by Hannah Ford
Lameuix shot Noah a surprised look, and chuckled. “Out of how many?”
“Out of how many what?” Noah replied, his eyes flashing annoyance.
“Out of how many subs?”
My stomach turned at the thought of Noah being with someone else.
“Charlotte is my fiance,” Noah said, emphasizing the word fiance.
Lameuix’s lips slipped up into a skeptical smile, and his eyes crinkled at the sides. But then his skeptical looked turn to amusement, as if he’d decided to play along. “Ahh. Well, it’s lovely to meet you, Charlotte.” He reached for my hand, and I saw Noah’s façade of pretending everything was okay start to crack for the first time since we’d been there.
His shoulders stiffened and he took a warning step toward Lameuix as I reached out and took Lameuix’s hand.
Lameuix wanted to hug me, I could tell, but Noah wasn’t going to allow it.
Noah stepped toward me, his arm snaking around my waist possessively. His eyes flashed a warning to Lameuix. Don’t touch her.
Lameuix recovered quickly, stepping back and thrusting his chin into the air. “So when’s the wedding?” His tone was friendly, and yet there was a smugness laced through his words, as if he still didn’t quite believe we were getting married.
“We haven’t set a date yet,” I said, somehow feeling I needed to defend myself to this man.
“Ah.” Lameuix glanced down at Bia, who was still kneeling on the floor. “Bia.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You may stand up now.”
She stood up.
“You may look at me.”
“Yes, sir.”
She met his gaze, and her posture relaxed.
“What is all this?” Lameuix asked, surveying the tea that Bia had set out for us.
“It’s tea, sir.”
“I told you to let the girls handle that.” He gave her an admonishing look. “You are not to be fixing tea, Bia. That is what they’re here for.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lameuix’s eyes snaked up her body as he considered her punishment. “We will deal with this later.”
She nodded and swallowed nervously.
“Now!” Lameuix said, clapping his hands together. “I, for one, have worked up an appetite.”
Doing what? I wondered, but didn’t dare say.
“You’ll stay for dinner?” he asked Noah.
“Of course,” Noah said.
“And you’ll spend the night,” Lameuix said, watching Noah carefully.
I expected Noah to protest, but instead he nodded. Spend the night? Here? In this place? A shiver went up my spine.
“Wonderful,” Lameuix said, and he began to lead us to the dining room.
The menu was fancy and indulgent.
An appetizer made of seared tuna and puff pastry, with a disgusting name and a delicious taste.
Shaved steak and rosemary potatoes, roasted vegetables and sparkling water.
Lameuix and Noah traded stories, Bia interjecting when she could, the three of them reminiscing about college and people I’d never heard of.
We sat at a long table covered with a beige linen tablecloth. There were high candlesticks set in the middle, the kind you’d see in a medieval fairytale, and the light danced off the bare walls of the dining room.
We were served by women.
Women wearing tiny thongs made of shiny black pearls and matching black bras that were so sheer you could see their nipples. They were all young, none of them appearing to be older than twenty-one, all of them with taut, tan bodies. They wore body jewelry on half of their faces, tiny jewels that appeared to be stuck to their skin.
They kept their eyes on the floor.
As one of them set a plate of berry sorbet down in front of me for dessert, I thanked her.
My appreciation was met by silence and a reproachful look from Bia, as if I was a visitor from a foreign country and had made some kind of cultural faux pas.
“Do you remember the time with the jackhammers?” Lameuix asked, spooning up some of his dessert. The sorbet was deceptively simple – tart and delicious, with a tiny mint leaf and a delicate honey cinnamon wafer angled into the side of the bowl.
I wondered who was back there making all this delicious food. Was it another woman in a lace thong? The idea was disturbing.
“Yes,” Noah said. “I remember.”
“Of course he remembers!” Bia said. A woman appeared next to the table and began filling our glasses with wine.
I picked mine up and took a sip, making sure that Bia and Lameuix had taken a sip of theirs first. Noah might have been convinced they wouldn’t poison us, but I wasn’t.
The drink was strong and thick, not at all like the wine I was used to, and I had a moment of panic where I thought I really might have been poisoned.
But Noah leaned in close and kissed my cheek, whispering in my ear. “It’s fine. It’s port, Charlotte.”
I relaxed and took another sip.
“Tell Charlotte,” Bia said excitedly. She’d been drinking some kind of orange-colored cocktail during dinner, and now she took a long sip of port, her cheeks colored from the alcohol. Well, one cheek was colored. The other cheek was tattooed, which made it impossible to tell what her skin looked like. “Tell Charlotte about what Noah did.”
“It was a long time ago.” Noah said. He sounded easy and relaxed, but I saw his temple throb. Whatever the story was, he didn’t want them to tell it.
“It wasn’t that long ago,” Lameuix said. He leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up on the table, his shiny loafers gleaming under the overhead chandelier. “You see, Charlotte, Noah here had a penchant for practical jokes.”
I glanced at Noah skeptically. He sighed and took another pull from his glass of port. Noah was a lot of things, but a practical joker he was not.
“Noah doesn’t seem like much of a practical joker,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” Lameuix said. “I know, I was shocked, too.” He stared across the room at me, his eyes sparkling. “But he was.”
“What did he do?” I was interested in spite of myself. Noah was such a closed book, it was interesting to hear stories about him before he met me, about his life and his interests.
“Well, you see, Noah doesn’t like to brag about this, but he – well, we, all three of us – went to Harvard Law. Harvard, as you know, Charlotte, is the best law school in the country. You’ve heard of it?”
“I think so,” I said, playing along as I took another sip of my port.
Noah’s hand found my thigh under the table, squeezing hard in a gesture of possessiveness. He didn’t like me joking with Lameuix. I understood, but I also felt a wave of annoyance. Noah brought me here and set me up to expect one thing, when the reality was much different – how could he expect me to eat the food they were giving me, to act like everything was fine, and then get mad when I participated in a conversation? It wasn’t fair.
“Well, then you know how stuffy the place can be,” Lameuix went on. “But Noah here, he wasn’t going to have any of that.”
Bia giggled. Her glass of port was empty, and another lithe girl appeared next to her and refilled it.
“Noah wanted to liven the place up a bit,” Lameuix said.
I took another sip of my drink, riveted.
“Have you heard of the Big Dig, Charlotte?” Lameuix was still leaning back casually in his chair, his eyes trained on me.
“Yes,” I said. “It was a big construction project in Boston.”
“Yes,” Lameuix said approvingly. “Well, Charlotte, before the Big Dig, there was the Big Goat Rope.”
I giggled and Noah’s hand tightened on my thigh. He was holding it together, but just barely. There would be consequences for my disobedience later.
“Ah!” Lameuix said again. “So you know what a goat rope is then?”
“Yes,” I recited. “A messy situation.”
“It was another construction project. Big affair,
lots of noise, rerouted traffic, that kind of thing. So Noah here decided to go down there, dress up like a construction worker, rent a jackhammer, and go to town.”
I frowned. “Why would he do that?”
“Well, Charlotte, your fiance here then called the city police and reported his own crime. He said ‘Oh, there’s some college students down here and they’re pretending to be construction workers.’ He waited a few minutes, and then he called the state police. And he said, ‘There’s some college kids down here pretending to be police officers and messing with my dig.’ So the state police showed up and started trying to arrest the city police.”
I laughed. I wasn’t sure if it was the port or Lameuix’s storytelling skills, but for a moment, the whole thing felt almost normal. Like Noah and I were just out with some old friends of his, celebrating our engagement while they entertained me with stories about his past.
Noah drained his glass of port and set it down on the table. “It was a long time ago,” he said again. “Charlotte, you must be tired.”
“I’m not that tired,” I said automatically. His hand on my knee tightened even more, letting me know I’d displeased him. “You have had a very long day.”
I nodded.
“Aww, Noah, don’t be upset.” Lameuix smirked and slid his feet off the table. “It’s a funny fucking story. You enjoyed it, didn’t you, Charlotte?”
“It’s sooo funny,” Bia said. She smacked the table raucously, and I realized she was drunk.
“Show us our room,” Noah commanded.
“Noah – “ Lameuix started, but Noah cut him off.
“I said it’s time for bed.”
Lameuix’s eyes narrowed, and I knew it was just a trick of the light, I knew it was impossible for it to really happen, but I thought I saw his eyes flash black. His easy-going manner was gone, replaced with a tense, businesslike posture.
In fact, that whole vibe in the room had changed, the tension palpable.
“Of course,” Lameuix said. He kept his eyes on Noah as he opened a tiny drawer that was built into the side of the table and pushed a button. Noah stared back at him the whole time, refusing to look away. It was like watching two animals stare each other down, just knowing that at any moment, one of them could pounce.
I placed my hand on top of Noah’s, trying to steady him.
I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but I knew there was something very tenuous here, something that was simmering just below the surface, and if it exploded, it would be dangerous and devastating.
A woman appeared in the entryway to the dining room.
“Exima will take you to your room,” Lameuix said. “Do let us know if you need anything.”
We followed Exima (what the hell kind of name was that?!) up the long rambling staircase. Her head was bowed the whole time.
The room was opulent, with a tray ceiling and a wraparound porch through a sliding glass door. It had the same mix of modern and foreboding old-fashionedness that permeated the house. While the balcony spoke of new money, the windows on the adjacent wall were small, and braches from the trees outside brushed against the glass, making a soft scratching noise as the wind rustled gently through the night.
There was an adjoining bathroom with a sleek marble counter and a shiny new floor, and yet the fixtures – the cabinet pulls, the knobs on the sink -- looked to be the original polished brass, with an ornate leaf pattern etched into the heavy gold metal. There was a separate shower with pristine-looking penny tile, but the tub had claw feet and a heavy ceramic lip.
Once Exima left, shutting the door behind us, Noah crossed the room and locked the door behind her.
“What the fuck is going on?” I demanded, not even caring if Exima was lurking outside the door, listening.
Noah didn’t answer me.
Instead he crossed the room to where two suitcases had been placed against the wall. I recognized them immediately – black leather, monogrammed with Noah’s initials, the “C” in a big swirling silver script.
“What are those?” I asked incredulously as he set them down on the bed.
“Suitcases.”
“I know that!” I said, throwing my hands up in the air in exasperation and crossing the room to where he was standing by the bed.
He began unzipping one of the suitcases calmly.
Inside were stacks of clothes, all of them folded perfectly.
The clothes belonged to us.
“Where did these come from?” I asked.
“Our apartment. They were brought in from the car while we were eating dinner.”
He pulled out a pair of my pink pajama shorts and a tank top, and held them out to me. “Shower and get dressed for bed.”
I blinked at him incredulously. “I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I feel like I’ve walked into some kind of alternate reality.” This was insane. He was acting insane.
“You will not give me a hard time about this, Charlotte.” He crossed the room to the bathroom, stepped inside and turned on the shower.
“I will give you a fucking hard time about this, because you are acting crazy.” I followed him into the bathroom and turned the shower off. “I’m not showering. And I’m not spending the night in this house of horrors.”
“Yes,” he said. “You are. You will shower and then come to bed.” He pulled a towel from the linen closet and held it out to me. “Most importantly, you will do as I say.”
I ripped the towel from his hands and threw it on the floor.
His jawline twitched, and his dark eyes burned with anger at my disobedience. Normally, it would have sent a delicious fear skittering up my spine, and I would have stopped whatever it was I was doing, knowing that the consequences of pushing him would be swift and severe.
“Tell me,” I said, my chest heaving. “Tell me what the hell is going on, Noah, or I swear to God I’ll leave right now.”
I meant it. I meant the words more than I’d ever meant anything in my life. I was willing to let him take over my body and my heart, I was wiling to give him control of me sexually, but I had a breaking point.
And him taking me to see some creep in the woods under false pretenses was pretty much it.
“There is nowhere for you to go, Charlotte. There’s nothing around for miles.”
“I don’t care.” I didn’t. An image flashed through me mind, me running through the woods, branches scratching at my face while Lameuix chased me down. But I didn’t care. My body was filled with rage, the kind of rage that could explode, the kind of rage that could take over and make you do reckless things.
“You’d be caught immediately. They wouldn’t let you leave.”
“I don’t care,” I said bravely. “Lameuix seems nice. Maybe I’ll stay here and live with him, get a few tattoos, learn to brew the perfect cup of tea.”
Noah sucked in a breath through his nose and took a step toward me, his impressive six-foot-four frame towering over me. “Get. In. The. Shower.”
I straightened my spine and looked into his eyes. “No.”
“This is not up for discussion.” He took my wrists, which had been curled into fists by my side, and uncurled them slowly, then pushed my hands behind my back and held them there tightly. “If I have to make you, I will.”
“You can’t keep making me forever.”
“Oh, yes, I can. And I will.” He bent his head down now and his eyes were on mine, the intensity reflected in his irises fiercer than I’d ever seen it. It was as if all his secrets, all the walls he kept up were swirling together, tangling with his need to protect me. The energy radiating off of him was white hot, so hot I could feel it through his shirt.
“Why are we here?” I whispered. “Please, Noah, why are we here?”
His hands tightened around my wrists, and he lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me, his tongue moving past my lips.
I resisted.
I knew it was his damage that was causing him to do this, that his first inclinati
on whenever he was threatened – either with my safety being in jeopardy, or me pushing him to get too close – was to dominate me sexually, to take his frustrations out on my body.
Normally, I was happy to give him that release – happy to give it to him and hope that maybe he would let me in later, that he would give me the emotional attachment I craved as a result of me letting him have his way with me physically.
But not this time.
I turned my head and pulled away from the kiss. A sound escaped from between his lips, almost like a guttural growl, and he took one of his hands from my wrists and slid it up my back slowly, holding my wrists in place with his remaining hand.
His strength was overpowering, intoxicating, all-consuming.
It was never a fair fight.
His free hand trailed up my back, and those telltale shivers were back, the shivers that I knew meant my resolve was weakening, that I was going to give him what he wanted.
Heat blazed between my legs. I took in a deep breath and tried to steady myself, to bring myself back to the moment, to remind myself that this wasn’t healthy, that this whole situation was extremely dysfunctional and dangerous, that I needed to stop, to make him tell me what the hell was going on.
But my attempt at a deep breath did nothing except give me a noseful of his intoxicating smell, a clean musky cologne that was so masculine, so Noah. I associated it with lust and sexuality and toe-curling pleasure.
“Please, Noah,” I whimpered as his hand tightened around the back of my neck.
He held me in place while he kissed me, and this time I was helpless to resist. He was too powerful, and I was like a tiny sailboat again the rough waves of an ocean storm.
His tongue danced with mine. He tasted of berries and mint, with a touch of alcohol, and as the kiss deepened, his stubble brushed over my chin, leaving my skin raw and my knees weak.
When he knew he had me, when he knew I was his, when he felt my knees go weak and my body become pliant in his arms, he removed his hand from my neck and let my wrists go.
His arms wrapped around my waist and tightened, and then he was pushing me up against the bathroom wall, his mouth claiming mine again as his hands slid up under the bottom of my shirt, his fingertips brushing against my bare skin.