What He Commits (What He Wants, Book Thirteen) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (2 page)

“I want to go,” I said.
 
“Please, can we go?”
 
My voice was cracking, the lump in my
throat a precursor to the tears that were pricking the back of my eyes.

Noah nodded and took my hand, then began
leading me down the hall, navigating the twisting pathways and tangled
corridors.
 
As we got closer to the
main room of Force, the pounding music got louder, until I couldn’t tell the
difference between the beat of the bass and the sound of my own heartbeat.

When we got to the door of the room where
that waitress had been, I stopped.

“What?”
 
Noah asked, his hand tightening on mine.
  
“Charlotte, what is it?”

“I…” I hesitated.
 
“There was a girl in this room.”

“What?”

I reached out and touched the doorknob
softly, tried turning it with my hand.
 
It wasn’t locked. But still, I didn’t open the door.
 
“She was in this room.
 
She told me she needed help.
 
She said someone was trying to kill
her.”

Noah frowned.
 
“Who said that?”

“The waitress, the one who got us our
drinks earlier.”

Noah reached out and turned the doorknob,
pushed the door open.
 
I took a
small step inside and glanced around.
 
The room looked like some kind of classroom – there were desks set
up in rows, the kind of desks that had metal chairs attached to them and tops
that opened to fit books and papers.
 
There was a chalkboard hanging on the front wall, but whatever had been
written on it had been completely erased, leaving only faint marks and the
smell of chalk dust.

Around the perimeter of the room was a
heavy wooden baseboard.
 
Every few
feet, shackles with heavy black chains were attached to the wall.

But there was no one there.

The room was empty.

I took another step inside, but Noah
grabbed my shoulder.
 
“No,” he
said.
 
“We’re leaving.”

“But she needed help.”

His eyes moved around the room.
 
“They were probably getting her ready
for the slave auction,” he said.
 
“Sometimes this is a part of it.”

“Sometimes what is part of it?”

“The element of fear, Charlotte.
 
The idea that the girls are being
forced into their slavery.
 
It’s a
turn on for many people.”

He gave me a pointed look, and I knew
what he was thinking about.
 
That
scene that had unfolded up on the stage earlier tonight, the girl in the
doctor’s office, her protests as the doctor’s hands moved inside her gown and
groped her.
 
I’d been turned on by
it, and Noah was pointing out that it was a common fantasy.
 
That the girls brought to the auction
may have been instructed to play a part, to act as if they were being held
against their will, that it may have heightened their pleasure along with that
of the men who purchased them.
 

“But she wasn’t acting out a fantasy,” I
said.
 
I moved forward into the
room, and this time, Noah didn’t try to stop me. A shot of fear shocked my
spine, moving through my body, and a voice inside of me screamed at me to stop,
screamed that I was playing with danger if I decided to keep going.
 
I took another step anyway, and my nose
was hit with the scent of antiseptic.
 
It was a strange smell to encounter in an underground room of a BDSM
club, and I recoiled.

“Charlotte,” Noah said, his voice laced
with impatience.
 
“You don’t know
if that girl was acting out a fantasy or not.”

“She wasn’t.”
 
I closed my eyes for a moment, remembering how her eyes had
widened in fear, the way she’d gasped and pleaded with me, the way a meaty hand
had hooked around her leg and dragged her back into the room.

I felt the sharp bite of her nails as
they dug into the skin of my ankle.
 
I looked down at the marks she’d left.

“See?” I pointed them out to Noah.
 
“She scratched me.”

He looked down at my ankle, his fingertip
running softly over my skin as he traced the scratch.
 
“She did this to you?”

“Yes.
 
She reached for me and she told me they were trying to kill
her, she begged for my help.”

Noah shook his head.
 
“You got this from Josh.”

“Josh didn’t touch me.”

“Then you got it earlier, from me.”

“No.
 
I didn’t, Noah.
 
I got it from her.
 
She was
in trouble, and it wasn’t part of some scene or fantasy.”

“Charlotte,” he said.
 
“I’m sure that whatever you saw here
tonight was upsetting to you.
 
But
these things are commonplace.”

“No.”
 
I crossed my arms over my chest.
 
“That girl was in trouble, Noah.”

He reached for my hand.
 
“Come on,” he said.
 
“Please, Charlotte.
 
I need to get you home.”

His fingers wrapped around mine, strong
and comforting.
 
I was hit with a wave
of exhaustion so fierce that it took all my strength to not just collapse
against his chest right then and there.
 

I wanted to stay, but there was nothing I
could do for that girl now, even if I wanted to.
 
And I was so tired.

“Okay,” I said finally.
 
“Take me home.”

***

Her face haunted me the entire way
home.
 
Her high cheekbones, her
gaunt face, the hollowness of her eyes.
 
She looked dead.
 

But
so had those other girls, the ones you saw going to the auction the last time
you were there.
 
And Noah had seen those girls too, and
he hadn’t seemed to think there was anything out of the ordinary.

Had they been drugged?
 
Or had they been taught to be so
submissive that they’d learned to keep their expressions completely blank, so
blank that even their eyes showed no trace of feeling?

Was that going to happen to me?
 
Did Noah want me to be so submissive
that I would cease to have my own thoughts and feelings, right down to the
expression on my face?

“What is it, Charlotte?” Noah asked when
he caught me looking at him from the passenger seat.

“Nothing.”
 
I turned away, toward the window, watching as the city
rushed past.
 
The night was warm
and humid, the air causing a film of condensation to appear on the glass.
 
I used my hand to wipe some of it away,
but it began to fog up again almost immediately, the city blurring into a misty
abstract painting.

Noah pulled into the underground garage
of his building, and I got out of the car before he could cross over and open
the door for me.
 
He gave me a look
of disapproval, but I didn’t care. He took out the jacket I’d left in his car
earlier and wrapped it around my shoulders before leading me into his building
through the garage door.

I leaned against him, enjoying the feel
of his strong, muscular body as I allowed him to take me inside, to bring me
into his living room and sit me down on the couch.
 

“You need to eat,” he said.

“No.”
 
The thought of food made my stomach turn.

“I’ll make you some soup.”

“I’m not hungry.”

He ignored me and walked into the
kitchen, where I could hear the sounds of him opening cupboards and rummaging
through cabinets.
 
I sat there on
the couch, starting to get angry and frustrated.

He’d said we could do this my way, and
now he was trying to control everything again.

I walked into the kitchen and watched as
he pulled a can of soup from the cupboard.

“I don’t like soup,” I lied.

“Then I will fix you a sandwich.”
 
He replaced the soup and pulled a loaf
of bread from the breadbox.

“I don’t like sandwiches.”

His mouth set into a line.
 
“Charlotte, we agreed that you would
let me be in control of things like this.”

“Yes, and we also agreed we would do some
things my way.”

“We did do things your way.
 
We went to Force tonight.
 
And you see how that turned out.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you obviously had no idea
what it was you were getting yourself into.”

“So what you’re saying is that going
there was a mistake, that I should have listened to you.”
 
His words felt like an I-told-you-so.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Stop talking like a lawyer.”

He sighed and crossed the room, pulled a package
of chicken out of the refrigerator and began making me a sandwich. “Charlotte,
going to Force served no purpose other than to expose you to Josh, and to cause
me to lose my temper.”

“It showed us that Josh was the one who
placed those phone calls.
 
That
he’s the one who killed Katie.”

“We have no proof of that.”

“But now we know where to look.”

Noah placed the sandwich on a plate and
set it in front of me, along with a folded cloth napkin.
 
“Eat.”

“No.”
 
I shook my head.
 
“Not until we talk about the next steps.”

He gripped the edge of the marble island
and leaned over, then looked up and stared straight ahead, his gaze focused on
nothing.
 
I admired his profile,
the strength of his brow, the clean line of his jaw, the fullness of his
lips.
 
He was beautiful and perfect
and the pull I felt toward him was nothing short of magnetic.
 
It was so overwhelming, the way I
wanted to give myself to this man, that it made my heart race and my breath
hitch in my chest.
 
A tidal wave of
emotion overtook me, and I reached over and touched his hand.
 
His skin was warm.

“There will not be any next steps,” Noah
said.
 
His voice was firm, and even
though he hadn’t moved his hand, he didn’t make a move to intertwine his
fingers with mine.
 

“We have to figure out why Josh did this,
what his connection was to Katie,” I said.
 

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”
 
He stood up then, pulling his hand away from mine.
 
“There will not be any more talk of
this, Charlotte.”

“Fine,” I said, standing up so fast that
the stool I was sitting on went tumbling to the floor.
 
“You don’t want me to figure out what
Josh has to do with this?
 
Then I’m
calling the police.”

Noah shook his head.
 
“You don’t get it, do you Charlotte?”

“Don’t get what?”

“The police will not care.
 
They will not care that Josh was
watching us have sex.
 
They will
think it is insane that you are even calling to report that.
 
You have nothing to connect him to
Katie.
 
At best, you have him
making some phone calls to you, the content of which will be your word against
his.
 
The time to call the police
was earlier, Charlotte, and even then it would have been a stretch.”

“So again, this is my fault for not
letting you call the police earlier.”

“This is not anyone’s
fault,
Charlotte.
 
Assigning blame is a losing game.
 
Figuring out a game plan is the only
way to stop him.”

“So then let’s figure out a game plan.”

“You will not be involved in this.
 
I will handle it.”

He picked up my uneaten sandwich and slid
it into the garbage, then set the empty plate in the sink.
 
I watched in disbelief, imagining some
nameless, faceless housekeeper showing up here tomorrow and washing the plate,
placing it into the dishwasher and setting it back in the cupboard.
 
That’s how it was in his world –
everything was neat and tidy and controlled.

“So you’re going back your word,” I
said.
 
Anger and bitterness raged
like a storm inside of me, but I kept my voice calm.