What He Guards (What He Wants, Book Twelve) (3 page)

“You are gorgeous.”
 
He kissed my forehead.
 
“You are beautiful.”
 
He kissed the tip of my nose.
 
“You are sexy.”
 
He kissed my jaw.
 
The feel of his mouth on my skin sent a
heady breathlessness sweeping through my body.
 
“You do not need a makeover.”

“Then why is Shonda here?” I asked,
averting my eyes before he could answer.

“Look at me when you talk.”

I forced my eyes back to his.
 

“She’s here because you said you wanted
to make this as real as possible, is that correct?
 
That you want to go to Force tonight with our best chance of
finding out who it is that called you earlier?”

I nodded.

“Then you need to give yourself to me
completely.
 
You need to trust
me.
 
If you are serious about this,
then we will go to Force tonight.
 
But it will be on my terms, the way I want to do it.
 
You will do the things I desire of
you.
 
Do you understand, Charlotte?”

“Yes.”

He kissed me then, soft and slow, teasing
my bottom lip with his teeth as he pulled away, leaving me dizzy with
anticipation.
 
“The executive
bathroom is down the hall and around the corner, second door on the right.
 
It has been reserved for you this
afternoon, so please don’t worry about anyone interrupting.”

“Okay.”

He pushed my hair off my forehead.
 
“Keep your phone on you at all
times.
 
You being out of my sight
is
anxiety-producing.”

I nodded again,
then
slipped out of Noah’s office and into the hallway.

I followed the directions he’d given me,
walking quickly down the hall and around the corner.
 
There were associates everywhere, the office buzzing with
activity even at five o’clock.
 
I
marveled at all of them here, working their cases – they must have known
Noah had been arrested for murder, and yet none of them seemed to have skipped
a beat.

All of the women looked so shiny and put
together – smart suits and posh-looking high heels, their hair perfectly
styled and groomed.
 
They had
perfect smiles and tight bodies, and I wondered when they found the time to get
their teeth whitened or fit in a session at the gym.

A part of me couldn’t help but wonder how
Noah could be interested in me when he had these smart, accomplished, beautiful
women surrounding him all the time.

I wondered if it was something I could
ever get over, this disbelief that Noah could choose to be with me and not
someone else, someone smarter, prettier, less ordinary.
 
He was out-of-this-world gorgeous, rich,
sexy, accomplished.
 
He was larger
than life in every way.

I pushed the intruding thoughts out of my
head.
  
Right now I had enough
to worry about when it came to my relationship with Noah.
 
If things ever became normal between
us, if we ever weren’t caught up in this whirlwind of danger and court cases,
if things ever settled down, I would be thankful that all I needed to worry
about was him being out of my league.

I’d reached the executive bathroom.
 
There was a sign on the door that said
“RESERVED, DO NOT ENTER.”

I hesitated, not sure if I should
knock.
 
It felt weird to knock on a
public bathroom door, but it also felt weird to just barge in.

But I couldn’t just stand out here in the
hallway forever, so after a moment, I turned the knob and walked in.

The bathroom was sprawling and opulent,
with sleek grey marble counters and lighted mirrors hanging over the basin
sinks.
 
Brushed nickel subway tiles
imprinted with an abstract design lined the walls and a huge circular navy shag
rug sat in the middle of the tile floor.
 
The actual bathroom stalls were around a corner, along with a row of
private showers for associates who stayed late or came in early.

Shonda was setting up a case of makeup on
the counter.

“Sit,” she commanded, indicated a black
leather swivel chair sitting in front of the row of sinks.

I sat and she turned me around until I
was facing my reflection.
 
The
lights from above shone down on my skin, washing me out and doing me no
favors.
 

She picked up a hunk of my lank hair and
sighed, then got to work.

She shampooed and cut and styled, giving
my hair body and long loose waves. She smoothed creams and gels over my face,
along with primers and sparkly potions and bronzers.
 
She used angled brushes that she dipped in little pots of
color before smoothing them over my eyes and cheekbones.

When she was done, I looked
beautiful.
 
I still looked like
me.
 
I just looked sexier, more
grown-up, more...sultry.

“Wow,” I said, reaching up and touching
my hair experimentally.
 
“I look
amazing.”
 
I blushed as soon as the
words were out of my mouth.
 
I
didn’t want Shonda to think I was arrogant.

“Mmm hmm,” she said, sounding bored.

I wondered how many women she’d been
called here to do this to, wondered how many times Noah had asked her to take
care of someone he was taking to Force.
 
Had she known Dani?
 
Had she
done this to Noah’s fiancé, Nora?

“You have to keep your hair conditioned,”
Shonda said in her raspy voice, and handed me a bottle of expensive-looking
product.
 
“Use this.”

“Okay,” I said, accepting it.
 
“Thank you.”

“Now,” she said, and pushed the chair
back so that I was laying flat.
 
“Now we’ll do the wax.”

“The
what?”
 

“The wax.”
 
She handed me a paper gown.
 
“Here.
 
Put this
on.”

I stared at it.
 
There was no way Shonda would make me put on a flimsy paper gown
if she were just going to wax my eyebrows.
 
“Oh, no,” I said.
 
“That’s not necessary.”

“Mr. Cutler’s instructions,” she
said.
 

“Oh.
 
Um…” I reached out and fingered the thin paper garment.
 
The thought of spreading my legs in
front of a stranger while she spread hot wax on me was not high on my list of
fun things to do.
 
I hesitated.

Shonda gave me a thin smile.
 
“Trust me, honey, I’ve seen it all
before.”

“Oh, I just... I’m not sure I need
it.”
 
I blushed saying the
words.
 
I was well groomed already.

“Mr. Cutler’s instructions were very
clear.”

I bit my lip, considering.
 

Noah’s voice echoed through my mind.

The rest of this will be by my
rules, Charlotte.
 
I will have
control of you in every way.

“Okay,” I said, sighing.
 
“Just let me get changed.”

I slipped into one of the stalls against
the back wall and quickly shed my jeans and sweater.
 
The paper gown was incredibly skimpy, definitely not
designed to cover anyone who had any semblance of an ass or boobs.
 
I had a hard time making it cover my body,
and I had to hold the back together with my hands.
 
But when I got back to Shonda, she didn’t blink an eye.
 

Instead, she nodded at the chair, which
had been pushed back even further so that it now looked almost like a massage
table.

I lied down and Shonda got to work doing
her thing.
 
I gasped as the first
strip of wax was pulled off, but after a second of intense burning, the pain
began to fade.

I gripped my phone in my hand, ever
mindful of the fact that Noah had told me to keep it with me at all times.

Sure enough, it buzzed with a text.

You okay?

Yes, I’m fine.

Good.
 
I don’t like you being so far away from me.

I couldn’t help but smile at his
words.
 

I miss you too,
I wrote back.

A second later, he surprised me with
another text, this one a series of emojis – a wrapped up heart followed
by a balloon.

The elation I felt was enough to dull the
pain of the waxing that was going on between my legs.

When Shonda was done, she got to work
cleaning up.

“Thank you,” I said as I sat up.
 
I felt slightly awkward.
 
‘Thank you’ seemed a strange thing to
say to someone who had just seen you naked.

She met my eyes in the mirror over the
sink.
 

I gave her a tentative smile.
 

“You’re going out with Mr. Cutler
tonight?” she asked.

I nodded.

She nodded back.
 
“You be careful,” she said.
 
“You girls…” She trailed off as she
pulled off the gloves she was wearing and tossed them in the garbage bin.
 
I had the feeling her warning wasn’t
specifically about Noah or me.
 
She
had
a certain
weariness in her voice, the same kind of
weariness older people got when they were talking about a younger generation.

I wondered what she would think if she
knew what we were planning tonight, if she knew that we were going out with the
express purpose of hoping to find a killer, a thought that made Noah so anxious
he felt the need to control my body and punish me physically and sexually.

“Have you worked for Noah for long?” I
asked.

“Five years.”

“So right after Nora died?” I asked.
 

“Yes.”
 
She continued her clean up.
 
I wanted to ask her more about Nora, about what Noah had
been like during that time, about what their relationship was like.
 
But Shonda didn’t seem open to
questions.
 
“The clothes Mr. Cutler
chose for you are hanging in the last bathroom stall,” she said shortly.

“Thank you.”
 
I stood up, forgetting for a moment I was in just a paper
gown.
 
It was funny how quickly you
could get used to something that just a moment ago you thought was so
uncomfortable.
 
“Um, Shonda, if you
don’t mind
me asking
… I mean, how many women would you
say you’ve, um, helped?”

She gave me a tiny little smile.
 
“I can’t say.”
 
She was folding up her makeup kit now,
and she zipped it back up.
 
I looked
around the bathroom.
 
It was
immaculate, all traces of her and what we’d done here gone.
 
She even tied up the garbage bag and
slung it over her shoulder.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because I signed an NDA.”

“An NDA?”

“A non-disclosure agreement.”

“Oh.
 
Okay.”
 
I wasn’t
sure what to make of this.
 
It was
kind of creepy, making someone you worked for sign a non-disclosure agreement,
although I supposed when you were as much in the public eye as Noah was,
it
was a necessity.
 
He couldn’t exactly have Shonda running around telling everyone about
how she was waxing girls in Noah’s executive bathroom.

But still.

It was just another sign that I’d stepped
into a different world, another reminder that Noah had a whole life before me,
one that was filled with women and secrets and things I knew nothing
about.
 
Would he have a whole life
after me, too?
 
Would I be just
another face in a line of girls he’d used for his pleasure before he got bored
or scared or met someone else?

I pushed the thoughts out of my mind and
turned to thank Shonda.

But she was already gone.

***

Ten minutes later, I stared at myself in
the full-length mirror that hung on the back of the bathroom door.

You have got to be kidding me,
Cutler.

There was no way I could wear this out in
public.
 
There was no way I could
wear this
anywhere.
 
It made the dress Noah had given me for my first night at Force look
like
a burlap
sack.