by Hannah Ford
He snorted. “Right,” he said. “You are the last person I would trust to take care of my eating. You barely eat yourself.” He bent his head and grabbed my wrists, slid me up his body until my ear was right next to his mouth. “Do not forget who’s in charge, baby,” he whispered gruffly into my ear. “That was called making love what we just did, but you are still going to get fucked. You are still going to get spanked. You will still exist to do what I want, and you will do it gladly.”
A shiver of want and anticipation slid up my spine, and wetness and exhilarating heat pooled between my legs at the thought of Noah doing whatever he wanted to me, of him spanking me and taking control of my body.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
His eyes seared with desire, and for a moment, I was sure he was going to take me again, right there. But instead he just grinned at me mischievously, and then let go of my wrists, leaving me breathless and wondering when, exactly, he was going to decide to exert his control.
“You need to eat, Charlotte,” he declared again.
He stood up and got out of bed, walked to the dresser and pulled out a pair of hunter green cotton pajama pants. I admired his body, the way his tight, muscular buttocks flexed as he moved.
How was this beautiful man mine? How was it that I was able to make him so turned on, that he loved me, that he’d said he wanted to be with me forever?
My heart sped up at the thought of it.
The words he’d said to me at Force, when he’d been lying on the floor.
I wanted to spend my life with you.
I wanted to marry you.
My stomach fluttered.
Was Noah going to ask him to marry him? Did he even remember saying those things? It certainly seemed like something had shifted -- the way he’d just made love to me, the lightness that seemed to permeate him now, chasing away the darkness I had always felt surrounding him like a cloud.
He slid on his pajama pants then pulled out a grey cotton t-shirt with HARVARD LAW written on it in faded maroon letters. He walked back over to the bed.
“Arms up,” he said, and slid the t-shirt over my head.
I snuggled into the fabric, wrapping it around me, inhaling the scent of his laundry detergent. This was home, I thought. Right here, with Noah, this was home.
“Now,” he said. “What would you like to eat?”
“You’re giving me a choice?” I asked, feigning surprise.
“Chinese it is,” he said, his voice gruff as he reached for the phone.
“No, no,” I said. “I want pizza.”
He shook his head in amusement, then ordered our food.
When he was finished, I bit my lip and stared at him.
“Yes, Charlotte?” he asked.
“What?”
“You have that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The look that makes me think you want to ask me something but are too afraid to actually do it.”
“Why would I be afraid to ask you something?”
He sat down on the bed next to me and looked at me, his expression serious. “You tell me.”
“Tell me what I want to ask you, or tell you why I might be afraid to ask you?”
“Either.”
I looked at him, his eyes dark with concern. I knew that if this thing between us was ever going to work, I needed to be able to talk to him. About anything and everything. There was no other way.
“I find you very intimidating,” I confessed.
“Why?”
“Because I’ve found that if I ask you something you don’t want to answer, or bring up something you don’t want to talk about, you shut down. And then… then I get afraid that you’ll never come back.”
“Where do you think I’ll go?” he quipped, glancing over his shoulder toward the door, as if he was considering making a run for it.
“Noah,” I said. “I’m serious.” I gripped the bottom of my t-shirt, turning the material over in my hand, twisting it around and around nervously.
He reached over and put his hand on mine, stopping me. “You don’t have to be afraid to ask me things, Charlotte,” he said. “Tell me what it is.”
I hesitated. “I just… why did Professor Worthington want to do that to you?” I asked. “Why would he…” I swallowed around the lump in my throat. Anytime I’d brought up Nora in the past, Noah had completely shut down, retreating into his cocoon, his walls high and impossible to penetrate. “He admitted he killed those women, Nora and Dani and Katie, and that he wanted to kill me, because of you. He wanted to hurt you.”
“I don’t know, Charlotte,” Noah said. “You would have to ask him.”
“Noah,” I said, sighing and turning away.
“No, wait,” he said, reaching for me. He sighed. “Charlotte, I really don’t know why.”
“He said something to me,” I said. “He asked me if I thought it was strange that out of all the amazing lawyers in New York City, that even though you could have had anyone, you picked him. He asked me why you would do that.”
“I picked him because he’s good.”
“And that’s the only reason? There was nothing else? No other connection in your past? The Walsh case,” I said, remembering something Noah had said while we were at Force. “You said something about the Walsh case, you asked Professor Worthington if that was what this whole thing was about.”
“Ah, yes,” Noah said. “The Walsh case.” He shook his head, like it wasn’t important. “That was a case from years and years ago. One of the first in my career. Colin worked in the DA’s office back then, and he was prosecuting a case I was on. It was a murder case, and it should have been open and shut for the prosecution. The kid had been caught almost red-handed, they had witnesses, a murder weapon… the defendant had even signed a confession.”
“And what? You got him off?”
“I got him off. On a technicality. We found a kid who’d been at the scene of the crime who testified that the defendant, Gavin Walsh, hadn’t done it. That he hadn’t commited the crime. It was obviously gang-related, but the jury bought it. We got him off.”
“It was a big case?”
“Yes.” Noah nodded. “And it was Colin Worthington’s first big chance, his first chance to show what he was made of.”
“And you fucked it up.”
He reached out and laced his fingers with mine. “Charlotte, a lot of lawyers lose big cases. They don’t all try to frame the other side for murder.”
“I know,” I said.
It wasn’t the last piece of the puzzle. But it was something.
A few minutes later, the pizza arrived, and we ate it in the bedroom while we watched a movie, me still wrapped in his t-shirt. It felt so normal, sitting here with him, eating and watching a movie in bed.
I’d never seen him so relaxed, never felt him let his guard down like this.
When the pizza had been cleaned up and the television turned off, after I’d brushed my teeth and washed my face, I returned to his bed.
He was sitting up and he watched me as I walked over to him and climbed under the sheets next to him.
I went to adjust the covers, but he stopped me.
“Naked,” he said.
“What?”
“I. Want. You. Naked.”
I swallowed at the tone in his voice, the same tone he’d used on me many times before.
I reached down and grabbed the bottom of the t-shirt I was wearing, pulled it over my head and dropped it on the floor.
“I want to look at you.” He reached over and removed the sheets from my body.
My nipples pebbled under his gaze.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, taking a long moment to drink in my naked body before covering me again.
He pulled me close to him, my back against his chest, and he was naked, too, and he intertwined his arms with mine. I felt him harden behind me, and when he whispered my name softly, I turned my head and his mouth met mine as he entere
d me from behind.
We both came quickly this time, the emotions too much to take.
This time, when I slept, it was deep and comforting.
No bad dreams.
No horrible nightmares.
No worries.
No cares.
Just Noah’s body, wrapped around mine, warm and good and safe.
***
I woke at six the next morning, surprised to find Noah standing at the side of the bed, dressed in a dark suit and tie, his hair damp from the shower.
“What are you doing?” I mumbled sleepily. “Come back to bed.”
He leaned down and smoothed my hair back from my forehead. He smelled of soap and aftershave. “I’m leaving for the office now, Charlotte. But you should sleep as long as you want. There are things for breakfast in the kitchen.”
I wondered how he’d been able to assemble breakfast fixings when it was only six in the morning. And I wondered why the hell he was dressed for work.
“Why are you dressed for work?” I asked, fighting to chase the sleep from my brain, to focus on what he was saying.
“I just told you, Charlotte. I’m leaving for work now.”
I sat up in bed, fully awake now. “You’re joking.”
“No.”
“Noah, you can’t be serious. You can’t go to work today. You’ve had a major surgery. You have stitches all up your side.”
“I won’t be digging ditches, Charlotte,” he said, sounding exasperated at the mere suggestion that he might not be healthy enough for work less than twenty-four hours after being discharged from the hospital. “I will be sitting at a desk all day.” His tone was forceful now, the same tone he used on me when he wanted me to know he wasn’t going to back down.
“But – ” I tried.
He silenced me with a kiss, his breath minty-fresh, the mild scent of hair gel and shampoo filling my nose. He pulled back and looked into my eyes, and I tried not to show the disappointment on my face. Was he pulling back already, shutting me down? I was just starting to feel like maybe he was letting me in.
“What are your plans for the day?” he asked.
“Um, I… ” I hadn’t thought about it. I hardly even knew what day it was. I thought about going to class, but the idea was overwhelming. Word of what had happened would have gotten out by now, and the thought of the whispers and gossip that would follow me everywhere I went was less than appealing. “I have class,” I said.
“You are not going to class.” Noah’s eyes darkened and his jaw twitched with expectation, like he was waiting for me to challenge him, but for once I was grateful for his double standards, grateful that he was insisting I stay home while he himself was headed to work.
“Then I guess I’ll just be here in the apartment. Maybe I’ll do some reading so I don’t get too far behind.”
“Good,” Noah said. “You need to rest.” He ran his thumb over one of the bruises on my thigh, which was already starting to fade. “Your bruise is getting better,” he said in satisfaction. He stood up. “Meet me for dinner tonight,” he ordered. “There’s something I want to ask you.”
“Oh,” I said, my heart thrumming against my rib cage. “What is it?”
His eyes twinkled mischievously. “It’s a surprise.”
My stomach somersaulted. A surprise?
I wanted to marry you, Charlotte. I wanted to spend my life with you.
Was Noah planning to propose to me? Was that the thing he wanted to ask me? No, I decided. That’s not what you said when you were about to propose to someone, that you had to ask the something that was a surprise. Was it? I didn’t think so, but then again, I had never been proposed to before.
“Okay,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “What time shall I meet you?”
“Be at my office at seven.”
“Okay.”
He kissed me again and then he was gone, leaving me to sit there wondering, as usual, just what the mysterious Noah Cutler had in store for me.
***
I spent the morning lounging in Noah’s huge king-sized bed, wrapped up in his ridiculously high-thread count sheets and luxuriously expensive bedding.
I watched mindless television all day.
I thought about calling my mother to tell her what had happened. But I had no idea where to start. How could I have explained everything that had been going on? She would have a million questions, and I had hardly any answers for her.
At five o’clock, I took a long bath, sliding into Noah’s huge ornate bathtub, letting the water comfort my skin and soothe my muscles.
When I was finished with my bath and wrapping a towel around myself, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I almost gasped in horror. I knew nothing that serious had happened to me, at least not physically. The doctor had said I’d been very lucky.
But there were marks all over my body.
A jagged scratch down my cheek.
The bruise on my thigh.
A tiny nick on the inside of my leg.
A laceration on my knee.
Little nicks and cuts and muscle aches and bruises, all of them reminders of what I’d been through.
I looked away, telling myself they were just physical marks, that they would heal, and probably quickly. I reminded myself again of what the doctor had told me, that I was a lucky girl.
I pushed the image of my battered body out of my mind, and began to dress with dinner. I found an elegant black wrap dress in with my things, and I pulled it on carefully, then curled my hair into loose waves around my shoulders and took my time with my makeup.
When I was done, I surveyed myself in the mirror.
The makeup hid the bruises, and the dress hid the marks on my body.
I looked almost normal, like a girl who was about to go out to dinner with her boyfriend.
But would I ever be normal?
Would I ever feel normal?
I’d been through something horrible, and I wasn’t sure a person could just move on from that so quickly.
And even if that horrible night at Force hadn’t happened, how was my relationship with Noah ever going to ever be normal? The fact that he wasn’t accused of murder anymore didn’t change the fact that he had demons deep inside of him I hadn’t even begun to exhume.
He was starting to let me in, I told myself.
I just had to hope it would continue.
I swiped my lips with one more brush of lip gloss, then grabbed my purse and headed for the door.
And that was when I saw it.
An envelope, sitting on top of a stack of mail outside the front door.
The envelope was a dirty cream color, the kind of color that was usually reserved for cheap, recycled paper.
I wouldn’t have even noticed it if it weren’t for my name.
It was written in block letters, big and bold across the front, followed by Noah’s address in smaller letters underneath it.
I frowned.
Who would be sending me mail to Noah’s apartment? My first thought was that Julia must have forwarded it, but the letter didn’t looked like it had been forwarded – there was no yellow forwarding label from the post office.
There was a stamp in the upper right hand corner, a flower stamp with bright colors, and something about it seemed out of place.
I picked it up and checked the return address.
Inmate Colin Worthington, it said, New York State Correctional Facility, New York, NY.
My pulse pounded.
It was from Professor Worthington.
Why the hell was he writing me a letter?
I turned it over in my hand as if trying to make sure it was real. I felt dizzy and lightheaded. Suddenly I had a flashback of me lying on that table at Force, Professor Worthington’s hands all over me, his mouth on mine, the way I had disassociated from myself and left my body.
The metallic scent of blood filled my nose.
I wretched, feeling the bile rise in my throat and burn the back of my
mouth.
But I didn’t throw up.
I couldn’t have thrown up – I hadn’t eaten anything all day.
I stared at the envelope for a long moment and then shoved it into my bag.
I wasn’t going to read it now.
I would wait until I was with Noah.
Noah would know what to do.
***
When I got to Noah’s office, there were reporters and paparazzi scattered around on the sidewalk outside. Photographers with cameras slung around their necks, sleek-haired blond journalists holding microphones and notepads.
They swarmed me as I got close, peppering me with questions.
“Charlotte, are you okay? Charlotte, is it true that Noah almost died? Is he back at work? Charlotte, will you be testifying at Colin Worthington’s trial? Charlotte Charlotte, Charlotte…”
Their voices blended together into a cacophony of sounds and frenzied snaps of the camera.
I ignored all of them, not sure what I should say or do. Instead I strode purposefully into the building, breathing a sigh of relief once I was safely through the revolving doors.
I breezed through security, and when I got to Noah’s floor, the receptionist smiled and buzzed me through without even asking me who I was.
“Hello, Charlotte,” she said, her voice friendly. “Mr. Cutler is waiting for you.”
It was a small thing, her knowing my name, letting me in without questioning who I was or why I was there.
But it was a change.
Noah must have told her he was expecting me, must have told her who I was, that we were together.
I flushed with pleasure.
And yet it was tempered.
The whole time, Professor Worthington’s letter burned a hole through my purse. I knew he was locked up, that he was being held without bail. Noah and I had given statements to the police in the hospital, and they’d assured us they were doing a thorough investigation, had even made a point to tell us the charges against Noah had been formally dropped and that they would work as hard as possible to bring Professor Worthington to justice. It would be a while before he even stood trial, and even then, with my testimony, he would most certainly be found guilty.
My testimony.
I would have to testify against him.