp casts half his face in shadow.
“Do you think I want to?”
“I think you could.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Your pulse skips.
“No,” you admit quietly. “I don’t think you want to.”
His gaze sharpens slightly.
“Why?”
Because if he wanted to hurt you—
He already would have.
Because every single terrifying instinct inside him seems aimed away from you instead of toward you.
Because you’ve started recognizing the difference between dangerous and cruel.
And Cooper Adams is only one of those things.
“You look at me like you’re trying to solve something,” he says eventually.
“Maybe I am.”
“And?”
You hesitate.
Then tell the truth.
“I think you’re lonely.”
The silence afterward feels enormous.
Heavy.
His expression doesn’t change.
But something behind it does.
A crack.
Tiny.
Human.
“You shouldn’t see things like that in people,” he says softly.
“Why not?”
“Because eventually it gets you hurt.”
But he never hurts you.
Not once.
The first time he touches you deliberately, it’s almost nothing.
A hand at the back of your neck while guiding you out of sight as police officers sweep through a gas station parking lot.
But his palm is warm.
Steady.
Protective.
Your entire body reacts instantly.
And he notices that too.
Of course he does.
Later that night, tension hangs thick between you in the motel room.
You can feel him watching you from across the room.
“You should sleep,” you murmur.
“You should stop lookin’ at me like that.”
Your breath catches.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re curious.”
Maybe you are.
Maybe that’s the worst part.
“You terrify me,” you whisper.
Cooper studies you for a long moment.
Then rises slowly from his chair.
Every instinct screams at you to move.
You don’t.
He stops directly in front of you.
Close enough that you can feel his warmth.
“Still here, though.”
His voice is low.
Controlled.
But there’s something burning beneath it now.
Something you’ve both been pretending not to notice.
Your heart pounds painfully hard.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
You look up at him.
At the man everyone is hunting.
The man who should send you running.
Instead, your pulse spikes for an entirely different reason.
“Because you’ve never looked at me like prey.”
Something dark and conflicted flashes across his face.
Then his hand lifts slowly—
Giving you every chance to pull away—
Before his fingers brush lightly against your jaw.
The touch is devastatingly careful.
Like he’s handling something fragile.
“You should be smarter than this,” he murmurs.
“Probably.”
“And yet.”
“And yet,” you echo softly.
When he kisses you, it feels inevitable.
Not soft.
Not rushed.
Careful in the way dangerous things sometimes are.
Like he’s restraining far more than he’s giving in to.
Your fingers catch in the front of his shirt instinctively.
His hand settles against your waist.
Firm.
Grounding.
Possessive enough to make heat curl low in your stomach.
When he pulls back, his forehead rests briefly against yours.
And for the first time since meeting him—
Cooper Adams looks uncertain.
“You make this complicated,” he says quietly.
You can barely breathe.
“You kidnapped me.”
A low huff of laughter leaves him.
“I did.”
“You’re also a serial killer.”
“Allegedly.”
You stare at him.
He stares back.
Then, somehow, you both start laughing.
Quiet.
Breathless.
A little unhinged.
The FBI nearly catches him two weeks later.
You barely escape through the back exit of a diner while agents flood the front.
Your hand is locked tightly in Cooper’s the entire time.
He doesn’t let go once.
Not while sprinting through alleys.
Not while stealing a car.
Not even after.
“You could leave,” he says hours later, voice rough with exhaustion.
You’re parked deep in the woods, hidden beneath heavy trees.
“You say that like you want me to.”
Silence.
Then:
“I don’t.”
The honesty of it wrecks you a little.
So you stay.
Not because you’re trapped.
Not because you’re afraid.
But because somewhere between the terror and fascination and sleepless motel nights—
