WHAT HE CONFIDES (What He Wants, Book Twenty-Four)

by Ford, Hannah

  “Doesn’t that seem deceptive?”

  He shrugged. “Does it?”

  “Yes.”

  As if on cue, a waiter appeared from seemingly out of nowhere. He filled my wine glass with white, then disappeared.

  “It wasn’t my intention to be deceptive, Charlotte,” Noah said.

  “It wasn’t your intention to be deceptive?” I gaped at him. “You just said it was!”

  “No, I said I knew you wouldn’t go if I told you about my history with her.” He picked up my wine glass and poured some into his own, as if I couldn’t be trusted to have alcohol. He already had a tumbler of what looked like bourbon or scotch sitting in front of him – I couldn’t tell exactly what he was drinking, all I knew was that it was strong and mysterious and he handled it without a problem, like he did everything else in life.

  “Stop talking like a lawyer! I hate when you do that.” I took a sip of wine and let it slide down my throat. It was moscato, sweet and bubbly, just like I liked. “It doesn’t matter what your intention was. Do you know how it felt to have to get a Pap smear from a woman you were romantically involved with?”

  “I’d hardly call what we had romantic involvement. And besides, she’s a doctor.”

  “I don’t care!”

  He sighed. “Charlotte.”

  “Noah.”

  I bit my bottom lip and stared at him. I picked up the napkin that was sitting next to my plate and set it in my lap, twisting the fabric around my fingers. I’d wanted to give him a chance to bring up the fact that he’d gotten her pregnant, but obviously that wasn’t going to happen. “Did you know she wears a locket around her neck? The one that you gave her?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t remember giving her a locket.”

  “She keeps a picture in it. A picture of the sonogram of your baby.”

  His hands tightened around the table. “She told you that?”

  “Yes, she fucking told me that, she fucking showed it to me.”

  He reached for his phone. “I’ll have her license taken away.”

  “Noah!” I grabbed his phone out of his hand and held it out of his reach. His eyes flamed with my disobedience.

  The waiter appeared again, setting plates of endive and arugula salad in front of us.

  Neither Noah nor I made a move to touch them.

  “Is everything okay, sir?” the waiter asked, seemingly panicked at the fact that Noah might not find something unsatisfactory.

  “Everything’s fine, thank you.”

  The waiter nodded and disappeared.

  “I don’t want you to get her license taken away!” I said as soon as the waiter was out of earshot. “I want nothing to do with her ever again, and I certainly don’t want you having anything to do with her! I got the feeling she was still in love with you.”

  “I don’t have any feelings for her.”

  “You know that’s not the point.”

  Silence settled over us, and I felt that same feeling of wanting to cry taking over, my anger turning back into sadness. He reached for my hand, but I pulled away.

  “We were kids,” he said finally.

  “How old?” I pressed.

  “Twenty-one.”

  “And?”

  “I was just out of college, she was a girl I slept with once or twice. It was nothing. She got pregnant, and then… she wasn’t anymore.”

  “She said you wanted to name the baby Daisy. She acted like you were excited.”

  “No!” He shook his head. “She came up with the name, and I probably agreed to it. I don’t remember. I wanted her to get an abortion, but she…she wanted to keep it, and then...” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Then she had a miscarriage.”

  “I want to know why you didn’t tell me.”

  “Because she’s the best doctor in New York City. And my number one priority at all times is looking out for your best interest.”

  “Even if it means you do things that upset me?”

  “Yes.”

  “It feels like you don’t trust me,” I said. “What if you’d told me and then I wanted to go to another doctor? Would that really have been so bad?”

  “If it was anything else, then no, it wouldn’t have been so bad,” he said. “We could have discussed it. But this…” He trailed off. “This is too important.” He leaned back in his chair and downed the rest of his bourbon, the ice cubes clinking against the empty glass.

  “Why?” I prompted.

  His eyes met mine, and he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Then he looked back at his glass, watching the ice swirl around the tumbler, the flames from the fire reflected in the crystal.

  “Why did Dr. Solomon say that you thought her miscarriage was your fault?” I asked gently.

  Noah flinched. “She said that?”

  “Yes.”

  His face clouded with anger.

  “Noah, please.” I reached across the table and entwined my fingers with his, waiting for him to say something.

  He stayed quiet for a long moment, and I sat back up, withdrawing my hand. This would usually be the point where I would push him, and he would give me limited information before he began to punish me. It was like he couldn’t let things go too far emotionally before he needed to have his way with me sexually.

  Sure enough, he stood up and walked across the room to the heavy oak door that the waiter had been coming through all night. The room fell silent, the only sound the soft crackle of the fire in the corner.

  Noah locked the door, and then returned to the table. He didn’t sit back down, and instead just stood there staring down at me.

  “Come here,” he demanded, his voice rough and low.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I want to talk.”

  “We will talk.”

  “Then talk.”

  “Come. Here.”

  I stood up and walked to him, and he cupped my chin in his hand, running the pad of his thumb over my lower lip.

  He grabbed me around the waist, picked me up and set me down on the edge of the table.

  Then he sat down in the chair in front of me, gazing at me like I was a present that was meant to be unwrapped. He didn’t move, though, his gaze skimming my skin and making me flush.

  “I need to know why you don’t want to have a child,” I said softly. I reached out and grazed his cheek with my fingertips.

  “Then lift up your skirt.” He reached behind me to where a tumbler of bourbon was sitting on the table on a mirrored tray. He filled his glass halfway, then returned the bourbon to the tray.

  I bit my lip and grabbed the bottom of my skirt, pulled it up slightly.

  “More.”

  I went another inch.

  “More.”

  I went another inch, but that was it. That was all he was going to get before I got what I wanted.

  “You know about my father,” he said finally. He took a sip of his bourbon, sucking an ice cube into his mouth before removing it and sliding it slowly up the inside of my thigh.

  I gasped at the icy coldness, my skin prickling with desire. But he was talking. And that was all I cared about.

  “Yes.” I could have left it at that -- I knew what had happened between Noah and his father, knew that Noah had been beaten by his father repeatedly, that one night when Noah was a teenager he’d had enough and fought back, that he’d broken his father’s legs. That he had a criminal juvenile record for it, that his mother and brother had backed up his father’s claims that the attack had been unprovoked. I could have left it as a simple yes – but I wanted to say more, wanted to make sure that we talked about it out loud. “I know that your father beat you,” I said, my heart thrumming hard against my ribs, my stomach tight.

  “Yes,” Noah said. His hands were on my legs now, removing my shoes, sliding them off my heels before his hands slid up my legs, caressing, touching, rubbing.

  “How bad was it?” I whispered, even though I already knew.

  “He beat me unt
il I bled. He left bruises. He used belts. Switches. Branches. One time a hammer.”

  I flinched, my stomach turning and filled with acid. But I wouldn’t look away from him.

  “That wasn’t your fault,” I said, reaching out and running my hand down over his face, over his perfect cheekbones, his strong jaw, his skin dusted with a bit of stubble, different from this morning when he’d been smooth shaven. “What he did to you was wrong.”

  Noah didn’t reply. Instead, he pulled away from me, reached up and loosened his tie, undoing the perfect Windsor knot and sliding it out of the collar of his shirt. He took my hands and placed them behind me on the table, then used his tie to bind my wrists together.

  “He was a monster,” I said emphatically. Tears pricked the back of my eyes, but I knew sympathy or crying wasn’t what Noah needed. And his father didn’t deserve my tears, and Noah didn’t deserve to be pitied. What he needed was to be believed, to be listened to, to be trusted.

  “Yes,” he agreed, as he pulled on the ends of his tie so hard that the fabric cut into my skin.

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from gasping at the suddenness and almost violence of the movement.

  “But if he was a monster, then what does that make me?” Noah asked.

  “It makes you a child,” I said. “A child who couldn’t have done anything.”

  “I have his DNA.” He frowned. “At least, there’s a good chance.”

  “What do you mean there’s a good chance?”

  “My mother, Charlotte, was never quite clear on whether he was my father, or my stepfather. Her story changed day by day, depending on her mood.” He gave a rueful smile, then slipped his fingers under the straps on my garters, pulled them back and snapped them against my skin. Then he pushed my legs roughly up on the table, forcing them to spread.

  “Your mother should have protected you.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, she should have. And that’s the problem, Charlotte. You love me so much. And I love you. And I would never want to put you in that position.”

  “What position?” I asked.

  “The position of having to protect our child from your own husband.” He began to remove my stockings now, separating the silky, sheer fabric from my legs, his hands skimming over my bare skin as he went, sending explosions of heat through my nerve endings.

  “Why would I have to protect our child from you?”

  “Charlotte.”

  “Noah.”

  “Do the math.”

  “What math?”

  He laughed, but it was a horrible sound, not happy or gleeful, and the fire danced in his eyes as he did it. “My father. Audi. Me. My father, and my father’s two sons. My father beat me. Audi killed a woman.”

  “But you’re not them,” I said. I wanted to touch him so badly, wanted to pull him close to me, wanted to touch his face, his chest, his arms, wanted to kiss his face and neck, wanted to bury his face against me and let him know it was okay, that he wasn’t bad, that he wasn’t a monster. I realized now that he’d tied me on purpose, because he knew that I’d want to touch him and he didn’t want to be touched when we talked about this. He was so certain that he wasn’t worthy of love, that he wasn’t worthy of me. Without my touch, I had nothing to offer him except my words. “You’re not bad, Noah.”

  He stood up and leaned into me, his hands cupping my face as he pushed his lips to mine. “Then why did Nicole lose the baby?”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with you, Noah. You… you think that what, God made Nicole lose the baby because it was yours?”

  “Yes. And if that happened to you, if you ever had to go through something like that…”

  I shook my head. “That’s not how things work, Noah. You’re not evil, and that’s not why Nicole had a miscarriage.”

  He paused, his forehead resting against mine, and I listened to his breathing, placed my hand on his heart, feeling it beat through his shirt.

  “Then why do I want to hurt you?” he whispered. “Why do I have the sick need to cause you pain?”

  I thought about it for a second, wanting to choose my words carefully. “You don’t want to hurt me,” I said finally. “You want to own me, to possess me. And that’s a part of your trauma, Noah, of your need to be trusted after what happened to you.” My eyes filled with tears as I looked at him, for what his family had done to him. The people who were supposed to protect him and take care of him had made him feel as if he were unworthy of anything, when the truth was he was worthy of everything.

  He kissed away my tears. “Don’t cry for me,” he commanded. “Please, baby, don’t cry for me.”

  His hands were on the bottom of my dress, pulling it up, his fingers moving past my panties and sliding into me in one deep, long stroke. I gasped at the intrusion, but I knew this is what he needed, and my body overruled my mind as my pussy rushed with warmth.

  He sat back down in his chair and grabbed my ass, pulling me toward him and removing my panties, then slowly spreading my legs.

  His eyes seared with hunger as his gaze roamed over my pussy, noticing that I was freshly waxed and smooth, his fingers gliding over the bare skin, parting my lips gently as he played with me.

  Then his mouth was on me, licking, fucking me with his tongue, hungry and ferocious. I moaned. He was allowing me some movement, and I wiggled against him, bucking my hips and fucking his tongue with my pussy.

  “Fuck you taste good,” he whispered, and then he was eating me out again, his stubble brushing against my thighs. He made a low, guttural sound, and the vibrations in the back of his throat coursed against my clit and my pussy, intensifying my pleasure.

  “Noah. God, Noah…”

  “Look at me,” he commanded. “Look at me while I eat this tight little cunt.”

  I watched him, watched as he licked and sucked and fucked, hard and fast, his mouth and lips and tongue moving in perfect synch, not teasing me, pulling me to orgasm as fast as I wanted, as if he needed to prove to himself he could.

  “Noah,” I cried as I came, faster than I’d wanted to, but I couldn’t help it. It felt so good. My orgasm broke me, my core convulsing on his tongue as he kept going, his pace slowing with my orgasm until finally he was just licking my clit in slow, lazy circled.

  He slid me onto his lap, my hands still tied behind me, forcing my legs to spread so that I was straddling him.

  “I love you,” I whispered. “I love you so much.”

  He swallowed, the emotions in his eyes so raw, so real that they made my chest ache.

  He pulled the front of my dress down as his mouth met mine again, the kiss soft and slow and sensual as his hands roamed my body. He kept the pace of the kiss slow and agonizingly sexy as he palmed my bare breasts, rubbing and pulling my nipples softly.

  We moaned against each other’s mouths as he reached down and positioned me over his cock, his mouth never leaving mine as he undid his pants and pulled out his dick.

  He pushed my dress up and lifted my ass up so that I was right over his dick.

  My pussy clenched as he began to slide me down on him.

  I wasn’t used to taking him from this angle, had only been on top of him like this once before. I knew it was his way of showing me that he was trying to let me in.

  He was still completely in control, my hands tied as his mouth moved and latched onto my nipple, sucking and nipping as he continued lowering me onto his dick, guiding my hips expertly.

  He was so thick and from this angle he was rubbing right against my clit, the pressure so intense that I almost came again.

  But he must have felt me start to clench around him, because he stopped and popped off my tit, gave me a sexy little grin as he grabbed the back of my neck and pulled my face close to his. “Not yet, baby,” he said. “Not until I fuck you good.”

  I moaned and arched my back as he guided me all the way down on his thick root.

  “Look,” he whispered. “Look where we’re joined, where I�
�m fucking you.”

  I looked, saw him buried all the way inside of me, knew he was fucking me like this because he knew I needed to feel close to him.

  My eyes teared up at the love I had for him, this beautiful, damaged, amazing man.

  “I want to touch you,” I said. “Please.”

  He hesitated, not ready to untie me. But he unbuttoned his shirt, then grabbed my hips and pulled me toward him, so that our chests were bare skin to bare skin. I still couldn’t wrap my arms around him, but he kissed me as he began to fuck me, one hand on my hip, one hand on my bound wrists.

  My hard nipples brushed against his chiseled chest, the friction building as he began to fuck me harder.

  The new sensation of taking him at this angle, along with the knowledge that he wanted me so badly that we were basically fucking with our clothes on, was almost too much to take.

  “Noah,” I whispered, breaking the kiss as his teeth nipped and sucked at my bottom lip. “Noah, please, come inside of me.”

  He stopped for a moment, holding me on him, his chest moving up and down with exertion.

  I pressed my mouth to his, kissing him, running my tongue over the curve of his bottom lip. “Please,” I whispered. “Please, I want to feel you come in my pussy.”

  He took my hips again, rocking them up and down, angling them over his cock as he held me and fucked me, controlling the tempo, the depth, the ferocity of the movement.

  He moved faster and harder, and a second later, I came, looking into his eyes as my pussy grabbed at his cock, clenching and spasming.

  A split second later, I felt him explode inside of me, and I cried out and kissed him as I felt him fill me with his warmth.

  “I love you,” I whispered, kissing every part of his face. “I love you so much.”

  * * *

  When we left the restaurant a couple of hours later, I was sleepy and sated, and I curled up against Noah in the car, leaning against his body, enjoying how warm and strong he felt.

  “I’ll go to another doctor,” I told him. “I just… I don’t want you to think that because of… what happened in there, I expect anything.”

  “Because I came inside of you?” he asked, sounding amused that I didn’t want to say the words.