by Olivia Chase
“Oh my God!” My hand flew to my mouth and I turned to see Noah standing there, his eyes blazing in fury.
“Jesus Christ, Cutler,” Professor Worthington said. “What the hell are you doing?”
But Noah wasn’t done. He reached down and picked Josh up by the collar of his polo shirt, pulling him close until their faces were inches apart. “You stay away from her,” Noah commanded. “You don’t look at her, you don’t talk to her, you don’t even think about her. Do you understand me?”
All trace of bravado was gone from Josh’s face. Just a few moments ago, when he’d handed me that coffee, he’d been cocky and confident. Now he was shaking like a little boy. Noah shook him again. “Do. You. Understand?”
“Yeah,” Josh said. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”
Noah released his grip on Josh’s shirt. But I could tell he was going to hit him again. It was like he wasn’t there, like he’d had some kind of break with his body and didn’t know what he was doing.
“Noah!” I yelled, grabbing his arm and pulling at him. “Noah, stop it!”
He looked at me, and our eyes met, and that seemed to snap him out of it. “Noah,” I said. “Please, stop. Just stop. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
His breath was coming in ragged gasps, but I could tell he was coming back, he was calming down. I kept my eyes on his, my hand on his arm. I wanted to pull him close, to wrap my arms around him, to tell him everything was going to be okay, but I didn’t dare do that in front of Professor Worthington. From down by the barriers, the policemen had turned to see what the commotion was.
“It’s fine!” Professor Worthington yelled down to them. “Everything’s fine.” The police shook their heads and went back to guarding the barrier. A couple of police cars were pulling up on the other side, two men in suits climbing out of them. They must have been the detectives who were going to be cataloging the crime scene.
“Took them long enough,” Professor Worthington grumbled. He turned to Josh. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Josh said, a track of his cockiness back, now that he could see there was no immediate threat. “I’m fine.”
Professor Worthington looked at Noah and shook his head. “I don’t have to tell you how ridiculously stupid it was to show up at a murder scene when you know you’re going to be a person of interest. And beyond that, it was even more stupid to get into a physical altercation with a member of your defense team. In front of cops.”
“I told you I didn’t want him working on my case,” Noah said. “And I stand by that.”
“He’s not going to be working directly with you,” Professor Worthington explained.
“Mr. Cutler,” I said, hoping my voice sounded professional. “I can assure you that Josh will behave with the upmost professionalism.” I gave Noah a warning look. The last thing I wanted was Josh on this case. He was my competition, not to mention a complete and total pervert. But it was already clear that something inappropriate was going on with Noah and I, and it was going to look even worse for me, and for Noah, if Josh got thrown off the case – Professor Worthington would be even more annoyed than he was when I suggested I could handle everything myself. He might even fire me.
Noah’s jaw set in a straight line, and a vein pulsed in his neck. I could tell it was taking every last ounce of his self-control not to insist Josh be thrown off the case. Finally, he shook his head.
“Whatever,” he said. He turned and started walking away.
I stared after him as he retreated, fighting the urge to follow.
“Charlotte,” Worthington said. “Go with him.” He gave me that knowing look again, the one he’d given me at the police station when Noah had called me into his limo. He knew there was something going on between me and Noah, probably not exactly what it was, but he knew there was something. And he didn’t care. I thought about telling him no, about saying it wasn’t my job to babysit our client. But of course it was my job, at least to some extent.
I was a law student. I was lucky to even be working on this case, and even though I would have preferred to be working on it in some other aspect, if Professor Worthington wanted me to go after Noah, then I had to go after Noah.
You want to go after him.
I raced down the path toward Noah, who was striding through the trees, taking a short cut back toward the main road. There were sirens in the distance now, and I could hear the voices of the detectives turning up at the crime scene.
“Noah!” I called, but he just kept walking, not even turning around to acknowledge me. “Noah! I know you can hear me,” I grumbled as I struggled to keep up with him.
Finally, when we got onto the sidewalk, he turned around. “What the fuck was that?” he demanded.
“What the fuck was what?”
“The whole ‘Josh will behave professionally’ bullshit.”
I shook my head. “I had to say that! This is my job, Noah. I can’t look bad in front of Professor Worthington.”
“Well, maybe I’ll fire him, too, then,” Noah seethed. He turned and started walking down the sidewalk, dodging in and out of the Sunday walkers, who weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere. They were strolling along, bags full of things from the farmer’s market, coffees in hand, enjoying the day. Noah almost ran into a man holding a box of doughnuts.
“Noah!” I yelled. “Noah, stop!”
He slowed down, but just barely.
“Noah,” I said. “I understand you’re upset. I would be, too. Katie just died, which I’m sure has been traumatic. And then you had to come and see Josh there. But firing Professor Worthington isn’t the answer. You’re going to need him, now more than ever.”
Noah finally stopped in the middle of the street, walked over to a bench and sat down. He put his head in his hands and didn’t say anything for a moment. I sat down next to him and waited.
Finally, he rubbed his eyes and looked up, his gaze fixating on something across the street. “How did she die?” he asked softly.
“She was strangled.”
“Jesus.” He dropped his head back into his hands. I wanted to reach out, to touch his shoulder, to comfort him in some way, but I had a feeling that would just make him more upset. I didn’t want to risk the chance of him rejecting me, of him pushing me away, his walls coming up and forcing that distance between us. “When did it happen?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “They’d just found her body when they called me.”
He shook his head again. “She was only twenty-two,” he said. “She wasn’t even… she still lived with her parents. She wasn’t even done with school.” Something about the way he was talking about her betrayed a certain familiarity, more than one would have with an employee.
“Did you… did you have a relationship with her?” I asked carefully.
He shook his head. “No.”
I didn’t want to annoy him, or push him, and I knew he was upset. But what I said next had to be said. “Noah, that won’t matter to the police. They’re going to know you had a connection to her. You shouldn’t have shown up at the crime scene like that. And you shouldn’t have punched Josh. You were so lucky that the police weren’t closer. Josh could still press charges, he could –”
“Now you’re defending him?” Noah asked. He shook his head. “After what he did to you?”
“I’m not defending him,” I said. “I’m just saying that you can’t let what Josh did start to effect your case. It looks really bad, Noah.”
He turned to me. “You think I did it?”
“What?”
“Do you think I murdered those women?”
“What I think doesn’t matter.” The last thing I wanted was for him to think that my opinion had anything to do with his case. No one’s opinion did, except for the police and the jury, if it came to that. And I was pretty sure it might be headed that way. One woman dead, okay. Two women, awful. But three women? All connected to one man? It looked bad. Really, really bad. If he wasn’t arrested, it would b
e a miracle. And if he did get arrested, he was going to need Professor Worthington. In fact, he was probably going to need even more than that -- he was going to need Professor Worthington to head a team of high-powered lawyers, all working together.
“I didn’t ask you if it mattered,” Noah said. “I asked if you thought I did it.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment, and he turned to look at me. His eyes had softened, and it was that same expression I’d seen on him in the lobby yesterday, the expression that made me feel like he did care about me, that this wasn’t just fun to him, that it wasn’t just about sex.
The thing was, deep down, I didn’t think he did it. I’d been with him, I’d spent time with him, and I liked to think I had a good read on people. He just didn’t seem like the type of man who could kill someone, let alone three someones, with his bare hands.
But another part of me felt like I was being ridiculously naïve, that I’d slept with him and my emotions and my hormones were clouding my brain when it came to the facts of the case. How many times had I watched tape of trials or police interviews where someone’s mother or father insisted there was no way their son or daughter could have committed that rape, or that murder, or that assault, even though there was DNA evidence linking them to the victim?
I thought those people were ridiculously stupid. And now I might be turning into one of them.
“Answer me,” Noah said.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
He nodded, then stood up and started walking down the sidewalk toward his limo, which was parked against the curb.
I watched him go, my heart beating fast in my chest. I had a sinking feeling that if he got into that limo and pulled away, he was going to be gone forever, that I would never get a chance to be with him again. The thought was unbearable. A wave of despair and desperation washed over me, scrubbing away any kind of protests my brain was preparing.
I rushed after him and knocked on the window of the limo.
For a second, I thought he was going to refuse to talk to me.
But then the window rolled down.
Our eyes met, and I didn’t have to say anything.
He opened the door and let me in.
Once we were at his apartment, everything changed.
The vibe, which back on the bench had been about him wanting me to believe him, about him needing something from me, had shifted. Now his mood was dark. He walked over to the bar in the kitchen, uncapped a bottle of something amber-colored, and poured the liquid into a tumbler.
I wasn’t sure what to do, so I stood there for a moment, hovering by the door. He sipped his drink and then stared down at it, brooding. He was wearing a crisp white dress shirt, a dark tie, and a black suit. His clothes hung on his large frame perfectly, hugging his broad shoulders and chest. He was freshly shaven, his hair with just the right amount of gel to make him look gorgeous and put together without coming across as someone who cared to much about their appearance.
We stood there for a moment, not saying anything, and then finally, Noah pulled back and threw the glass he was holding against the wall. It shattered into a million pieces. I jumped at the sound of the breaking glass, my heart stopping in my chest, the sound seeming to echo through the eerie silence that followed.
After a moment, I moved toward it, intending to start cleaning it up.
“Don’t,” Noah growled.
I froze. He was removing his suit coat, draping it over the chair on the breakfast bar. He unbuttoned his sleeves and began rolling them up. A delicious shiver of fear and excitement skittered up my spine.
“It displeases me when I feel like you don’t trust me, Charlotte,” Noah said. “It displeases me even more when I feel like you’re not on my side.” He finally looked at me, his eyes boring into mine. “Do you understand?”
I nodded. I understood exactly what I meant. He meant that I’d chosen Josh over him, that I’d protected Josh back at the park. But it wasn’t like that. I didn’t give a shit about Josh. What I cared about was keeping my job with Professor Worthington, and making sure Noah wasn’t doing anything to fuck up his case. It was my job as part of his legal team. And beyond that, I cared about Noah.
“What do you understand?” Noah prompted.
“That you didn’t like it when you thought I was sticking up for Josh.” I took a step toward him. “But Noah, I wasn’t --”
“Stop.” He held his hand out, and I stopped moving. “You don’t understand at all.”
“I don’t?”
He shook his head, his blue eyes blazing. “When you upset me, Charlotte, when you defy me, there are consequences.”
And then I got it. There were consequences. Sexual ones. I bit my lip and looked down at the floor. “Oh.”
“Look at me when you’re talking.”
I looked up at him, and he began removing his tie. “Bend over the counter, Charlotte,” he said.
I swallowed. “Um, I don’t – ”
“Bend over the counter.”
I walked over to the counter and bent over, sticking my ass up in the air. He made me wait there for what seemed like an agonizingly long time, but was really probably only a few moments. And then his body was on top of mine, his chest pushing into my back. He pushed my hair back from my face and wrapped it around his hand, tugging on it gently. Heat pulsed through my body and I bit back the moan that was already threatening to escape from my lips.
Then Noah stood up, moving his weight off of me, and lifted up my skirt. “You know, Charlotte,” he said. “We’re going to have to do something about you wearing these sexy little outfits out of the house.” The cool air hit my ass, and that, coupled with the brush of his fingertips against the back of my thighs made my pussy start to get wet.
“This isn’t sexy,” I said. “It’s just –”
His hand slapped my ass, sending a stinging pain through my backside. “Don’t talk back to me, Charlotte,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Good girl.” His hand reached out and rubbed my ass, his thumbs hooking the sides of my thong and pulling it down, stopping when it was right under my cheeks. “Turn around,” he commanded.
I did as I was told.
I stood there with my skirt pushed up around my hips, the back of my panties pulled down, exposing my ass and pussy to him. “Hold your skirt up for me, Charlotte,” Noah said. “Show me that hot body.”
I held my skirt up and he circled around me in the middle of the kitchen. He unbuttoned his shirt as he walked, one button, two, three, revealing his gorgeous body to me as I stood there on display for him. He threw his shirt onto the floor, standing there in just his pants, looking strong, in control, his eyes burning with betrayal and disappointment.
Then he moved toward me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me toward him, his mouth crushing against mine, his kiss taking me, consuming me as his tongue moved past my lips. He tasted like mint and whiskey and danger, and it was a heady combination that made me moan.
He pulled back, looking at me, running his finger down over my lips. “You are so beautiful,” he rasped. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Which is why it makes me so disappointed when I think you don’t trust me. Do you understand?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
He pulled his body back away from me, and I almost cried out, that’s how awful it felt to be away from him.
“Take your shirt off, Charlotte,” he said.
I reached down and grabbed my sweater, pulling it off and throwing it onto the floor.
“Pull your bra down so I can see your tits.”
His eyes never left mine as I pulled the straps down and then grasped the cups, pulling them down until my nipples were sticking straight out, hard and exposed.
He reached out and grabbed a nipple in each hand, stroking them gently, applying more and more pressure until finally he squeezed. I cried out.
“Look at me,
” he demanded.
It was hard to keep my eyes on his. The intensity of the electricity that sparked between us was almost too much to bear. I’d never felt anything like it before, had never even thought I could experience something so overwhelming. I ached for him to be near me, for me to be able to get close to him on every level – emotionally, physically, spiritually. And when I looked into his eyes, it was like a shock wave, taking me to a place where I feel that need so viscerally I almost couldn’t take it.
Noah kissed my neck, moving down over my cleavage, taking a nipple into his mouth, his tongue swirling around the peak and making me dizzy. He slid down lower, his mouth moving over my stomach.
A flush of embarrassment pinked my cheeks – I was self-conscious about my stomach, had always felt like it should be tighter, flatter, smoother. Noah’s body was perfect, cut out of stone, every muscle defined and chiseled. That someone so beautiful was going to see all my flaws made me feel vulnerable.
I tried to push him away, but he held me close, kneeling down and kissing my stomach, his tongue sliding down until he reached the top of my skirt. “You are beautiful,” he said. “I love everything about your body.”
He unhooked my skirt, pulled it over my legs and down to my feet until I stepped out of it.
Then his mouth was on my thighs, pushing the folds of my pussy open, licking my slit until he reached my clit, his tongue swirling around it. The whole time, our eyes were locked on each other.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I closed my eyes and threw my head back, waiting for the sweet release of my orgasm. But Noah wasn’t going to let me off that easy.
Instead, he stood up, leaving me standing there with my breasts out and my panties pulled down just over my pussy.
He stepped back and looked at me, the sides of his mouth twitching up into a wicked little grin. It was the grin of a man who knew he was in control and was enjoying every single second of it.
“Turn around, Charlotte,” he commanded. I turned around, and he pushed me down onto the counter again, my cheek hitting the cool marble. His hand slid down my back, slowly and deliberately. My whole body broke out into goose bumps.
