Charlotte's Master

by Marla Monroe

  “Bitch!”

  He let go of her hair and backhanded her so that she fell against the counter. Her side exploded with pain as it made contact with the hard edge of the granite.

  Charlie lifted one hand to her throbbing cheek even as she tried to back away from him. Neal advanced, pulling a gun out of his pants and wagging it at her.

  “I’ll shoot you if you don’t do what I say. I’d rather not have to do that, Charlotte.”

  “You’ll have to shoot me to get me to go anywhere with you. I’m not letting you hurt me,” she said, taking another step back.

  He took two forward. “I just want to talk. We can do that in the living room where we can both sit down.”

  “No. Say what you want to say and then get out.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Charlotte. I’m not leaving without you. You belong to me. I’ll overlook the fact that you’ve been fucking that freak, but you belong to me,” he said.

  “I’ll never belong to you, Neal. You’re sick and need help.”

  “Shut up,” he yelled, holding the side of the gun against his head. “I’m not crazy.”

  “You need help, Neal. Let me call for help.”

  He jerked the gun down and pointed it at her once more. “No. You’re not calling anyone. Now come here, or I’m going to shoot you.”

  “I already told you that you’ll have to shoot me to get me anywhere near you. I’m not coming over there.

  Neal looked confused as if the fact that she wouldn’t follow his directions hadn’t occurred to him. He really was crazy. Why hadn’t she noticed that the first time she’d gone out with him? Hell, she hadn’t realized it the entire time she’d gone out with him. His crazy hadn’t come out until she broken up with him.

  He took a step toward her and shook the gun in her face. Charlotte looked out the corner of her eye to see what she could reach to protect herself and realized the butcher block knife set was right there on the corner of the counter. She gaged the distance and the level of the handles as she watched Neal. Then she threw herself toward them as she spoke looking him in the face.

  “Baxter is going to kill you if he finds you here.”

  Charlotte grasped one of the knives and pulled it from the block just as Neal lunged for her. He grabbed her neck and pushed her back against the counter so that the edge caught her in the back. The pain was excruciating and streaked down the back of her legs, making her weak-kneed.

  She swung her arm around with the knife and managed to stab him in the back of the shoulder even as he squeezed her neck with one hand. His roar of pain and the brief reprieve it gave her to gather her breath was short lived. She screamed but doubted anyone would have heard it with how raspy it was from having been choked.

  Neal slammed her against the counter again and pulled the gun up to aim it at her head as she jerked the knife from his shoulder with the intentions of stabbing him again. The feel of the barrel of the gun against her temple stopped her from doing anything else.

  “I’ll kill you. Make one more move, and I’ll fucking kill you, Charlotte.” Spittle flew from his mouth, hitting her in the face as he yelled at her.

  She stilled, but she didn’t drop the knife. He didn’t seem to see it as a danger since he didn’t tell her to drop it. Instead, he ran the tip of the gun down the side of her face to her cheek and lower to her throat.

  “Why are you making this harder than it has to be? We could be good together, Charlotte. I would have worshiped the ground you walked on. Given you anything you would have wanted. Why did you pick this freak over me? Why?”

  “Because we didn’t have anything in common. It wasn’t working out between us. There wasn’t any attraction,” she said, gasping around the pain from her nose and her back.

  “Maybe I should kill your boyfriend, and then you’d be mine. If he isn’t around, you’ll have to come to me. That’s what I’ll do. We’ll wait for him to come home, and I’ll kill him.”

  Charlotte couldn’t let him shoot Baxter. What was she going to do? He had a gun, and Baxter would walk through that door without knowing the danger. She couldn’t stand it if he killed the man she loved. He was everything to her.

  The sound of a motorcycle galvanized her into action. Baxter was there. He’d be walking inside at any minute.

  “I’m not letting you hurt him,” she yelled, shoving him away from her and pulling up the knife at the same time.

  Everything happened so fast. She launched herself at him, the knife tight in her grip as she watched him pull the gun up between them. She expected to feel the bite of a bullet when she plunged the knife into his chest, but it never came. Instead, they fell to the floor with her on top of him and the knife buried deep in his chest. Neal’s eyes were open, but there was no one there anymore.

  Charlotte stood, taking two steps away from the man lying in a pool of blood on the floor, her hand covered in his blood even as blood flowed from her nose and her cheek throbbed in rhythm with her racing heart. That was how Baxter found her when he stepped into the kitchen seconds later.

  “Fuck! Charlie. Where are you hurt?”

  She shook her head as tears rolled down her face. She couldn’t believe that she’d killed a man. She’d only meant to stop him from killing Baxter. She hadn’t meant to kill him.

  “Charlie. Talk to me, babe. What happened? Are you hurt anywhere besides your face?”

  “I didn’t mean to kill him. He was going to kill you when you got home, and I just wanted to stop him.”

  “Shh, baby. Let’s go into the living room, and I’ll call the police. It’s okay. You were just protecting yourself.” Baxter grabbed a towel and led her into the living room where he held the towel to her nose.

  She closed her hand over his and looked up at him. His face was blurry through the tears, but he was there, and he was alive. That was all that mattered. She’d deal with the rest. Would she have to go to jail?

  She could hear Baxter talking to someone but didn’t realize he’d called Jack until Nina was sitting next to her on the couch with her arms wrapped around her. She leaned against the other woman and pulled the towel away from her face when her nose quit bleeding. The sound of sirens reminded her what was going on. Had she checked out for a while?

  “You’re in shock, honey. Everything is going to be all right. Baxter and Jack will take care of everything,” Nina said.

  “But I killed him. What’s going to happen to me now?”

  “Nothing is going to happen to you, babe.” Baxter sat on the other side of her and pulled her from Nina’s arms. “You were acting in self-defense. He had a fucking gun and had already hit you at least once. You don’t have a thing to worry about, Charlie. Just tell the cops everything that happened.”

  “I’m scared, Baxter. I can’t believe I killed him.”

  Jack answered the door and let the cops inside. They checked the body but didn’t move it. Instead, they walked into the living room and began asking questions as the paramedics rushed in next. Before she realized it, they’d confirmed Neal really was dead and were tending to her while the police peppered her with questions.

  “That’s enough. You can talk to her again after she’s been checked out at the hospital. She’s hurt, and it was clearly self-defense,” Baxter said.

  “We know she’s had trouble with him in the past, but what’s to say that he didn’t come over and you killed him?” one of the cops asked.

  “I didn’t, but it still would have been self-defense. He had a gun.” Baxter didn’t appear the least worried that they could make anything out of it. Charlotte was so glad he was there with her.

  “Okay,” the other policeman said. “We’ve got enough for now. We can interview her again after she’s been seen by the doctor.”

  The next few hours flew by with her not really remembering most of it. She was seen by the doctor at the emergency room who checked out her nose, her cheek, and her back. She had a slight concussion, a bruised cheekbone, and thankfully
her nose wasn’t broken. Her back was already a nice shade of purple, but it wasn’t serious.

  Baxter gave the police his whereabouts and produced a gas ticket from a station he’d stopped at on the way home from Dallas, which proved that he had just gotten back from being out of town. It didn’t mean that he still couldn’t have killed Neal, but the small cut on Charlotte’s hand between her thumb and first finger was consistent with injuries sustained with using a knife when you didn’t know what you were doing. They ruled it self-defense and closed the file.

  Charlie and Baxter stayed at Jack and Nina’s place for the next few days while their house was being processed and then to have the blood cleaned up and the kitchen set to rights. She was so happy that Baxter took care of everything. She liked that he was a take-charge sort of man.

  “You okay, baby girl?” he asked when they were sitting on the sofa late that night.

  “Yeah. I guess I’m still kind of in shock. It seems like a dream now,” she said.

  “You need to rest. I’ll run you a nice hot bath, and you can soak. That will help your back some, too.”

  “You guys know where everything is,” Nina said. “Make yourself at home.”

  “Thanks for letting us crash here,” she said.

  “Nonsense. You’re family, honey. Of course, you’re staying here. You can stay as long as you want to.” Nina stood and leaned against Jack.

  Baxter helped her to her feet and then steered her to the guest bedroom. He parked her on the bed and disappeared out the door again to run her bath water. She’d killed a man. How was she ever going to get past that? Yeah, he would have hurt her and had threatened to kill Baxter, but it didn’t change the fact that she’d been the one to do it. It had been a lucky shot that she’d gotten the blade in the perfect spot to hit his heart. Her short stature and Neal’s height had made it a straight in shot for her, the police had said.

  “Stop thinking about it,” Baxter said from above her.

  She looked up, not having heard him walk up. “But I killed him.”

  He pulled her up into his arms and gently rubbed up and down her back between her shoulder blades. It felt good to be surrounded by him. He wouldn’t ever let anything happen to her if he were around. She could have lost him if she hadn’t acted and plunged the knife into Neal. Did that make it all right? She inhaled Baxter’s scent and decided it did. Not having him in her life would have been devastating. She’d made the right decision. She was sorry that he was dead, but not that she’d made the decision to protect the man she loved.

  Chapter Twenty

  “How are you feeling, babe?” Baxter asked her several days later.

  “I’m good. My back is still sore, but my face doesn’t hurt as much now.” Charlie smiled up at her man.

  “Good. Feel like going out to eat with Jack and Nina tomorrow night?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I can cover up most of the bruise on my face with makeup,” she said.

  “I hate that it hurts, but the bruising doesn’t matter to me. You’re drop-dead gorgeous to me no matter what you look like.”

  “Not true, but I’ll take it,” she said with a smile.

  “I’ve got something for you,” he said, pulling a box from his pocket.

  “What is it?” She was curious at the small thin rectangular box.

  “Open it up.”

  She took it from his hand and pulled off the lid to find a necklace nestled in the tissue. It was a silver chain that had a heart with a little diamond in the center of it.

  “It’s beautiful, Baxter, and you got silver instead of gold. I love it.” She held it out to him. “Put it on me.” She whirled around for him to do it.

  “Hold up, Charlie. This isn’t just a necklace,” he said.

  She turned back to face him and frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I know you didn’t want a collar to show that you’re my woman, but I wanted something that symbolized that you belong to me, so I compromised. This necklace signifies that you’ve agreed to be my submissive in the bedroom. It has a tiny lock on the back that I had put on signifying that only I can take it off. It has a heart because you own my heart, and I hope I own yours.”

  “Oh, Baxter. I love you so much. Of course, I’m your woman, and my heart will always be yours. It’s perfect,” she said with tears gathering in her eyes.

  She turned around and let him fasten it at the back. The little heart fell just above her cleavage, so it would show with most everything she wore. It meant more to her than even a ring would at this point because he was claiming her in his way.

  “I love you, Charlie. I love you with all my heart and promise to take care of you for the rest of your life. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to protect you when Neal attacked you, but I won’t let that happen again.”

  “I love you, Baxter. You can’t be with me every second of every day. I don’t blame you one bit for what happened with Neal. If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine for not locking the door or putting down the garage door. I was careless.

  “It wasn’t your fault either, babe. He was the cause of it all,” he said.

  She wrapped her arms around her man and laid her head against his chest. She felt safe and secure in his arms. He had always made her feel that way and nothing had changed.

  “Ready for bed?” he asked.

  “Definitely.”

  After showering together, they climbed into bed. She wanted to make love with Baxter, but he’d been so worried about her injuries that he hadn’t wanted to risk hurting her by having sex. She rolled over on her side and ran a hand down his chest, down his abdomen and pelvis before wrapping her hand around his rapidly hardening cock.

  “Babe, you’re waking the demon. You need a few more days to heal. I’m afraid of hurting you.

  “It won’t hurt if I’m on top,” she said, kissing her way from his chin around his jaw.

  “Feeling like a cowgirl tonight?” he asked, a small smile curling the edges of her mouth.

  “Yeah. How about being my horse?” she asked.

  “I’ll be your horse, your mule, your tiger, or your lion if it will make you happy, baby girl.”

  “I’ll settle for the horse for now.” Charlotte stroked his thick shaft from tip to base and back up again until he was steel hard and jerking in her hand. She looked down and found a drop of precum pearling at the slit. She spread it around the crown and then squeezed his dick as she pulled down the stalk once more.

  “Easy, Charlie. You keep that up, and I won’t last to give you that ride.”

  She giggled and threw her leg over his body before lifting up to straddle him. He grinned up at her. He was so damn hot she couldn’t believe he was all hers. Yeah, he had some pretty horrific scars marring his hard, hot body, but the look in his eyes got her going every time. That look and the intricate ink coloring his body made him perfect for her.

  She held his cock in one hand as she fitted him to her opening and then slowly slid down the slippery stalk made slick from her juices that had dribbled to cover it. She was so damn wet and needy. It had been too long since they’d last had sex. She had made up her mind that day that she was going to get Baxter to cave one way or another. It hadn’t taken much to convince him. He loved it when she was on top. So did she.

  “Fuck, you’re so damn hot and tight. Ride me, babe,” Baxter said.

  Charlotte lifted up and then sank back down over and over. Baxter held her hips with both hands, his fingers biting into her flesh a little more each time as he grew close. She lifted her hands to her breasts and began squeezing them and then pinching her nipples.

  “That’s it, Charlie. Play with those tits. Love seeing you playing with them.”

  She pulled at her hardened nipples, feeling the sensation all the way to her core. She continued riding him, giving her hips a quick twirl with each downward stroke of her body over his thick dick. The faster she got, the tighter his face seemed to get as he gritted his teeth in an effort to hold his c
limax off.

  “Fuck, baby. I’m not going to last. Your hot little cunt has me right on the edge already,” he said.

  “Please, Baxter. Just a bit longer. I’m almost there,” she rasped out.

  “I’ve got you, Charlie.” Baxter let go of her hip to focus his attention on her clit.

  Charlotte gasped as he pressed his thumb against her nub, rubbing tiny circles around the ball of nerves before pressing hard against it again and again. It didn’t take long at all before she was jerking over him as her orgasm washed over her in a wave of heat and lightning hot sparks. She screamed his name as he shouted hers the next instant.

  She rode the climax until she couldn’t take it any longer and begged him to stop playing with her clit.

  “Fuck that was hot as hell, babe. I love you, Charlie,” he said.

  “I love you back, Baxter.”

  He helped her off him and then got a warm, wet cloth to clean her up. She loved that about him. He always took care of her. When he was back in bed with her curled up around him, Charlotte ran her hand up and down his chest. He felt good beneath her fingers.

  “You okay, babe?” he asked.

  “Better than okay.”

  “You’re mine, Charlie.

  “And you’re mine.”

  “Forever, baby girl.”

  “And always,” she said.

  THE END

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