What He Hides (What He Wants, Book Seven) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) Read online

  Noah led me to a row of doors that were lined up across the back of the room.As we went, we passed a beautiful woman spread out on a table.

  She was on top of a man, spread eagle, as he moved his cock in and out of her ass. He held her hands tight behind her, keeping her pinned so she couldn’t move. Another man, muscular and tattooed, had unbuttoned his pants and pulled his cock out, getting ready to enter her pussy. I averted my eyes right before he did, but I could hear the woman’s moan, a guttural mix of pain as pleasure as she was filled by two cocks.

  My heart began pounding again, and the spotlight passed over the room, making me feel slightly dizzy.

  “Can I … I need to sit down, I think,” I said to Noah.

  He nodded and quickened his pace, pulling me through a door at the back of the club. It was quieter back here, and less dungeon-like, with a leather couch pushed up against one wall and a gold wardrobe standing in the corner.

  “Are you okay?” Noah asked.

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  “Here, sit down.” He led me to the couch and I sat down.

  He sat down next to me. “Do you want to leave?”

  I shook my head no. Although now that I was here, I had no idea how I was going to even begin to find Audi James. With all the corridors and hallways and paths, it was going to be impossible. There were people in masks, people in costumes, their faces obscured…it would be hard enough to find someone in this place if no one was wearing masks and you knew exactly where you were going.

  “I want to give you something,” Noah said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black box. He handed it to me, his eyes locking on mine, the electricity between us almost palpable. “I wanted to get you something to commemorate this night.”

  I opened the box slowly. A delicate diamond bracelet stared back at me, its stones shimmering in the light. I gasped.

  “Do you like it?” Noah asked, pulling it out of the box and fastening it around my wrist.

  “It’s beautiful,” I breathed. I had never owned something so gorgeous. All the jewelry I had was purchased at Target or cheap accessory stores, the kind of jewelry that turned your skin green and ended up rusting.

  I turned my wrist, staring at the delicate chain that looped the stones together.

  “Not as beautiful as you.” Noah raised my hand to his lips and kissed the back of it softly.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Really, thank you.”

  He tilted my chin toward him. “Look at me,” he said. “Really look at me when I tell you this. I know it’s not easy, being with me. But I want you to know that you coming here with me tonight, it really does mean a lot to me.”

  I nodded. “It means a lot to me, too.” Guilt was blooming in my chest, threatening to take over every other emotion I was feeling. How could I be here, with him, accepting this gift, and not tell him the true reason I wanted to come here?

  I couldn’t.

  If I was willing to trust some stranger on the phone more than I was willing to trust Noah, then I shouldn’t have been here with him.

  And that’s when I decided I wasn’t going to try to find Audi James.

  I was going to be here, completely, to give myself to Noah in whatever way he wanted to take me.

  Noah stood up and walked over to the side of the room. There was a small wooden chest sitting on the floor, and he twirled the combination lock until it popped open. He took something out of the chest before crossing the room back to me.

  “How did you know the combination?” I asked.

  “This is my room.”

  “Your room?”

  “Yes, Charlotte. The rooms here are private, assigned to different members. You’re not allowed to enter any room without being invited.”

  I nodded, trying not to think about Noah being a member here, trying not to think about all the other women he’d had in this room. Dani and Nora, of course, the two women who’d been killed. He’d met Dani at Force, and Nora had been his fiancé. How many others? Had he come here after work most nights, picked a girl out from the crowd, brought her back here and done what he wanted to her? Had he attended the auction, paid money for one of those beautiful girls with the dead eyes so he could owe her for a night?

  How was I different? Was I even different? And if so, why? It was still hard to wrap my brain around the fact that Noah could have any woman he wanted and yet he chose to be here with me.

  Noah sat back down next to me and set a book down on my lap.

  It was a thin volume, but heavy, and bound in black leather.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “Open it,” he instructed.

  I opened the book. The first page was a title page, the words written in a swirly calligraphy script, the letters sparkly gold and slightly raised off the page.

  “Contract of Domination/Submission,” it read. “To be entered into between Noah Cutler and Charlotte Holloway.”

  I ran my hand over the words, tracing the loopy C of my name. “Our contract?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Noah took my hand and held it. His touch was warm and comforting. “I had this made the night I met you.”

  I turned and looked at him, our eyes meeting over the page.

  “It outlines very specifically everything I require of you,” he said.

  I flipped through it, reading.

  “…sub agrees that dom will be in charge of her diet…”

  “…sub agrees not to travel on public transportation or put herself in situations deemed unnecessarily dangerous…”

  “…sub shall not socialize with persons that have not been approved by the dom…”

  “…sub shall agree to a minimum of eight hours of sleep per night…”

  “…sub shall be available to the dom at his discretion, whenever he requires…”

  It went on like that, pages and pages of rules and restrictions. I bit my lip, wondering what kind of person voluntarily signed her life over to another person.

  A person in love. A person who wants to make the man she’s with happy. A person who wants to go deep with that person, to experience what it means to trust someone completely, to give themselves over to someone fully, to explore their darkest desires as a couple.

  “Charlotte,” Noah said, as if he could sense my hesitation, “if you’re not ready…”

  “I’m ready,” I said. There was a pen attached to the book by a golden tassel, and I gabbed it and signed my name in big letters.

  Noah took the pen and did the same.

  It was official now.

  I belonged to him.

  ***

  Noah shut the book and stood up.

  The vibe in the room had changed, his demeanor shifting from one of romance and concern to one filled with lust and the need to control.

  I had been so focused on reading the contract that I hadn’t taken time to fully take in my surroundings, but now I was beginning to notice other things in the room – there was the gold wardrobe in the corner, the chest and the couch, but there was also what looked like a kneeling bench. It was wooden and worn, with dings and scratches all over it. This wasn’t like the other club we’d been to, with its posh exterior. That had looked like a fancy nightclub, the truth of what it really was hidden deep beneath the surface. Here, at Force, there was no question as to what people came for.

  Noah shucked off the black sweater he was wearing, exposing his flat abs and chiseled shoulders. He looked at me sitting there on the couch, his eyes blazing.

  “Kneel,” he commanded, his voice low and guttural.

  I got down on my knees.

  “No.” He shook his head and pointed to the bench.

  I started to stand up, but he stopped me again.

  “No,” he said. “Crawl.”

  I crawled over to the bench. The bench was hardwood, with no plush covering, and my knees screamed in protest as I crawled on top of it, kneeling and bent over, my ass in the air.

  Noah leaned down and pulled
up the back of my dress, so that my backside was exposed to him. The tiny thong I was wearing would offer no protection.

  He crossed in front of me to the gold wardrobe. He reached inside and pulled out what looked like a paddle. He stood behind me and ran the paddle over my bare ass.

  The wood was smooth and hard against my skin and I felt my pussy start to get wet.

  “Charlotte,” he said. “Do you understand how important trust is in the sub/dom relationship?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He pulled the paddle back and slapped it against my ass. A burning sensation ripped through my skin, more painful than anything he’d done to me in the past.

  I bit my lip to keep from crying out as my pussy got wetter.

  “You like that, don’t you?” Noah demanded.

  “Yes,” I moaned. His fingers reached down and slid into my pussy.

  “You’re getting wet already, aren’t you, Charlotte?”

  “Yes,” I moaned. “Yes, I am.”

  “You were very argumentative today, Charlotte. You like when I punish you for that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, I like when you punish me.”

  The paddle slapped against my ass again, pain and pleasure vibrating through my body in waves.

  Thwack.

  Thwack.

  Thwack.

  Three more strokes of the paddle hit my ass, each one harder than the last. Noah slid another finger inside of me, spreading me around him.

  “God, you are wet,” he said.

  I forced myself to stay still, enjoying the feel of his fingers moving in and out of me, faster and faster. I tried to stay quiet, but I couldn’t. It felt too good, the paddle on my ass while he finger fucked me. A soft moan escaped my lips.

  “I want to come,” I pleaded, hearing the desperation lacing through my voice. I couldn’t believe I was going to come already. I’d been turned on even before he’d made me kneel, even before he’d started spanking me. I’d been turned on by him owning me, by signing that contract, by knowing he had control over every part of me.

  “No,” he said, and pulled completely away.

  I looked over my shoulder, trying to see where he was, where he was going, but he grabbed the back of my head, turned it away from him so that I was facing back toward the wall.

  I heard his footsteps moving across the concrete floor, followed by the flick of the light switch. The room plunged into darkness, and panic rose in my chest. For a moment, all I could hear was the sound of my own heavy breathing, my own blood pumping through my veins.

  But now that the light was off, the sounds coming from the main room began to seem somehow amplified. The moans of the women. The whooshing sounds of whips cutting through the air. The clink of chins. The jeering of the men. And the music, soft, but with such a strong beat I could feel it reverberating in my chest.

  After a moment, I felt Noah’s hands on my hips, pulling me roughly back toward him. And then, with no warning, I felt the head of his cock plunging into my pussy. I groaned as he began fucking me, hard and fast, without any warm up. I couldn’t see anything, could just feel the hard bench beneath my knees, the feel of Noah’s cock inside of me.

  His hands held onto my ass as he fucked me, in and out, harder and faster.

  After a moment, he reached down and pulled me off the bench, shoving me onto the floor. His hand found the back of my neck, pushed me down so that my cheek was pressed against the hard concrete floor. I could feel the grit of dirt against the side of my face. Noah’s hand was tight on my neck, his fingers wrapped around me, almost grabbing at my throat as he fucked me.

  I could feel his balls slapping against my bare pussy. He hadn’t even taken his pants off, had just pulled his cock out, and I could feel the cool metal of his belt buckle pushing against me with every stroke.

  One of his hands was still wrapped around my throat, and the other was on one of my ass cheeks, spreading me open with each thrust. He’d abandoned the paddle and now he was using his hand, spanking me hard every time he slid into me.

  Finally, he stopped spanking me and leaned down so that his full weight was on my body. He used his hand to pull my hair, yanking my head back so that his mouth was right against mine.

  “Do you know what happens when you don’t trust me, Charlotte?” he growled.

  “I get punished,” I whimpered. His finger slipped into my mouth and I sucked it hungrily.

  “Yes,” he said. “You get punished.” He reached down and pulled at the front of my dress, yanking it down so he could get at my tits. I heard the ripping of the fabric as he pulled on it, tearing it off of me. His fingers grabbed my nipple and squeezed so hard I yelped.

  I was going to have bruises all over my body tomorrow, and the thought of it excited me. I pushed back against him, but he held me still.

  “No,” he said. “Stop.”

  He stayed completely still for a moment, his hand tightening around my throat until my breath came in short gasps. That, coupled with the darkness of the room, made me have a slight moment of panic, but just when it was about to be too much, he pulled his hand away and continued his assault.

  He fucked me even harder and faster than before.

  “I’m going to come inside you now,” he said. “Beg me.”

  “Please,” I said. “Please, come inside me. I want to feel it.”

  “Come on my dick, baby,” he said. “Come on me.”

  The words sent spasms of pleasure through my pussy, and I came hard and fast. A second later, I felt him erupt, his seed shooting inside of me and warming my center.

  He collapsed on top of me again, crushing his body into mine and breathing hard for a moment before he finally stood up.

  I got back up onto my knees, trying to slow my own breathing.

  The light flicked back on, and I blinked as my eyes adjusted.

  Noah had already buttoned his pants, and he reached down and picked up his sweater and pulled it over his head.

  “Get dressed,” he said. His voice was cold, his tone hard. I wanted to tell him I was dressed, that I’d never gotten undressed, that he’d just pushed me over a bench and then shoved me onto the floor and fucked me.

  But I had a feeling that wouldn’t go over well.

  So I stood up and pulled my dress back down over my hips. Noah had torn the top of my dress, and the fabric over my nipples hung down, exposing half of my breasts. “My dress is ruined,” I said, laughing a little.

  He glanced at me and then looked away.

  A feeling of uncertainty rose up inside of me. Was he still in control mode? Was he going to fuck me again, order me around, tell me what to do? Usually, after we’d had sex, he’d been soft with me. Or at least, he’d never been this withdrawn.

  Noah reached down and picked the paddle up off the floor, brought it over to the wardrobe in the corner and replaced it on its hook.

  That was the other thing – he’d had all these toys in that closet, and he’d hardly used any of them. We’d come to Force to push the limits. And while he’d been rough with me, rougher than we’d ever been, he hadn’t taken his time with me or pushed the boundaries of our trust. It felt like he’d really been using me, but not in the way I wanted, not in a way that would bring us closer. For the first time ever, I began to feel a real shame about what we’d done.

  “Did I…. did I do something wrong?” I asked softly.

  Noah turned around, his eyes locking on mine. “Why would you ask me that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, twisting my hands together. “You seem like maybe you’re mad at me.”

  “And why would I be mad at you?”

  “Stop replying to my questions with questions.”

  His jaw set in anger. “Then don’t ask me questions you already know the answer to.”

  I shook my head, confused. “I’m confused,” I said. “I thought we came here to explore our relationship further, so you could pu
sh me, so we could get closer and explore.”

  “Is that why you came here, Charlotte?” he asked. “Really, is it?” He spoke at a low volume. But his tone was hard, disconnected.

  I didn’t like the way he was speaking to me, and that, coupled with the weirdness I’d felt after he’d finished fucking me, caused anxiety to bloom in my chest.

  “Yes,” I said. “That is why I came here.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “What?” I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry.

  He crossed the room, picked up our contract and began to page through it. “You’re lying,” he said simply.

  I thought about refuting it. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the fact that you didn’t want to go to your stepfather’s party tonight, after you told me how much it meant to you.”

  “I never said that party meant a lot to me. You said that.”

  “Please, Charlotte,” he said. “Semantics.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the fact that you’re hiding something from me.” He refused to look at me, his eyes scanning the clauses of our contract as he flipped slowly through the pages.

  “I don’t… if you think I’m hiding something from you, then why did you bring me here?” My voice was quivering, and a lump rose in my throat. So that was why he hadn’t pushed me, why he hadn’t done any of the thousands of things he could have done. He thought I didn’t trust him, thought I had some kind of ulterior motive for coming here.

  You don’t trust him. And you do have an ulterior motive.

  Still. He’d brought me to Force, he’d fucked me, he’d acted like everything was okay. When the truth was, the whole time he was getting upset with me for not trusting him, he also didn’t trust me.

  “Why did you bring me here?” I repeated. I wasn’t going to cry in front of him. I wasn’t going to let him know how much he was hurting me.