What He Believes Page 4

  “No,” I said, and shook my head. “I’m going to do some reading. I need to go down to school tomorrow and explain to all my professors why I’ve been out for two weeks and beg for their understanding.”

  “Your professors already know why you’ve been out for two weeks,” Noah said. And then he bent down and slid his arms under my knees, picking me up off the couch in one smooth movement.

  I buried my face in his shoulder.

  “Noah!” I squealed.

  “What?” he asked playfully. “You know what happens when you disobey me.”

  “What happens?” I teased.

  “I get my way anyway.”

  He carried me down the hall to the bedroom and into the master bathroom, where I was surprised and delighted to find he’d drawn me a bubble bath. The room smelled of lavender and vanilla, and tea candles flickered softly around the Jacuzzi tub.

  Noah set me down on the floor, then undressed me slowly and sensually until I was naked before him.

  He gazed at me, pushing my hair off my shoulders and shaking his head. “God, you are so fucking beautiful,” he breathed.

  I blushed and felt myself instinctually start to cover myself.

  But before I could, he reached down and picked me up again, then set me down in the bath.

  “I want you to stay in here for at least thirty minutes. Do you understand?”

  I nodded as I slipped into the scented water. The warmth of the bath combined with the wine combined with Noah’s voice soothed my muscles and calmed my thoughts. He dimmed the lights as he left the room, leaving me in complete bliss.

  I soaked until my fingers were pruney, then pulled myself from the water.

  I dried myself with the towel Noah had laid out for me, then wrapped myself in the luxurious cashmere robe he’d also left. My wrists stung as they brushed against the fabric, and I pulled the sleeve up to inspect my skin.

  “Jesus,” I breathed. My wrists were rawer than they’d ever been, the skin broken and bright red. That same feeling of weirdness bloomed inside of me. Was it just another sexual fantasy we’d acted out in that hallway? Or was it something more?

  I picked my clothes up from the floor and placed them in the hamper in the corner, tossing my ruined panties into the trash basket.

  When I got back to our room, Noah was in bed on his iPad, his tumbler of scotch sitting next to him on the nightstand.

  “How was your bath?” he asked.

  “It was nice,” I said. “Thank you very much.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I hesitated by the door of the bathroom, not sure I should bring up the uneasy feeling I was having.

  “What is it, Charlotte?” Noah asked, his eyes not moving from the screen.

  “Nothing.”

  He glanced up at me. “Obviously there is something, otherwise you wouldn’t be lingering by the bathroom door.”

  “I just…” I walked over to him and pulled the sleeves of my robe up, showing him my wrists. “My wrists…”

  He turned them over in his hand, inspecting them, then got up and disappeared into the bathroom. When he returned, he was holding a tube of some kind of balm.

  “Hands out,” he commanded.

  He squeezed some of the balm into his hands and then rubbed it over my wrists. The relief was instant and soothing.

  “Better?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  I thought we were done, but he reached out and tugged the robe off my shoulders until I was once again standing naked before him.

  “Lay down on the bed. On your stomach.”

  I did as I was told, and I felt him mount me, his body heavy on top of mine. He straddled me around the waist, and then his hands were on my neck, pushing my hair back. He reached for one of the hair ties that was sitting on my nightstand, then gathered my hair into a loose ponytail.

  His hands found my shoulders, kneading them as he began massaging me.

  I almost groaned with pleasure. His grip was strong, assured, in control, just like him.

  “Your shoulders have so much tension, Charlotte,” he said as he worked.

  “Whatever it is that you’re doing is helping,” I said.

  “Good.” I could feel his cock nestled in between the cheeks of my ass. That, coupled with the feel of his hands as he moved them over my shoulders and down the small of my back caused my stomach to flip.

  “Have you thought about what kind of wedding you’d like?” Noah asked.

  “You want to talk about our wedding?” I asked, surprised.

  “Are you implying that because I’m a man, I can’t be interested in talking about our wedding?”

  “No,” I said, then paused. “But is it strange to talk about our wedding when we’re coming back from meeting a girl in jail? A girl who killed her boyfriend, and was then beaten by other inmates before being shipped off to the hospital?”

  “That’s our work, Charlotte. This is our life.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to tamp down the unsettled feeling I had at the ease with which he could just move on from things and compartmentalize, the way he seemed to have moved on from what had happened at Force. “So you want to be involved in the planning then?” I asked. The thought of Noah sitting in some room somewhere with a wedding planner, binders of place settings and samples of cakes strewn out in front of him caused me to giggle.

  “Charlotte Holloway,” he said. “I’m surprised that the thought of me helping to plan our wedding is amusing to you.”

  “So you are interested in helping?” prompted.

  “Not in the slightest,” he admitted as his hands moved over the back of my arms.

  I smiled. “Then why were you asking what kind of wedding I wanted?”

  “Because I want you to be happy. I want you to have whatever you want, whatever the cost, whatever your dream.”

  “I guess I haven’t thought about it,” I said slowly.

  “You don’t have to have big wedding,” he said. “If you want something small, that’s fine with me, too.”

  I didn’t say anything, and a second later, his hands paused over my back. “You have thought about your wedding?”

  “Not really.”

  “Why not? Don’t all women plan their weddings in their heads?”

  “Noah,” I said, rolling my eyes. “That’s sexist.”

  He laughed as his hands moved down over my buttocks. He reached for the tube of cream and massaged it gently into my skin, the sting from where he’d spanked me earlier immediately beginning to fade.

  “So you’ve never thought about what kind of wedding you want?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I bit my lip, wondering if I should tell him the truth. It was dark in the room, the only light coming from the tiny reading lamp that was sitting on his nightstand, and he couldn’t see my face, even though his hands were moving over my body.

  “I never thought I would get married,” I admitted.

  “You never wanted to be married?”

  “No, I wanted to be married.” I swallowed around the rawness in my throat and closed my eyes, as if closing them would make me less vulnerable to the words I was about to say. “I never thought someone would love me enough to ask me.”

  His hands paused on my ass, his thumbs resting between my thighs. Then he began rubbing again, his hands moving lower, over the back of my legs as he inched his body further down mine. “Why not?”

  “I’m not sure.” I thought about it. “I think I just figured that kind of love wouldn’t exist for me. Ever.” I squeezed my eyes shut tighter as I remembered high school and even college, what those years had been like. The tiny girls, the ones with the small waists and blonde hair, the ones who were cheerleaders or athletes or had rich parents were the ones who ended up with the most attention from the boys.

  I’d been smart enough to know that high school wasn’t forever, but even in college, it had been the same thing. I’d had men interested i
n me, but not with the kind of all-consuming passion I wanted them to feel for me and vice versa.

  Not until Noah had I known what that felt like.

  We lapsed into silence for a few moments as Noah finished massaging me, moving down the back of my ankles before finishing up at my feet.

  “Turn over,” he said.

  I did as he said, turning over onto my back. He slid back up my body so that he was straddling me around my stomach, and then he began massaging my breasts. I felt him growing hard through his thin pajama pants, and I wondered how he could be ready to go again so quickly – we’d had sex at our office earlier, and then of course what we’d done in that building on the prison grounds.

  And yet his cock was rock hard.

  He finished rubbing my breasts, moved down to my stomach, his hands moving over the inside of my thighs, and down my legs.

  My body tingled, electricity zapping through me, soon replaced with a heady warmth that left my muscles feeling loose and relaxed.

  Noah lay down next to me and I turned onto my side.

  He took my hand in his and scratched my palm lightly. “I don’t like thinking about you like that,” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “Sad.”

  “I wasn’t sad about it. I just took it as a fact.”

  “I want you to always feel as if you are worthy of love. You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met in my life, the most beautiful, the kindest, the smartest. You are everything I ever could have dreamed and more.”

  My first thought was to refute the compliment, to tell him I wasn’t all those things. But like when he told me I was beautiful, I could see that he believed what he was saying. Which meant I did, too, somehow.

  I nodded as his fingers continued lazily tracing my palm.

  I closed my eyes, enjoying the feeling of contentment that was finally flowing through me after I’d chased after it all night.

  “Noah?” I asked.

  “Yes?” he murmured drowsily.

  “Tell me about Nora.”

  I felt his body stiffen next to mine, and that familiar wave of fear pulsed through me, the fear I always felt whenever I pressed him about something. That he was going to shut down, that he was going to push me away, that if I pushed him too hard and too fast, he might shut down for good.

  “Charlotte,” he started. “It’s been a long day.”

  “I know.” I took his hand in mine and kissed his open palm. “But I don’t know anything about your past, Noah.”

  “You know about Audi.”

  “Barely.”

  I waited a beat, listening to him breathe. I, on the other hand, couldn’t breathe, waiting for him to say something. I braced myself, expecting him to talk about how amazing Nora was, how beautiful, how perfect. I regretted asking – what could he possibly tell me that would make me feel any better? I was never going to be able to live up to the memory of a dead woman. It was impossible.

  “Nora never trusted me,” he said.

  “What?’” I asked, surprised. I propped myself up on my elbow and looked at him.

  “She didn’t trust me,” he said. “She said she did, but she never completely gave herself to me.” His eyes were open now, the two of us on our sides, gazing at each other while he spoke. I could make out his features in the dim light of the reading lamp, so strong and yet so vulnerable.

  “Oh,” I said, not sure exactly what I was supposed to say to that.

  “Charlotte.”

  “Yes?”

  “I never thanked you.”

  “For what?”

  “For believing in me.”

  “When?”

  “When everyone thought I was murderer. You stood by my side. You never doubted me.”

  I almost laughed out loud. Was he kidding? Of course I’d doubted him. I’d doubted him almost constantly.

  “I did doubt you, though,” I said.

  “No. If you’d doubted me, really doubted me, you would have left.” His fingers intertwined with mine, and the connection between us was so powerful it took my breath away. “You are the only person who has never given up on me. And you have no idea how much that means to me.”

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

  “I love you too,” Noah said, his voice thick with emotion.

  There was a beat of silence, and in that beat I felt the bond between us burn so bright that I could feel it surrounding me, all consuming.

  And then, just like that, the bond burned even brighter and burst into flames.

  Noah flipped me onto my stomach, his weight pressed on top of me as he pulled off the cotton pajama pants he was wearing.

  He pulled on my ponytail and slid his hard cock along the crack of my ass. Then slowly, very slowly, he began to work his way inside of me. I gasped. He’d fucked me in the ass before, but it still felt like the first time as my body resisted him, the idea that I would ever be able to take him there seemingly impossible.

  I felt myself stretching out around him, along with the sensation of my body fighting him until his dick pushed further in, past that ring of tightness, filling me.

  “Charlotte,” he groaned. “Fuck, Charlotte, you feel so good.”

  I relaxed my body around him, my pussy already flooding with wetness. “Keep your legs together,” he commanded, and then he smacked my ass as he began fucking me.

  I did as he said.

  “Does it feel good, baby?”

  “Yes,” I gasped. It did feel good. It felt amazing, his dick stretching me out as he pistoned his hips into me. The rawness of what he was doing, the animalistic nature of his need, and yes, the fact that I knew he was using me sexually to work out his emotions, excited me.

  “Tell me where my cock is.”

  “In my ass.”

  He yanked on my hair, hard. “Again.”

  “Your cock is in my ass.”

  “What am I doing?”

  “Fucking my ass,” I gasped.

  He pumped into me harder, one hand on the small of my back, holding me still, the other holding my ponytail, using it as leverage to get deeper into my hole.

  His nails dug into the skin on my hip, holding me tight, not letting me even move the slightest bit. He was in charge of me, of my body, of my every movement, and I was more than happy to give him that control, to let him take my body and use it for his pleasure.

  “Your asshole is so tight, baby,” he groaned. “I’m not going to last much longer.”

  “Come in me,” I pleaded. The thought of his cum inside of me, of the sticky warmth filling me, making me his in my most private area was enough to almost make me orgasm myself.

  “You are mine.”

  “Yes.”

  “I own you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Say it.”

  “You own me.”

  He moaned again and thrust into me harder, excited by my words.

  “I’m yours, Noah. You own me. I’m yours.”

  His fingers pulled at my hips, every thrust seemingly pushing deeper inside of me.

  He came, shooting a hot load of cum into me, and the sensation of that, along with his dick buried in my asshole, along with the knowledge that I’d given him complete control of my body, caused me to orgasm at the same time, so hard that after I’d reached my crescendo, I was left a shuddering mess.

  He pulled out of me and then pulled me close to him.

  “Did I hurt you?” he demanded.

  “No.”

  “I couldn’t stop myself,” he said, and I knew he was talking about the part of him, the part that needed to take his aggression out on me sexually whenever his emotions got too much for him to bear. “It’s fucked up,” he said. “I know it is, I just… I can’t…”

  His chest was heaving, a thin sheen of sweat covering his torso. I ran my hand down his body, letting my fingers linger on the ridges of his muscles, marveling for the millionth time that someone so sexy, so gorgeous could exist in
real life, much less be mine.

  “Shh,” I said, running my finger down the jagged edges of the scar he got protecting me from Professor Worthington, the mark that would be forever on his body, a reminder of how he’d risked everything to save me. “Noah, please, don’t.”

  “You know to safe word if you need to?” he pressed.

  “Yes,” I nodded.

  “Promise me.”

  He tipped my chin to his, to make sure I was looking at him when I said it. “I promise, Noah.”

  His eyes searched mine for a moment, making sure I was telling the truth. Only then did I feel him relax in my arms.

  He pulled me toward him and we lay there in the dark, in our apartment, our limbs intertwined, our first night together as fiancés.

  “Noah,” I whispered.

  “Yes, Charlotte?”

  “You make me so happy.”

  “You make me so happy.”

  “I don’t want to have any secrets from each other,” I said.

  “I don’t either.”

  “We need to be honest with each other, always.”

  “Yes,” he said. “We do.”

  There was a pause as the two of us contemplated this.

  “Colin will contact you again, Charlotte,” Noah said. “He will. This is not over. There will be more fallout. Him. Other crazies. Things at school. We have to promise not to keep things from each other.”

  “No more secrets,” I whispered.

  “No more secrets,” he agreed.

  But as I drifted off to sleep, all I could think was, easier said than done.

  ***

  I woke the next morning to the sound of Noah in the shower, the rush of the water running and his voice as he sang. I’d never heard him sing before, and I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

  He was horribly off-key.

  I guess he’s not completely perfect after all, I thought, even though the fact that he was singing a Katy Perry song was one of the most adorable things I’d ever heard in my life.

  I stretched lazily, pushing my arms up over my head.

  Docket, who was curled up at the bottom of the bed, looked up at me sleepily, then rolled over and burrowed himself further into the covers.

  “I get it, boy,” I said. “Trust me, I don’t want to get up, either.”