by Hannah Ford
“Will I see you back here later?” he asked.
“Yes.” I nodded. “We could… I mean, we could have dinner?” It felt strange, asking him to dinner after we’d done things that were so much more intimate.
“Sure.” Noah nodded. “I have some things I’d like to discuss with you, too.” His eyes blazed, and I knew what he was talking about. The BDSM stuff. He wanted to talk about the rules, and I remembered how he’d said that sex was just one part of it.
“Okay.” I said. I was excited to learn more about what was expected of me. Him telling me what to do, me having to live by his rules, to exist to please him, to pleasure him, in whatever way he desired was a turn on. And now that he’d let me in a tiny bit, now that he’d wanted to go to a party with my family, it just felt… right.
I did trust him.
It wasn’t just words.
One of things that I’d learned about being a good lawyer was that you always had to trust your instincts. And my instincts said that Noah could be trusted, that he wasn’t a killer
He was a good man.
The kind of man you could fall in love with.
I was halfway out the door when my phone buzzed. I looked down. A text from Julia.
We should talk.
I didn’t really have any interest in talking to her, so I closed it out and decided to deal with it later. But I noticed my phone battery was about to die, and I rustled through my bag, looking for my charger. It wasn’t there. I must have forgotten to grab it in the rush to get out of my apartment.
I walked back to the bedroom and poked my head in the door. “Hey,” I said. “You wouldn’t happen to have an extra iPhone charger, would you?”
“In the drawer in the office,” he said. “If there’s not one there, have Jared stop at the store on the way and run in and get you one.”
“Jared?” I asked, surprised. “Your driver?”
“Yes,” Noah said, looking up from his iPad. “I won’t have you riding the subway or taking a taxi, Charlotte. It’s far too dangerous.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up his hand to stop me. “My rules.”
I nodded, knowing it was useless to argue with him. “Where’s the office?”
“Down the hall, second door on the left.”
I hurried down the corridor and into the office. The room was painted in a calming shade that was somewhere between blue and slate grey. On the walls hung framed black and white prints of the city. A huge marble desk stood in the center of the room, with a desktop computer sitting on it, with a screen saver that showed the logo of Noah’s firm, Cutler and Associates.
The room was beautiful and sleek, but it wasn’t exactly the kind of room I’d want to do any work in. There was nothing warm about it – no half-full coffee mug on the desk, no family photos, no books on the shelves. The only bookshelf was filled with books with covers in shades of grey and white to match the décor, and the only other furniture was a dark oak filing cabinet and an uncomfortable looking grey chair.
I crossed the room to the desk, opening the drawers carefully one by one. Everything inside of them was neat, meticulous, paper clips sorted into little containers, binder clips neatly arranged, a fresh pad of post-its and a full jar of pens.
But no phone charger.
I was about to leave and have Jared stop at the store on the way, as Noah had suggested, when my eyes fell on the file cabinet in the corner. Could Noah have meant the charger was in there?
I went over and tried the top drawer, but it was locked. The middle drawer was locked as well. But the bottom drawer was open slightly, like someone hadn’t pushed it completely shut the last time they’d used it.
I crouched down and slid it open, but it was filled with forest green file folders, all of them hanging neatly. I ran my hands over the labeled tabs, wondering if they were cases Noah had worked on. I wondered if he’d let me read them. I’d been so focused on Noah as a client, that I’d forgotten he was a lawyer in his own right, and a very successful one at that. I could learn a lot from him.
I was about to shut the file cabinet and head out when I saw it.
Her name.
Katie Price.
It was written on one of the file folders.
It must have been a coincidence, I told myself. Maybe Noah kept files on all his employees, filled them with performance reviews and that kind of thing.
My hand flew to the folder, and I pulled it out. I sat there on the floor for a moment, just staring at it.
Don’t open it. It’s not your business. It has nothing to do with you. You said you trusted him, and you do. If it’s true, if you really mean it, you won’t open the file.
But I couldn’t resist.
It was sitting there right in front of me.
I opened it.
And gasped. The folder was filled with pictures of Katie, shot from a wide angle lens from far away. Katie leaving her apartment. Katie coming out of a coffee shop. Katie walking into a bar, dressed in a halter top and tight black pants. Katie leaving Cutler and Associates. Katie ducking into a cab.
Whoever took the pictures must have been following her.
The back of each picture was marked with a date and a time.
I flipped through the pictures, one after another, dozens of them. Finally, in the back of the file folder was a slim stack of printed out pages. Each one listed where Katie was at a certain time of day, right down to the minute and making note of the exact address.
Someone had been tracking her movements.
Someone wanted to know where she was, every second of every day. Someone was figuring out her routines, so they would know where she was.
It must have been Noah.
I sat there, the horrible realization washing over me.
I had thought I could trust him.
But the truth was, I couldn’t.
I couldn’t run from the truth any longer. Noah was a murderer. And the sooner I got away from him, the better.
END OF BOOK FOUR

What He Desires (What He Wants, Book Five)
NOAH
I watched Charlotte turn and walk down the hall toward my office, and I had to resist the urge to call her back to me. The thought of letting her go to a meeting where that pervert Josh was going to be filled me with rage. I was overcome with the need to protect her, to wrap my arms around her, pull her into my bed, and never let go.
She’d managed to crack my armor, to get me to let my guard down a little. I’d even agreed to go to some party with her family. The thought of it was already causing me to want to retreat.
It was a battle inside of myself, this desire to hold her close and keep her safe versus the urge to push her away as soon as I let her in. But she’d made it clear it was what she expected, and the thought of losing her was scarier than letting her in. At least, it was for now.
I heard her opening drawers in my office, looking for a charger for her phone and the whole thing was so god damn domestic that I almost laughed out loud.
But then the panic set in.
She was in my apartment, sleeping in my bed, and it felt right. I thought about taking her to dinner tonight, about going over the rules for what she could wear, eat, stay. I couldn’t wait to get her to submit to me, to bring her back here and take her in any way I wished. She’d responded well to the spanking, and I was going to push her further tonight. She wanted to please me, and I was ready to teach her just how to do that.
The thought of it made me rock hard, and I flashed back to an image of her on her knees at the club the other night, crawling over to me, ready to do whatever I asked.
She needed to be careful out with that asshole Josh. I put my iPad away and went to remind her of that fact, to make sure she stayed safe and alert. I decided to implement a new rule - she would have to text me every hour on the hour, and if I didn’t hear from her, I would come and find her.
When I reached the office, she was sitting on the fl
oor looking down at something in her lap. Her hair fell over her face, her legs curled under her. She looked small and vulnerable, and I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and carry her back to my bed, lock her away and never let her out of my sight.
“Charlotte,” I said. “Look at me.”
She looked up at me, her face set in stone. Her eyes were blazing with something unexpected – anger.
She picked up the folder that was in her lap. “You want to explain this?” she asked.
I took a step closer, until I could see what she was referring to. It was my file on Katie Price -- the pictures of her, the record of her movements, the places she’d gone, the times she’d gone there. Each one meticulously recorded and catalogued, right down to the minute.
“Why were you following Katie?” Charlotte demanded. “Tell me.”
I had to be careful.
If I said the wrong thing, I could lose her.
And that was unacceptable.
So I began to speak, choosing my words carefully.
CHARLOTTE
“Well?” I demanded, standing up and thrusting the folder at Noah. “What is this?”
“Charlotte,” he said, his voice even, “you weren’t meant to find that.”
“Yeah, no shit I wasn’t meant to find it. It’s probably not ideal for the woman you’re fucking to find a bunch of evidence that shows you were stalking someone who was just murdered.”
He shook his head and moved over to me, took the folder from my hands and paged through the documents. He still didn’t say anything, and it was infuriating. I had been in such a good mood, thinking I was finally getting through to him, and then just like that, my hopes were completely dashed. Again.
It was like being on a seesaw, flying up into the air, only instead of coming down, it felt like I was being throw off into the air before crashing straight onto the ground.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?” My voice was halfway between panic and desperation, with a dose of shrill added in for good measure. My heart was pounding, adrenaline pulsing through my body, the fight or flight instinct in full effect. I wasn’t sure if I should slap him across the face, or run out of there and never talk to him again.
If this wasn’t proof he was a murderer, I didn’t know what was. I wasn’t sure why I was even standing there, asking for an explanation.
He kept going through the pictures, page by page, maddeningly slowly, until I felt like I wanted to scream.
When he was done, he slid them carefully back into the folder and placed the folder back in his filing cabinet.
“Charlotte,” he said.
“Stop saying my name.” I hated the way it made me feel, hearing him say my name like that. It felt too intimate, too close, the way he said it, like he knew me. When the truth was, he didn’t know me at all. And I didn’t know him. This whole thing we’d been doing, the sex and the games and the control – that’s all it was. Just games.
Dangerous, risky games that might cost me my life.
“I was following Katie,” Noah said.
I closed my eyes, and my breath started coming in rapid gasps, so fast that I was afraid I was going to have a panic attack. I hadn’t had a panic attack since those last days with my dad, since he was lying in bed dying, and I was there with him, all alone, not sure what to do. I took in a long deep breath through my nose, counting to three beats, then holding it for three beats before exhaling for three beats. It helped a little bit, but as soon as I was stopped counting, my breath started coming fast again.
“Charlotte, please,” Noah said. “Let me get you some water. Sit down. You need to let me explain – ”
“Don’t,” I said. “No. I’m done with this.”
Noah stood there, his eyes boring into mine, blazing with fury. And something else, something right below the surface.
Hurt.
He was hurt I didn’t trust him, that I didn’t believe him. But I was done playing these crazy games.
Noah Cutler was a murderer.
And I needed to stay far, far away from him.
The day had turned overcast and dreary, and I walked fast toward the subway, ignoring Noah’s car, which was parked in front of his apartment.
I ducked into the bodega on the corner and bought myself a cheap phone charger, the kind that would probably last me two days before breaking, and a bottle of water. As soon as I was out on the sidewalk I opened the bottle and gulped down half of it. A second later, my mouth was dry again, my lips like sandpaper, my tongue thick and heavy.
My heart was still beating rapidly, even faster now that I’d been walking, and I could feel a tiny bit of sweat starting to pool in the small of my back. I wasn’t wearing a coat, but I was still hot, even though the day wasn’t particularly warm.
I drank some more water and forced myself to slow my pace as I walked. There was a sharp pain starting in my side, almost like a stitch, and even though I’d slowed down it began to take over my entire stomach, fading and bleeding into a dull ache.
As I stepped down into the subway station, I felt suddenly claustrophobic, like I was stepping into a coffin. Get it together, Charlotte, I told myself. Relax.
A second later, I was being swallowed up by the crowd as we filed into the subway car. I took a seat in between a woman with a yellow umbrella and a college kid wearing a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. The ride to campus was at least twenty minutes, but I had no memory of it when I stepped out of the car. It was like my mind was disconnected from reality.
When I got to campus, I realized I was going to have to go to class tomorrow. I had this whole life, this whole world that I’d worked so hard to build – getting good grades in high school, getting good grades in college, getting into law school. Up until a couple of days ago, school and the law had been my life. But then I had become consumed with Noah.
Was I becoming one of those women? The politicians’ wives you saw standing by them even as they admitted they’d been hiring prostitutes or posting naked pictures of themselves all over the internet. The women who married men in jail, who stood by their husbands and insisted they could never kill someone even when the evidence proved otherwise.
There was a thin line between standing by someone you knew wasn’t guilty, and getting so consumed with a man that you couldn’t see the truth. There was also a big difference between me and those women. Those women had been married to those men, had built lives with them, had houses and children and photo albums full of memories. They had money and power and success at risk -- their whole lives would implode if their husbands were found guilty of whatever charges had been lobbied against them.
I had nothing at stake here. Noah and I hadn’t built anything except a sexual relationship. The fact that he’d agreed to go with me to my stepfather’s birthday party, which at the time had seemed like such a huge victory, now seemed ridiculous and petty. A birthday party? That wasn’t any kind of promise. That was a joke.
I was done.
Done with Noah Cutler.
I felt like I kept saying that to myself, and every time, I’d get swept back up. But not this time. This time it was real. I felt like a junkie finally coming out of a haze. I was seeing my drug for what it really was – a man who had nothing to offer me except heartache and lies.
I ran up the stairs in front of Hinton Hall, then headed toward Professor Worthington’s office. I paused outside the door, wondering if I should tell Professor Worthington I wasn’t going to be able to work on the case anymore. Ever since I’d been working with Noah, my whole life had turned upside down.
Maybe it was time to cut my losses and move on.
Fuck that. You worked hard to get into law school, you worked hard to even be able to go to college. You promised your dad and yourself you wouldn’t end up like your mother, that you’d make something of yourself. And you’re not going to let some man you just met take that away from you.
I opened the door and walked in.
The o
ffice was small, but Professor Worthington had made the most of the space, with a long conference table in the middle of the room, and a flowery green plant in the corner. A keurig coffee machine sat on a table near the door, and a bookshelf with volumes of law books was pushed up against the opposite wall.
Josh sat at the conference table, a cup of coffee sitting in front of him.
“Hey,” he said when he saw me. “The professor’s not here yet.”
“Great,” I said under my breath and sat down at the other end of the table. I wanted to leave the room and come back after Professor Worthington got here, but I didn’t want to give Josh the satisfaction. So instead, I plugged my phone into its new charger and set it down next to me on the table. Then I pulled out the file Professor Worthington had given me at the police station, the one filed with photos and reports I was supposed to have studied. I hadn’t really had a chance.
That’ s a lie. You did have a chance, you just decided to spend your time out at a BDSM club instead of working on the case.
“Is that the file on Cutler?” Josh asked.
I nodded, not looking up from the documents, even though I wasn’t really reading them. My mind was a mess, because of Noah, because of Josh, because of everything. The words swam on the page, blurring into one big black smudge.
“Interesting, right?” Josh asked.
“Definitely.”
“He’s a psycho.”
“No, he’s not,” I said automatically.
“Oh?” Josh said. He leaned back in his chair until the front legs were off the floor. He grabbed the side of the table and balanced himself. “Are you fucking him?”
I had to resist the urge to get up and give his chair a good hard shove. I imagined him hitting the floor, his head cracking against the linoleum, the blood pooling underneath him. It was a violent fantasy, and I was surprised at myself. I wondered if spending so much time with a probable murderer was making me prone to having violent tendencies.