What He Promises (4 page)

Softly, slowly, his mouth never leaving mine,
he gripped my hips and rocked me back and forth on his cock.
 
I may have been straddling him, but he
was the one in charge, his grip strong.
 
He kept the pace steady, my clit grazing against the hard ridges of his
cock with every soft, slow, thrust.

The whole time his lips were on mine, my hands
wrapped around his shoulders, holding onto him like my life depended on it.

I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself not to
cry.

But it didn’t work.

“Charlotte,” Noah said, pulling back
immediately, his face lined with concern.
 
“What’s wrong?
 
I knew shouldn’t
have done this.
 
You’re not
ready.”
 
He began to pull me off of
him gently, but I wrapped my legs around his waist, resisting.

“No,” I said.
 
“No, Noah, it’s fine, it’s good.
 
I’m crying because I’m happy.”

“What?”

“Yes.
 
I didn’t… I thought we’d never be like this again, I thought you were
gone.”
 

“I’m right here, baby.”

“I know,” I said, running my hands over him again,
enjoying the hard, rugged feel of his body.
 
“I know.”

He rested his forehead against mine as he began
to fuck me again. “I love you,” he whispered huskily.
 
“I love you so much.
 
I will never let anything like that
happen to you again.”

He kissed me, his teeth biting at my bottom
lip, his tongue swirling with mine.
 
I moaned into his mouth, and his words and his touch and his cock
sliding into me, making us one, filled me with a pleasure unlike anything I’d
ever known.
 
It transcended sexual
intensity,
it transcended anything that should have been
possible on this planet.

It felt as if everything good and amazing in
the world was right here, between us, love and lust and desire and want and
protection.
 

We came at the same time, the walls of my pussy
constricting on his hard dick as he unloaded inside of me, making me his.

We stayed connected for a long moment, waiting
for our breathing to slow, our foreheads still pushed together as we gazed into
each other’s eyes.

After a moment, Noah put a strong hand on each
of my ass cheeks and pulled me down onto the bed next to him.
 
He was still inside of me, and we stayed
like that for another quick moment, our hearts beating in tandem.

This is love,
I thought as he stroked my hair.
 
This is real, true love.

There was no doubt in my mind.

Not now.

Not ever.

***

We dozed a little, both
of us
tumbling into sleep with our legs intertwined and our arms wrapped around each
other
.
 
My sleep was light,
but it wasn’t because I was anxious or afraid – it was because I didn’t
want to sleep too deeply and wake up to find I’d missed anything.

After about an hour, Noah stretched his arms
over his head and kissed me on the forehead.
 

“You awake?” he mumbled gruffly, his voice
heavy with sleep.

“Yes.”

He sat up slightly and glanced at the alarm
clock.
 
“You need to eat something.”

I grinned, sitting up and propping my chin on
my elbow.
 
My hair spilled onto his
bare chest.
 
His hair was mussed
from sleep and the five o’clock shadow on his face had darkened, making his jaw
look even stronger than usual.

“You’re the patient,” I teased.
 
“I’m
supposed to be feeding
you.”

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.