What He Plans (What He Wants, Book Twenty-Two) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) Read online

  Fireworks exploded through my body, the wetness between my legs becoming more intense.

  He pulled my arms up over my head and kissed me again, hard and deep, his hands sliding down my body.

  “Keep your arms up,” he commanded and I arched my back into him, wanting, wanting, wanting.

  Our kiss deepened and my body began to act on his own. I pushed my hips up, trying to push myself against him. I needed to feel the hardness of his cock against me.

  But he grabbed my hips and pushed me back against the wall, then cupped my ass and pulled me to him slowly.

  “I decide,” he ground out gruffly.

  “Yes, sir,” I whispered.

  He trailed a row of kisses down over my collarbone, his breath warm against me. I moaned and tipped my head back. His hands were still roaming my ass, and he slid one of my legs up over his hip and pushed his body between my legs, pinning me to the wall.

  “You like that?” he demanded.

  I could feel the hardness of his dick, even through his pants and mine, and as he pressed it against me, my pussy flooded with even more arousal.

  “Yes.”

  “Say it.”

  “I like that.”

  “What do you like?”

  “Your dick.”

  “Where?”

  “On my pussy.”

  “Good girl.” He leaned down and kissed my neck again, sucking the skin between his lips so hard it almost hurt. But the pain was overwhelmed by the slick sensation between my legs and the desire to give myself over to him. When he was like this with me, so demanding, so in control, it made me feel safe.

  It was a paradox, that him making me do things that pushed me outside my comfort zone, that brought me to the edge of my limits sexually and emotionally, made me feel so safe. But my trust in him was so complete when it came to these things that knowing he had ownership of me made me feel like nothing could hurt me.

  His hand slipped under my shirt, cupping the swell of my breast through my bra, his index finger and thumb pulling at my nipple. My nipples turned immediately hard, popping like two buttons through the lacy cups of my bra.

  “Noah,” I managed, his name a plea for more.

  His eyes glinted at the tone in my voice, the desperation and longing there, the certainty that I was going to break soon, that I would be a slave to his whims.

  Take me, I thought. Just take it all away.

  “Are you wet, Charlotte?”

  His fingers were on the waistband of my jeans, his index finger tracing the button lazily, his knuckle skating over the bare skin under my navel.

  I sucked in a breath. “Yes.”

  He began to unbutton my pants, and he pressed his mouth to my ear. “You will do as I say.”

  I whimpered as he began to undress me slowly, pulling off my shirt and jeans until I was left in just my bra and panties. There was a hair tie around my wrist, and he slipped it off and gathered my hair into a messy ponytail.

  He walked to shower, turned it on, then came back to me. “You are going to take a shower now, do you understand?”

  “Noah – ”

  His hands were instantly back on my tits, squeezing through my bra, twisting my nipples hard until tears sprung to my eyes.

  “Do. You. Understand.”

  I nodded.

  He unhooked my bra, letting my breasts spring free.

  His thumbs hooked under the sides of my panties, pulling the fabric down over my thighs, down to my ankles until I stepped out of them.

  He picked me up and carried me to the shower, smacking my bare ass before setting me down under the spray.

  I leaned my forehead against the cool tile of the shower, letting the water sluice over my skin. The showerhead was turned to it’s most concentrated setting and the intensity of the stream made my skin ache and burn where my nipples were sore from Noah squeezing them.

  But I didn’t move.

  “Wash.” His voice came as a command from the other side of the door.

  I washed myself dutifully with a fresh bottle of honey coconut body wash that was sitting on a heavy wire shelf. I made sure the factory seal was still on the bottle, not wanting to take any chances.

  As soon as I was done rinsing off, Noah reached in and turned off the water.

  “Good girl,” he said.

  I stepped into the towel he was holding out for me, and he wrapped me in it, rubbing my shoulders. He released the hair tie from my hair and let the strands fall around my shoulders as his hands snaked up under the towel, pushing it up until the soft cotton was bunched around my waist.

  His knuckle skated against the outside of my pussy. “So wet,” he murmured. “So smooth and sweet.”

  “Noah. Please, I want to talk about –“

  He pushed his knuckle inside of me, hard, and I gasped.

  “That’s it, baby.” His hands found the top of my towel and he loosened it from around my body, letting my tits out. “Fuck, you are sexy.” His mouth lowered to my breast, latching on to my nipple, sucking as he replaced his knuckle with a finger.

  I was wired hard, tight and ready for a release.

  I moaned.

  “Good girl,” he said, unlatching from my tit for a moment to look deep into my eyes. “Let yourself go, baby.”

  He stuffed another finger into my pussy, his knuckle rubbing my clit at the same time.

  “Look at that,” he commanded. “Look at how tight that little pussy is. And yet you still take it, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, biting my lip to keep from screaming.

  “Watch my fingers go in and out of you.”

  I obeyed, watching my pussy sucking him inside, watching him playing with my clit as my channel clenched hard around his fingers.

  “Noah,” I groaned and grabbed his arms, feeling the strong muscles of his biceps flexing under me.

  “Come,” he said. “Watch me finger you until you come.”

  His dirty words, said in that gruff tone of voice of his, coupled with the fact that I was watching him finger fuck me was enough to make me orgasm. My entire body shuddered, the movement causing the towel to drop to the floor, my tits bouncing as he finished me off. When the last wave had moved through me, he held me tight, letting me catch my breath.

  He waited a long beat, then kissed my head and moved to the other side of the room, where he picked up the tank top, shorts, and thong he’d brought for me to wear.

  He dressed me carefully, pulling the tank over my head softly, letting me steady myself by holding onto his broad shoulders as I stepped into the thong and shorts.

  “You’re cold.”

  “Yes.”

  He wrapped his arms around me, and I could still feel the heat rising off of him.

  I leaned my head against his chest, pressing my cheek against the softness of his plaid button-up, the same shirt I’d teased him about in the car on the way here. It seemed forever ago.

  “Noah,” I whispered. “Please, you need to tell me what’s going on.”

  His body stiffened, and I pulled back and stared up at him, ran my fingers through his dark hair. “I love you so much,” I whispered. “I love you so much, please, you have to let me in.”

  I took his hands in mine, but he pulled away from me and walked back into the bedroom. “It’s time for bed, Charlotte.”

  I followed him, my heart pounding with disappointment and anger.

  Noah went to the suitcase, unzipping a hidden compartment on the bottom. Inside, there was a dial, some kind of lock. He turned it, left, right, right, left, until a tiny door sprung open.

  Nestled inside the compartment was a tiny handgun.

  Noah pulled it out, and my pulse raced faster. “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s a gun, Charlotte,” he said as he took it out and checked to make sure it was loaded. He looked entirely too comfortable holding it.

  “Yeah, I know it’s a fucking gun, Noah, I’m not an idiot. What the hell are you doing with
it?”

  “It’s legal to carry a firearm in the state of New York, Charlotte.” He glanced at me, his tone taking on an almost amused tone. “I would think you would have learned that in Constitutional Law.”

  “I didn’t ask if it was legal, Noah, I asked what the fuck you’re doing with it.”

  He slipped the barrel of the gun into the waistband of his pants. “Don’t say ‘fuck’ so much, Charlotte, it’s crass.”

  “You’re the last one who should be giving lessons on what’s crass.”

  He seemed to like this retort, his eyes raking up my body, the hunger there deepening, his desire to dominate me taking over. His breathing quickened and he licked his bottom lip. What he’d just done to me –fingering me like that -- had been a tiny prequel to what he really wanted to do.

  He wanted to use me. He wanted to use me to distract him from whatever was really going on.

  “No.” I put my hand up. “I will safe word immediately if you so much as take one step toward me.” I wasn’t sure why I didn’t just say “red” (our safe word) and get the whole thing over with. I knew that if I did, Noah would stop immediately.

  What I really wanted, though, was for him to stop on his own, wanted him, for once in our relationship to not take out his need for emotional release on my body in a sexual way. I wanted him to let me in, to confide in me, to stop keeping things from me, to stop treating me like I was some kind of wilting flower.

  And yet at the same time, a need pulsed deep inside of me, dysfunctional and wrong, the need for him to push me to my knees and punish me, to whip me, to spank me, to make me submit.

  It was confusing and contradicting and it made me feel like I was out of control of my own body, and that in turn, made me want to give over that control to Noah. And that made me feel safe.

  It was so fucked up, but whenever I felt scared – like now – I craved that safeness. It was like he’d trained me to be exactly what he wanted. The girl who wanted to submit whenever she felt out of control.

  It was so messed up.

  But I didn’t want to think about that now.

  Get ahold of yourself, Charlotte, I told myself.

  Noah studied my face to see if I was serious, if he could get away with pushing me.

  He smirked and took another step toward me, and then before I knew it, he was against me, his hands wrapped tightly around my waist.

  “You want this, baby,” he said into my ear. “You want to give me what I need.”

  “No.” I shook my head, but his breath against my ear sent my stomach fluttering.

  His words were so dirty and I was wet again, and I loved him so much, the need to please him was overwhelming. I almost gave in.

  But instead, I summoned my strength. “Red.”

  Noah released me and stepped back.

  We stared at each other for a long moment, and then finally, he turned and sat down on the bed, leaning over, his elbows on his bent knees. He steepled his fingers together, staring out the window over the dark night.

  The branches outside brushed against the windows, the sound mixing with the roar of the wind and filling the room.

  I went and sat next to him, but stayed quiet.

  He knew what I wanted.

  Now I just had to wait and see if he would give it to me.

  He shifted slightly until he was facing me, his eyes serious. “We came here because there’s only one way to end this, Charlotte.”

  “And that is?” I glanced at the gun that was still sticking out of the waistband of his jeans. Stubble clouded his cheeks and his hard jawline, and in his jeans and plaid shirt, he looked more like an outlaw than a billionaire lawyer.

  “The only way to guarantee you won’t get hurt,” he said, his voice steely with determination.

  Understanding dawned on me, and icy fingers of dread circled and squeezed my heart. “You want to kill Lameuix.”

  Noah shook his head. “No. Not Lameuix.”

  “Then who?”

  He turned to me, the shadows of the branches outside sliding over his face., making him look more dangerously determined than he already did. “Colin Worthington.”

  “Professor…” I trailed off, confused. “But Professor Worthington isn’t here.”

  “He will be.” He took my hand, his grip tight, as if talking about Professor Worthington made him want to protect me even more. “Lameuix will call him here. And Worthington is the one who’s obsessed with you. Not Lameuix. If I kill Worthington, this whole thing ends.”

  I glanced back down at the gun. I couldn’t stop looking at it.

  My windpipe felt like it was being squeezed, and it was hard to get the words out. I could hear the blood rushing through my body, so loud it seemed like it was drowning out my thoughts.

  “But they both have something to do with whatever was going on at Force,” I said. “And maybe Lilah, too, with the pictures we found on that phone and -- ”

  “Jesus, Charlotte,” he said, annoyed. “Those fucking girls aren’t my concern. You’re my concern.”

  “But Mikayla,” I said, yanking my hand from his. “Mikayla, she…Jesus, Noah, forget about the girls at Force, what about the girls here?” Did Noah think the girls here, the ones dressed in thongs, waiting on us hand and foot, actually wanted to be here?

  Of course, I knew if you asked any of them, they wouldn’t admit to it. They were too deep under Lameuix’s spell, too brainwashed.

  “I don’t give a fuck about them, “ Noah growled. He grabbed my wrist, holding me tight. “I care about you.”

  “But Professor Worthingon has information we need! Information about Jason Cartwright, about –”

  “Oh, trust me, I will get information out of him.”

  I wrenched away from him and stood up. “How do you even know Professor Worthington is going to come here?”

  “Because we’re here.”

  I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. My heart was still pounding and my skin went clammy. “So you brought me here as bait? You brought me here so that you could … what? Lure him out of wherever he’s been?”

  “No.” Noah shook his head. “No, Charlotte. He doesn’t want you.” He turned to look at me, that strong, gorgeous face of his illuminated in the moonlight. “He wants me.”

  I stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending.

  “But he took me at Force.”

  “Because he wanted to own you. He has some kind of sick obsession with you, Charlotte. But he doesn’t want to hurt you, at least, not enough to kill you. Why do you think he killed Jason Cartwright?”

  “Because he heard us fighting?”

  “Yes.” Noah stood up again and crossed the room, his eyes scanning the tree line outside, like he thought maybe Professor Worthington was lurking out there in the brush. And now that I knew Noah’s plan, I wasn’t sure it was that far from the truth.

  “He thinks he loves you, Charlotte. It’s me he hates.”

  “Okay.” I bit my lip and twisted my hands together, my mind running through the scenarios as I tried to think of a way out of this. “We need to call the police. We can tell them that Professor Worthington is here, that they need to come right away.” I nodded. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. “Where’s my cell phone?” I asked, remembering how he’d taken it from me after Detective Rake had called me on the plane. “I need my cell phone.”

  “You think Worthington is going to show his face if he knows the police are here?” Noah shook his head. “No. The police are useless. I will be the one to take care of this. I will be the one to end this.”

  My breathing deepened, and I started to feel that same way I’d felt that day in our hotel room, when Noah was still a suspect in a murder investigation, when I thought I was going to be called to testify against him.

  I felt like a rubber band was squeezing my lungs, and spots appeared in my field of vision.

  My knees were rubbery and I felt them buckle.

  And then, like alw
ays, Noah was there, grabbing me around the waist, scooping me up as if I weighed nothing, his strong arms steady and strong, even when the situation we were facing was completely terrifying and almost impossible to imagine.

  He set me down gently on the bed.

  “Deep breaths,” he instructed.

  I did as I was told, struggling to slow my breathing.

  He took my hand and pressed his fingers to my wrist. His touch calmed me, and he kept his fingers there while I took long slow breaths, until he was satisfied my pulse was slowing.

  “I shouldn’t have brought you here.” Frustration smoldered in his eyes. I knew he was terrified I was going to get hurt, and yet he couldn’t allow himself to feel fear, so he turned the emotion into frustration. “I couldn’t take the chance he would come after you, try to take you to get at me.” His voice caught at the last part, and I reached up and touched his cheek. He closed his eyes, and I savored the small moment of vulnerability he was allowing me.

  Then his grip tightened on my hand and he removed it from his face.

  He gazed down at me, and I saw the love he had for me reflected in his expression.

  “I want to leave,” I whispered. “ I don’t… if anything ever happened to you…” Tears welled in my eyes. I remembered how he’d looked that night at Force, laying on the floor, stabbed, the blood pooling around him, so much that it seemed impossible it could come from one person. Every time I saw the scar on his torso, I was reminded of that horrible night. If anything ever happened to him, I couldn’t live. I would rather it be me.

  “Nothing will happen to me.”

  “You can’t promise that. He’s crazy.”

  “I’m crazier.” He smiled mischievously, and I laughed despite myself.

  “I’m scared,” I whispered.

  He pulled me to him, and I buried my face in the soft material of his shirt, as his hands pulled me to him.

  He tipped my chin up. “Look at me.”

  I looked at him, and the electricity that was always there between us, this connection, this overwhelming, intense spark that burned so bright between the two of us flamed.

  His hand slid down my side, and I shivered.

  The moon passed behind a cloud, bathing him in darkness, and then passed through to the other side, and I watched as his beautiful face was once again illuminated by the moonlight.