by Kelly Favor
He collapsed on top of me again, crushing his body into mine and breathing hard for a moment before he finally stood up.
I got back up onto my knees, trying to slow my own breathing.
The light flicked back on, and I blinked as my eyes adjusted.
Noah had already buttoned his pants, and he reached down and picked up his sweater and pulled it over his head.
“Get dressed,” he said. His voice was cold, his tone hard. I wanted to tell him I was dressed, that I’d never gotten undressed, that he’d just pushed me over a bench and then shoved me onto the floor and fucked me.
But I had a feeling that wouldn’t go over well.
So I stood up and pulled my dress back down over my hips. Noah had torn the top of my dress, and the fabric over my nipples hung down, exposing half of my breasts. “My dress is ruined,” I said, laughing a little.
He glanced at me and then looked away.
A feeling of uncertainty rose up inside of me. Was he still in control mode? Was he going to fuck me again, order me around, tell me what to do? Usually, after we’d had sex, he’d been soft with me. Or at least, he’d never been this withdrawn.
Noah reached down and picked the paddle up off the floor, brought it over to the wardrobe in the corner and replaced it on its hook.
That was the other thing – he’d had all these toys in that closet, and he’d hardly used any of them. We’d come to Force to push the limits. And while he’d been rough with me, rougher than we’d ever been, he hadn’t taken his time with me or pushed the boundaries of our trust. It felt like he’d really been using me, but not in the way I wanted, not in a way that would bring us closer. For the first time ever, I began to feel a real shame about what we’d done.
“Did I…. did I do something wrong?” I asked softly.
Noah turned around, his eyes locking on mine. “Why would you ask me that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, twisting my hands together. “You seem like maybe you’re mad at me.”
“And why would I be mad at you?”
“Stop replying to my questions with questions.”
His jaw set in anger. “Then don’t ask me questions you already know the answer to.”
I shook my head, confused. “I’m confused,” I said. “I thought we came here to explore our relationship further, so you could push me, so we could get closer and explore.”
“Is that why you came here, Charlotte?” he asked. “Really, is it?” He spoke at a low volume. But his tone was hard, disconnected.
I didn’t like the way he was speaking to me, and that, coupled with the weirdness I’d felt after he’d finished fucking me, caused anxiety to bloom in my chest.
“Yes,” I said. “That is why I came here.”
“You’re lying.”
“What?” I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry.
He crossed the room, picked up our contract and began to page through it. “You’re lying,” he said simply.
I thought about refuting it. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that you didn’t want to go to your stepfather’s party tonight, after you told me how much it meant to you.”
“I never said that party meant a lot to me. You said that.”
“Please, Charlotte,” he said. “Semantics.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the fact that you’re hiding something from me.” He refused to look at me, his eyes scanning the clauses of our contract as he flipped slowly through the pages.
“I don’t… if you think I’m hiding something from you, then why did you bring me here?” My voice was quivering, and a lump rose in my throat. So that was why he hadn’t pushed me, why he hadn’t done any of the thousands of things he could have done. He thought I didn’t trust him, thought I had some kind of ulterior motive for coming here.
You don’t trust him. And you do have an ulterior motive.
Still. He’d brought me to Force, he’d fucked me, he’d acted like everything was okay. When the truth was, the whole time he was getting upset with me for not trusting him, he also didn’t trust me.
“Why did you bring me here?” I repeated. I wasn’t going to cry in front of him. I wasn’t going to let him know how much he was hurting me.
“Because I wanted to give you a chance,” he said. “To prove to me that you were taking this seriously.”
“That I was taking this seriously?” I said, anger flaring in my body. “What about you?”
“Me?” he said, his voice cool and controlled.
“Yes. You keep talking about the whole trust thing, how it’s so important in a relationship.”
“It is.”
“Then why won’t you trust me?”
“Because you have proven to be untrustworthy.”
“No.” I shook my head, not wiling to let him win this one. “You haven’t trusted me this whole time.”
He stayed silent, his jaw set in a firm line. “Be careful, Charlotte,” he said finally. “You don’t want to push me.”
“Maybe I do,” I said, on a roll now. “Why is it you won’t trust me to help with your case, Noah? Why is it that you won’t answer my questions? You’re a hotshot lawyer, you know how important this is, how serious your situation is. You know you should be cooperating with your lawyers. And yet you refuse to talk to Professor Worthington, and you refuse to talk to me.”
“Trust must be earned, Charlotte.”
“You say that,” I said, shaking my head. “But you expect me to give mine freely, without question.”
“That’s how it works,” he said, shrugging his shoulders like it was a simple fact, not to be disputed.
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m not comfortable with that.”
Noah kept his eyes on me for a long moment. Then he crossed the room slowly to the binder that was sitting in the middle of the table. He reached down and picked it up, his eyes never leaving mine.
He flipped through the pages until he got to the last one, the one we’d both signed. He pulled the page out of the book and slowly, carefully, tore it in two, the halves fluttering to the floor.
Tears burned my eyes.
I couldn’t believe he was doing this to me, couldn’t believe he could be so cold, so callous.
I turned and ran out of the room.
I could hear Noah calling after me, but I ran straight into the crowd, getting enveloped by the throng of bodies. I felt someone grabbing at me, and I couldn’t tell if it was Noah or not, but I yanked my arm away and kept going, pushing through the people, not really knowing where I was going.
The slave auction was taking place now on a raised stage in the middle of the room, and the music pulsed as a girl in a loincloth was shown off, her body glistening under the lights. A man in leather pants was slapping her ass with a whip, making her dance as the crowd jeered.
I had no idea how I was going to find my way out of here. The room was dark now, except for strobe lights that flashed and burned, leaving spots in front of my eyes.
I thought I heard someone calling my name, but when I turned around, I didn’t see Noah anywhere. I turned back around and began heading toward the door we’d come in when we first got here. But I wasn’t sure I was going in the right direction.
I was so disoriented that it took me a second to realize my phone was vibrating in my tiny black clutch. I reached in and pulled it out, hoping with everything I had that it was Noah, that he was calling so he could come and find me, so he could get me out of here, so he could take me back to his apartment where I would tell him everything.
But the caller ID said Unknown.
My heart sped up and adrenaline coursed through my body, seemingly pulsing in time with the music.
“Hello?” I shoved my finger in my other ear so I could hear better as I fought my way through the crowd toward the entrance.
“Hello, Charlotte.” It was that same distorted voice
that had called me earlier. Goosebumps broke out on my arms, even though the air in the club felt hot and humid against my skin. “Where are you going so fast?”
“What?” A chill slid up my spine.
“Giving up so soon?” the anonymous caller asked. He sounded amused, almost as if he were taunting me.
“How do you know what I’m doing?” I turned and scanned the crowd, trying to see if I could spot who I was talking to. But it was impossible. So many people were wearing costumes, their bodies moving and undulating under the flashing lights.
I thought I caught a flash of someone in a black leather mask on a cell phone, but then the crowd tightened around me, and the person was gone.
“Go to the front, Charlotte,” the voice said. “Ask for the Dark Room.”
“What?” I shook my head. “Who is this?”
“A friend, Charlotte. If you want to know the truth about who killed those girls, you need to ask Audi James. And you’ll find him in the Dark Room.”
I’d been weaving my way toward the front of the room, and a second later I came face to face with the tattooed bouncer who’d let Noah and I into the club.
“Go ahead,” the voice on the phone urged. “Ask him.”
I hesitated. Part of me wanted to just get the hell out of here, to go home and forget this whole night had ever happened. But the other part of me felt like that would be backing down. Why had I come here? My relationship with Noah hadn’t deepened -- in fact, it had gotten worse.
The bouncer looked me up and down as I moved closer, and I became aware that my dress was in tatters around my breasts. I tried to readjust the fabric, but it didn’t do much good.
I stood there for a long moment, my phone pressed tightly against my ear.
“Can I help you, Miss?” the bouncer asked.
“I’d like to go to the Dark Room, please,” I said.
“Good girl,” the voice on the phone said. And then the call went dead.
The bouncer raised his chin in the air, his eyes narrowing as he took me in.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back. I wanted to turn around and find Noah.
And so I did.
I turned around and tried to head back into the crowd.
But before I could, the bouncer’s meaty hand flew out and tightened around my arm. Another man appeared seemingly from out of nowhere and grabbed me around the waist, and then, suddenly, I was being dragged backward into the hallway.
I kicked and screamed.
But the men and everyone around me paid no attention.
Handcuffs were slapped onto my wrists, the cool metal pinching my skin. A gag was placed in my mouth, the fabric rough against my tongue.
The men picked me up and began carrying me down the maze of hallways, weaving this way and that, turning left and right until I had no idea where I was.
Finally, they opened the door to one of the rooms and dropped me onto the floor. The room was pitch black, and I felt hands pulling at me, taking the handcuffs off, removing the gag, grabbing roughly my breasts before they left. The sound of laughter permeated the room, and from somewhere far away, I thought I could hear a woman screaming. It was so dark I couldn’t see anything, not even my hand right in front of me.
“Hello?” I called out. “Is anyone there?”
I started to feel my way around in the dark, and was just about to scream when the door opened.
Dim light flooded into the room, and a man stood in the hallway, illuminated by the light behind him.
He was tall, at least six foot three, and huge. He was dressed in dirty jeans and a black tank top, his muscular arms filled with a sleeve of tattoos. I recognized him immediately from the pictures I’d seen online.
Audi James.
He smiled at me, showing a row of perfectly straight teeth.
“Here to play?” he asked jovially. As he shut the door behind him, something metal glinted in his hand.
I took in a huge breath.
And then I screamed.
END OF BOOK SEVEN
WHAT HE REVEALS (What He Wants, Book Eight)
by Hannah Ford
NOAH
Regret.
It pushed forward like a dark wave, threatening to overtake the carefully constructed wall that surrounded me.
As soon as I saw the look on Charlotte’s face, as soon as I saw the hurt in her eyes, I wanted to take back what I’d done. I wanted to take back ripping our contract up in a fit of anger and hurt that was more befitting of a wounded boy than a grown man. But of course taking it back was impossible.
Regret was not an emotion I was familiar with -- I’d found it served no purpose. Once something was done, there was nothing you could do to change it. Regret and disappointment did nothing other than make you feel badly about yourself, make you second guess every choice you’d made, cause you to wonder if perhaps you were damaged or defective in some way in order to have done whatever the thing was you regretted.
I had enough self-loathing inside of me to last a lifetime.
I didn’t need to pile on more.
However, for the briefest of moments after Charlotte walked away, I allowed myself to feel the disappointment that washed over me. Although perhaps allowed wasn’t the right word – I was powerless to stop it.
Why had I done that?
Because you wanted to hurt her.
Why would I want to hurt her?
Because she hurt you by not trusting you.
It was shameful, to lash out the way I had, to hurt the woman I was falling in love with. I’d acted like a spoiled child.
And when she turned and ran out of the room, my heart split in two. It was a feeling so deep and profound, I’d almost forgotten I could feel anything that was so immediate, so real.
I called after her.
But she didn’t respond.
She kept moving, out the door and into the club.
“Shit,” I swore.
I went after her.
But the slave auction was starting, and the men in the club were getting riled up, waving money in the air, yelling out bids. The music pulsed and the lights swung over the crowd, flashing rhythmically, making it almost impossible to see anything.
I caught a glimpse of her long dark hair, and I called her name again, but either she didn’t hear me or she didn’t care. And then she was swallowed up in the crowd, disappearing into a throng of sweat and masks and desire.
I became almost crazed at the thought of her being alone in this place, this place I’d brought her even though I knew it wasn’t good for her. She wasn’t ready. I’d done it just to prove a point, to show her I was in control, that if she thought she was going to be able to hide something from me, she was wrong.
My pride and my demons had put her at risk.
If anything were to happen to her, I would never forgive myself.
I would find her.
I would make sure she was safe and get her out of here.
And then I would stay away from her.
I was too damaged.
And if she stayed with me, she was going to get hurt.
My heart ripped again at the thought of not having her, of not talking to her, holding her, dominating her, loving her. But I reached deep into myself and stitched it back together.
The only thing worse than losing her was destroying her.
And if I stayed with her, that’s exactly what I would do.
CHARLOTTE
My screams echoed through the room before bouncing off the cements walls and coming back to me, almost like a boomerang. Through the light that was filtering through the open door, I could see a dirty light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
It felt like a tomb.
The man who’d opened the door -- Audi James -- stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
The room was thrown back into darkness, and I struggled to my knees, trying to stand up. It was hard to do while being handcuffed. The metal bit into my
wrists and threw me off balance, making it impossible to stand. Not that it really mattered. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do even if I somehow could stand up – I was handcuffed, and even if I wasn’t, Audi James was twice my size. I had no weapon, no escape route, no way to protect myself. I had no idea where my cell phone was – it had been lost somewhere while those men had been carrying me here. I didn’t remember if I’d dropped it, or if they’d taken it from me.
“Just relax,” Audi said soothingly. The light clicked on overhead. “You don’t have to be scared. This is going to be just as you imagined it would be.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about. He was obviously mad.
I took in a shaking breath and tried to calm myself. It was apparent my screaming wasn’t going to help anything – this place was a complete maze, and I’d heard people screaming and begging as I’d moved through it. More screams weren’t going to alert anyone that I needed help. No, I needed to save my strength, and think about what I could do to get out of this mess.
Audi James crossed the room and placed the metal thing he’d been holding down on a dirty footstool that was sitting in the corner.
It was a knife.
In the dim light, it didn’t shine as brightly as it had in the hallway. I was far enough away that I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a butcher knife. The blade was sharp but seemed almost darker than the rest of the knife, like perhaps it had been dulled and then sharpened recently.
I wracked my brain for anything I could use from all the case studies I’d read, anything where the victim had gotten away from a captor. I remembered a case from Georgia, where a prisoner had escaped from a courthouse after killing two police officers and a security guard. He’d gone on the run, sparking a manhunt that spanned three counties. He evaded the police for a while, then broke into a house and took a woman hostage.
She’d been held captive for five days, knowing that he’d killed those people, knowing that the police were closing in on him. He’d had a gun and he was desperate. She’d been able to save herself and convince him to turn himself in by talking to him, getting to know him, making him connect with her.