What He Demands (What He Wants, Book Three) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (4 page)

We hadn’t even used many of them.
 
Was I enough for him?
 
Was he holding back because of me?
 
And if he was, how far would I ever be
comfortable taking things between us?
 
How far did he expect us to go?
 
I liked what we were doing, but I wasn’t sure how I would feel if he
tried to take it any further.

“You’re quiet, Charlotte,” Noah said as
his limo made his way toward my house.
 
“Did you have a nice time tonight?”

“Yes.”
 
I didn’t like that he was using the word ‘nice’.
 
You weren’t supposed to be having a
nice time at a BDSM club.
 
You were
supposed to have a mind-blowing time, or an insane time, or even just an
amazing time.

“Then why do you seem upset?”

“I’m not upset.”
 
I twisted my hands on my lap and he
reached over and took them in his.

His hands were big and warm, soft and
comforting.
 
“Charlotte,” he
said.
 
“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I just… “
 
I swallowed.
 
“I
had an amazing time, what we did was… I loved it.
 
But I can’t help but feel like maybe it wasn’t what you were
hoping for.”

“What I was hoping for?” He frowned, his
forehead crinkling in confusion.

“Yes.
 
I felt like maybe you wanted more from me.”

“Look at me when you’re speaking.”

I looked at him, falling into his
eyes.
 

“You are more than enough for me,
Charlotte.
 
Tonight was more than I
could have hoped for.”

“But those women, the things they do…”

“Shh.”
 
He put his finger against my lips, silencing me.
 
“This is a journey, Charlotte.
 
It’s not something that’s taken on in
one night, or even one week.
 
You
will be trained properly, in all aspects of submission, not just the sexual
ones.”

“What other aspects are there?”
 
I asked.

“Enjoy the moment, Charlotte.
 
Don’t worry about that right now.”

We were pulling up in front of my
apartment now, and he leaned over and kissed my lips softly.

“Goodbye, Charlotte,” he said.
 
“Try to get some sleep.”

“Goodbye, Noah.”

I stepped out of the limo and made my way
into the lobby of my apartment building, feeling confused all over again.
 
There’d been that perfect moment after
we’d both come, the way he’d lain his body over mine, enveloping me, kissing
me, making me feel safe and protected.
 
Even just now, in the back of his limo, he’d been understanding and
wonderful.

I’d felt so close to him.

But now here I was, alone, spending the
night at my apartment by myself.
 
I
wished he’d invited me back to his house, or at least…. I don’t know.
 
I’d said I’d wanted to get to know him,
to get close to him, and for a brief moment, I’d felt like I had.

Now I felt like I was back at square one.

Not to mention I’d confronted him about
those pictures, the ones of Nora and Dani and the marks on their wrists, and
he’d somehow been able to convince me it meant nothing.
  
I reached into my messenger bag
and ran my finger over the file folder.

I thought about how naïve I’d been,
marching into that club to confront him. I never should have gone tonight.
 
This was how I imagined a drug addict
must feel after a hit or a binge – you do something knowing you
shouldn’t, trying to convince yourself it’s going to be different this time,
that you can control it.
 
But at
the end of the day, you end up in exactly the same place, confused, depressed,
full of regret.

You swear it off until the craving becomes
too much, and then the cycle starts all over again.

I pulled out the key to my apartment and
slid it into the lock, but the door was already open.
 
Julia, my roommate, must have been home, which was strange
for her at this time of night.
 
She
was usually out and about, gallivanting around the city with whatever theatre
friends of hers she’d collected since she moved here about a year ago.
 
She slept during the day when I was at
class, and then was out all night, usually not getting home until five or six in
the morning, when she’d collapse into bed and fall asleep.

It worked out perfectly for me.
 
Julia was nice enough, and I liked the
idea of living with someone, of someone else having a presence in the apartment
so I wasn’t always there alone.
 

But I liked my alone time too, liked that
I could stay at the library on campus until eight or nine at night then come
home to a quiet apartment, make a tea or a coffee and study in my living room
or kitchen or bedroom, not having to worry about noise or bothering someone if
I decided to make myself a late-night study snack at two am.

I opened the door to my apartment and
walked inside.

The smell of something cooking came
wafting from the kitchen, and I frowned.
 
It was a foreign smell – not that the food was foreign, but that
it was coming from my kitchen was strange to me.
 
Julia and I didn’t cook.
 
I was pretty sure our oven still had the sticker on it from
when they replaced it right before we moved in – it was one of the things
mentioned in our rental ad.
 
New
appliances.
 
I’d looked at it as a
plus at the time because they looked nice, not because I planned on doing any
cooking.
 

“Hey,” I said to Julia.

She was standing by the stove, stirring
something with a wooden spoon.
 
She
had on a pair of stretchy black leggings and a sheer white t-shirt, her long
blonde hair gathered into a messy bun on the top of her head.
 
Julia had the typical dancer’s body
– tall and thin, with hardly any curves.
 
Her face wasn’t what you would consider classically pretty
– her nose was a shade too big, her lips a tiny bit too thin.
 
But her eyes were wide and blue, and
she had that sort of weird exotic look a lot of runway models had, the kind of
look that men went crazy over.
 

“Taste this,” she said, holding a spoon
of spaghetti sauce out to me.
 
“Is
it too salty?”

I tasted.
 
“A little,” I admitted.
 
“Maybe add some sugar to it.
 
That’s what my mom used to do.”

“Good idea.”
 
She went to reach for the sugar, and then she glanced at
me.
 
“Um, so this might be weird,
I’m not sure.”

“What?
 
To put sugar in spaghetti sauce?”
 
I wondered what she would do if she knew what I’d been up to
tonight, that I was at a BDSM club with a man who might have been a murderer, a
man who I was representing in a professional capacity.

“No, not that.”
 
She pushed her bangs off her forehead.
 
“Josh is here.”

“Josh?” I frowned.

“Yeah, you know Josh from your
school?
 
I ran into him at the bar
downstairs.”
 
She bit her lip and
looked at me expectantly.

“How do you even know Josh?”

“Remember that time he came over to drop
off that assignment for you?
 
I was
on my way out the door, and you introduced us, and we ended up walking down to
the lobby together.
 
I guess he
remembered me when he saw me at the bar.”

“Oh.”
 
I wasn’t sure why she would think it was weird.
 
The thought of Josh in my apartment
wasn’t a big deal, but maybe Julia wanted to have sex with him? Was she going
to ask me to leave so they could have some privacy?

“I wasn’t sure what the deal was with you
two.”
 
She was watching for my
reaction intently.

And then I got it.
 
She thought maybe I had a thing for
Josh.
 
Which I didn’t.
 
I never had.
 
Josh was cute in that typical frat boy kind of way that most
women went for.
 
I found him a
little grating, and he was obnoxious in class, trying to prove what he knew
instead of just letting his smarts speak for themselves through his work.

“Me and Josh?” I said.
 
“There’s no deal with us.
 
We’re not even that great of
friends.
 
You should totally go for
it.”
 

“Thanks.”
 
Julia gave me a smile.
 
“How was your date?”

“It was good,” I said, trying to sound
noncommittal.

I could tell she was going to ask me how
it went, and I didn’t really want to talk about it.
 
All I’d told her was that I was going out with a man I’d met
at a bar, which wasn’t technically a lie.

I yawned quickly and stretched my arms
behind my head.
 
“But now I’m
exhausted.
 
I’m going to go to
bed.”

“Okay,” she said, winking at me.
 
“We’ll try to keep it down.”

“Where is Josh, anyway?” I asked.

“He ran to the bathroom.”

Great.
 
I hoped he wasn’t going to be spending tons of time in
there.
 
I wanted to shower before I
changed into some comfy PJs and curled up in bed.
 
I was tired, but I was thinking about doing some studying
before I fell asleep.
 
I hadn’t
done my reading or any of my case studies yet this weekend, and by Monday I was
going to be woefully behind.

Still, the thought of pulling out my
books and laptop felt overwhelming when my eyes already felt heavy. I would get
up early tomorrow, I told myself.
 
I’d get up early and go down to my favorite coffee shop, spread out my
books and papers, order myself a muffin and the biggest coffee they had and
just immerse myself in my work.
 
My
regular schoolwork.
 
Not Noah work.

I was completely caught up in my own
thoughts, which is why I didn’t notice that my bedroom door was open.
 
I always kept it shut when I left.
 
Not because I didn’t trust Julia, but
because I didn’t know the friends she occasional brought over, and I figured a
closed door would discourage them from going into my space.

As I got closer to my room, I heard a
sound coming from inside, almost like a gasping sound.
 
My heart quickened as I peeked around
the corner and peered through doorway.

It was Josh.

I let out a sigh of relief, thankful it wasn’t
an intruder.
 
I’d been spending too
much time at police stations and BDSM clubs.
 
Not everything was something sinister, I told myself.

But my relief was short-lived.
 
Josh was standing over by my dresser,
the top drawer open.
 
He was
breathing hard, and at first I thought he was hurt.
 
Then I thought he was rummaging through my doors looking for
something.

I flipped on the light.

Josh turned around, a look of surprise on
his face.

He had one hand on his dresser, bracing
himself.
 
In his other hand, he
held a pair of my panties, which were wrapped around his dick.
 
He was jerking off into them, his hand
moving up and down furiously.

“What the
fuck?”
 
I screamed.
 
“What the hell are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he replied calmly, not even
having the decency to look like he was upset or embarrassed at being
caught.
 
He stroked himself a
couple more times into my panties, making sure I knew exactly what it was he
was doing.
 
Then he put my
underwear back in my drawer and zipped up his pants.

“It wasn’t nothing,” I said.
 
“You were jerking off using my
panties.”

“What’s going on?” Julia asked, appearing
in the hallway.
 
She was still
holding the spoon covered with tomato sauce in her hand, and she licked it off
and looked at me expectantly.
 
“I
heard yelling.”

“Nothing,” Josh said, walking out of my
room and into the hallway.
 
“I was
coming out of the bathroom and I thought I saw a mouse in Charlotte’s room.”

“Ooh,” Julia said, nodding.
 
“There was one in the kitchen last
night, too.
 
I guess we’re going to
have to call an exterminator.”