by Hannah Ford
“I don’t like soup,” I lied.
“Then I will fix you a sandwich.” He replaced the soup and pulled a loaf of bread from the breadbox.
“I don’t like sandwiches.”
His mouth set into a line. “Charlotte, we agreed that you would let me be in control of things like this.”
“Yes, and we also agreed we would do some things my way.”
“We did do things your way. We went to Force tonight. And you see how that turned out.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you obviously had no idea what it was you were getting yourself into.”
“So what you’re saying is that going there was a mistake, that I should have listened to you.” His words felt like an I-told-you-so.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Stop talking like a lawyer.”
He sighed and crossed the room, pulled a package of chicken out of the refrigerator and began making me a sandwich. “Charlotte, going to Force served no purpose other than to expose you to Josh, and to cause me to lose my temper.”
“It showed us that Josh was the one who placed those phone calls. That he’s the one who killed Katie.”
“We have no proof of that.”
“But now we know where to look.”
Noah placed the sandwich on a plate and set it in front of me, along with a folded cloth napkin. “Eat.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Not until we talk about the next steps.”
He gripped the edge of the marble island and leaned over, then looked up and stared straight ahead, his gaze focused on nothing. I admired his profile, the strength of his brow, the clean line of his jaw, the fullness of his lips. He was beautiful and perfect and the pull I felt toward him was nothing short of magnetic. It was so overwhelming, the way I wanted to give myself to this man, that it made my heart race and my breath hitch in my chest. A tidal wave of emotion overtook me, and I reached over and touched his hand. His skin was warm.
“There will not be any next steps,” Noah said. His voice was firm, and even though he hadn’t moved his hand, he didn’t make a move to intertwine his fingers with mine.
“We have to figure out why Josh did this, what his connection was to Katie,” I said.
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” He stood up then, pulling his hand away from mine. “There will not be any more talk of this, Charlotte.”
“Fine,” I said, standing up so fast that the stool I was sitting on went tumbling to the floor. “You don’t want me to figure out what Josh has to do with this? Then I’m calling the police.”
Noah shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you Charlotte?”
“Don’t get what?”
“The police will not care. They will not care that Josh was watching us have sex. They will think it is insane that you are even calling to report that. You have nothing to connect him to Katie. At best, you have him making some phone calls to you, the content of which will be your word against his. The time to call the police was earlier, Charlotte, and even then it would have been a stretch.”
“So again, this is my fault for not letting you call the police earlier.”
“This is not anyone’s fault, Charlotte. Assigning blame is a losing game. Figuring out a game plan is the only way to stop him.”
“So then let’s figure out a game plan.”
“You will not be involved in this. I will handle it.”
He picked up my uneaten sandwich and slid it into the garbage, then set the empty plate in the sink. I watched in disbelief, imagining some nameless, faceless housekeeper showing up here tomorrow and washing the plate, placing it into the dishwasher and setting it back in the cupboard. That’s how it was in his world – everything was neat and tidy and controlled.
“So you’re going back your word,” I said. Anger and bitterness raged like a storm inside of me, but I kept my voice calm.
“The situation has changed again, Charlotte. You were in danger tonight. And I have to recalibrate based on that fact.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Enough!” he yelled, his voice echoing through the apartment. He crossed the room to me and grabbed my wrists, pushed me up against the side of the island until the hard marble was pushing into the small of my back. “You will not defy me, Charlotte.”
The emotion and anger were prevalent in his voice. I reached out and touched his cheek.
“I don’t want to defy you,” I whispered. “I want to help you.”
This seemed to anger him even more, and he grabbed me by my buttocks and picked me up, setting me down on the edge of the island. His mouth crashed into mine, his tongue moving past my lips and tangling with mine. I moaned into his mouth as his hands sunk into the skin of my ass.
His kiss intensified as he pulled me toward him, grabbing my thighs and pushing them open. His hands moved through my hair as he kissed me, and his cock was pressed against me, thick and hard through his pants.
He pulled back and trailed a line of kisses down over my throat, over my cleavage, his hands grabbing at the coat I was wearing, grabbing at the lace of my body suit. He was frenzied, even though he’d just had me at Force.
“Noah,” I breathed.
But he didn’t stop. He pushed my jacket down over my shoulders, clawing at the fabric of my bodysuit. It tore, exposing my breasts to him, and his mouth descended onto my nipples.
“Noah,” I said. “Please. Wait, let’s slow down...”
I wanted to be with him, wanted him to control me, but not like this. He was in another zone, completely shut off from his emotions. He sucked hungrily on my nipple until it was hard and peaked.
I was slick with moisture between my legs, my body responding to his touch, his mouth, the hardness of his cock rubbing against me. But I wanted more. I couldn’t get the images of the night out of my head—seeing Josh, the sound of his voice as he called me a whore, the look in that girl’s eyes as she clamped onto my leg.
I wanted to get pulled under by Noah’s touch, wanted to lose myself in his kisses. But what I needed was for him to comfort me. I knew this was his way of working through his emotions, that the way he calmed himself was by dominating my body.
But I needed to be calmed, too.
“Wait,” I said. “I want to talk.”
“What do you want to talk about?” he growled into my ear. His fingers moved the crotch of my bodysuit to the side and slid inside of me. I bit my lip to keep from moaning, but the sound escaped anyway. He grinned wickedly at my reaction.
“I want to talk about what happened tonight,” I said. “I want to figure out what we’re going to do.”
He ignored me, instead sliding his fingers deeper into my pussy, his thumb brushing my clit as his index finger curled and rubbed inside of me. His index finger was rough, probing, his thumb soft and gentle. The contrast in the two sensations sent waves of pleasure rocketing through my body.
“We,” he said softly as his mouth moved over my collarbone. “Are not going to do anything. You are going to stay out of this.”
“No.” I shook my head.
“Let me take care of you,” he said. “Let me take care of everything.”
His strong hands gripped the front of my bodysuit and ripped it apart, exposing my breasts completely. He pulled me forward, grabbing my thighs and wrapping them around his waist.
“Noah please,” I said. “Noah, I want to talk about this.”
He smiled devilishly and began to unbuckle his belt. Desire and lust burned in his eyes, and I knew he was turned on by this, knew he loved the fact that I wanted to talk and he was going to take me anyway.
“Get on your knees,” he said, and I shook my head.
“No.”
The glint in his eyes burned brighter as his want for me deepened due to my protests. He reached for me, slid me off the counter until he was holding me up, then pushed me down onto the floor until I was forced to my knees
. My body responded to the force, my hormones racing and pulsing inside of me, commanding me to let him do what he wanted.
But my heart fought back, insisting that I wanted more from him, that I deserved more from him.
“Noah,” I said, but he grabbed me by the back of my hair and pulled my head back.
“Quiet,” he growled. One hand kept my head held tight, and with the other, he unbuttoned his pants, unzipped them, pulled his cock out. It was rock hard and thick, and I groaned, imagining it inside my mouth, my pussy, my ass.
Heat flooded my body.
But I resisted.
I wanted to fuck him.
But I wanted to love him more.
So I did the only thing I could.
“Red,” I said, and he immediately looked as if he’d been slapped. He dropped his hands from my head and stepped away from me, putting distance between us.
The pain on his face was so unbearable that I instantly wanted take back what I’d said. I would have done anything, would have let him do anything to me, if only he would have stopped looking at me with that look of horror on his face.
“Noah,” I tried.
“Charlotte,” he said. “Oh, God, Charlotte, I’m so sorry.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You haven’t done anything wrong, you didn’t – ”
The sound of his phone ringing echoed through the room, and the pain in his eyes disappeared, replaced with blackness. Before I could say anything, he’d turned and grabbed the phone.
“Cutler,” he barked. He listened intently, frowning in concentration at what the person on the other end of the line was saying. His gaze flicked over to me for a moment, and I wondered if whatever he was hearing had something to do with the case, had something to do with me. He turned and walked out of the room, his voice disappearing down the hallway, allowing me to only catch snatches of the conversation. “…fine…to be expected…”
I wondered if it was Clementine, if they were going over some kind of legal strategy, and if so, why Noah had felt the need to walk out of the room so that I wouldn’t hear.
When he returned a moment later, all signs of horror and regret had been wiped from his face.
“The evidentiary hearing will be tomorrow at noon,” he said.
I gaped at him. “But the DA’s office never even called me. They never even…”
“Colin has decided to call you as a witness for the defense. He pushed to get the hearing moved up, and the judge has agreed.”
I nodded. It was a good move – getting me put on the official list as a witness for the defense. That way, it would look as if Noah wasn’t trying to hide the fact that we had a BDSM relationship. By putting it all out in the open, it looked as if he had nothing to hide. And since the prosecutor had kept the possibility open that they were going to call me as a witness anyway, it made sense.
“But the DA’s office didn’t interview me,” I said. I shook my head. “They’ll want to know what I’m going to say.”
“Colin said they hardly fought the motion to fast track the hearing.”
Noah looked at me, and I looked at him.
Neither of us said anything, but we both knew exactly what that meant.
The prosecution was going to question me without even knowing what my answers were going to be. It was a strategy – they wouldn’t know my answers, but I wouldn’t know their questions. They were going to try to trip me up.
“We should go to bed,” Noah said. “Tomorrow is a big day.”
I hesitated, still wanting to talk, still wanting to connect with him, even more so now. But I wasn’t sure how he would react, and I was afraid of pushing him.
So I let him lead me to the master bathroom and start the shower for me. He returned to the bedroom and I slipped under the stream of hot water, letting the spray hit my shoulders, my neck, my back. When I was done, I wrapped myself in a robe from the closet and returned to the bedroom. Noah was sitting in bed, shirtless, his laptop open in front of him.
I crossed the room to his dresser and pulled out one of his t-shirts. My things had been brought here, but I wanted to wear something of his, to feel close to him, even if it was only in some small way.
I put it on and slipped under the sheets next to him. My body felt exhausted, but my mind was racing, my thoughts swirling and tangling at warp speed. I prayed he would reach for me, or at least say something to me.
But the only sound coming from his side of the bed was the clack of computer keys.
I closed my eyes tight, and after about half an hour, I heard Noah put his computer away and switch off the light. He stayed firmly on the other side of the bed. He didn’t reach for me, or try to talk to me. His foot didn’t brush against mine.
There was no contact.
I can’t do this anymore, I thought. I love him, but I can’t do it. It’s too hard.
I was scared and nervous and my heart was aching. The one person I wanted to comfort me was completely closed off. Why was I risking everything for him? It was the same question that swirled around me constantly, and it permeated my thoughts, rolling in like a fog and blocking out everything else.
Eventually I dropped into a restless sleep, the kind of sleep that left you tired and groggy.
A dream began to take form in my mind, a dream of that girl in the classroom dungeon. I felt the coldness of her hand, saw the blackness of her eyes as she begged me for help. In the dream, she pulled me into the classroom. There were chairs and desks, and at the front of the room stood a man, clothed in black leather.
When he talked, he had the distorted voice of Anonymous. “Come in, Charlotte,” he said. “It’s time for your lesson.”
I didn’t want to go into the room, but the girl holding my hand pulled me in. “Please,” she said. “You’re our only hope.”
I walked across the floor, but it had changed from concrete to something soft. I looked down and realize I was walking through dirt, and the desks had turned into stone graves.
The masked man came toward me, and I reached up to pull his mask off, but I realized there was no way to remove it – his black leather suit was all one piece, with no holes for his eyes or his mouth.
He put his hands on my shoulders, pushing me down into the soft dirt, and it began swallowing me up, pulling me under like quicksand. I looked down and I could see hands reaching up from the ground, grabbing at me, and I somehow understood they were taking me to my grave.
“This is what you deserve, Charlotte,” the voice of Anonymous echoed through the room, and I wasn’t sure it was even coming from the masked man. “You’re going to die now.”
I looked to the waitress in the corner, but her lips were blue and her eyes had rolled back into her head. I thought she was dead, but she was still somehow standing upright.
“No!” I screamed. “No!”
The arms clawed at me, pulling me under, dozens of them rising from the dirt. They were the arms of the girls in the slave auction, tan and sparkly but with rotting brown nails.
I was powerless as they dragged me down with them. I took in a breath, but there was nothing I could do. I inhaled dirt and grit into my lungs as I slipped under, and I tried to scream but I had no breath left.
I was dead.
“Charlotte!” Noah was calling my name from somewhere far away, and my mind reached for him. “Charlotte, wake up!”
I sat up straight in bed, waking from the horrible nightmare. I was drenched in sweat, my body shivering in Noah’s t-shirt.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. It was just a bad dream.” He reached for me and held me, his hand stroking my hair as I caught my breath.
“It was…” I tried to speak to tell him what it was, but he shushed me.
“Shh,” he said. “Shh, you’re okay now. You’re okay. Nothing bad is happening. You’re safe. It was just a dream.”
I pulled away and looked at him. “I was at Force,” I said. “In that room, with that girl. They were trying to kill me, t
hey were trying to bury me alive.”
“It was just a dream,” he said. “You’re fine.”
I reached out and touched his face, running my finger over his cheekbone, his jaw, sliding my hands over the smooth planes of his chest. I needed to know this was real, that I was really awake. “It felt so real,” I whispered.
“This is real,” he whispered, and he kissed my mouth softly. “Charlotte,” he breathed. “Charlotte, I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“For everything. For putting you in this position. This is all my fault.”
“It’s not,” I said. The room was still and dark, the only sound the muted rush of cars coming from the street below. Noah was cast in shadow, the outline of his face beautiful next to me.
“I just… I want to be close to you,” I said. “I want to feel close.” I pressed my palm against his bare chest, feeling the beat of his heart. “I want to know you.” Everything was spinning out of control in my life, and I felt like if I could just stay still with him for a moment, if he would just let me in, it would be worth it.
He took his hand and pressed it against my chest, feeling my heart beat through his t-shirt.
“I’m trying,” he whispered.
“I know.”
He lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me softly. I kissed him back as he wrapped his arms around me and pushed me back gently onto the bed, his body pressing into mine as he laid on top of me.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” he murmured. “If anything ever happened to you, Charlotte, I wouldn’t be able to go on.” His eyes darkened with pain, and I wondered if he was thinking about Nora.
“Nothing is going to happen to me,” I said.
“Not if I have anything to do with it.” His jaw set in determination as his hand slid down the side of my body over the thin fabric of the t-shirt I was wearing.
“You can’t protect me every second, Noah.”
“Obviously.”
“What do you mean?”
“You used the safe word.”
“So?”
“So I hurt you.”
I shook my head and stared at him. “You didn’t hurt me, Noah. I just… I wanted to be with you, but I wanted to connect with you.”
