What He Reveals (What He Wants, Book Eight) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (2 page)

He stopped cranking.
 
His eyes narrowed at me and then he
moved over, still holding the knife in his hand.

He stepped closer to me, his gaze falling
on my ruined dress.
 
He reached out
and ripped the rest of it open, so that my breasts were fully exposed.
 
Then he pressed the flat side of the
knife against my nipple, drawing the cool metal slowly over my skin.

“You look like her,” he said.
 
“It will be like killing her all over
again.”

“I look like who?” I asked.
 
My arms were aching, and I stood up on
my tiptoes to try and relieve some of the pressure.

“Like Rhonda.”

Rhonda Callahan.
 
The woman he’d been seeing, the one he
was accused of killing.
 
Noah had
argued it was self-
defense,
the prosecution said it
was a sex game wrong.

“Was this what you were doing when you
killed her?”
 
I asked.
 
“Did you have her strung up like this?”

“I know this is what you want,” he said,
ignoring my questions.
 
“Don’t you,
you little slut?
 
That’s why you
came here.”
 

He turned the knife over so that the
blade was pushed against my skin.
 
And just as the sharp bite of the knife nipped into my flesh, it all
clicked into place.
 
Audi James
thought I’d come here to reenact his killing.
 
He thought I’d come here so he could do this to me –
he thought I
wanted
 
it
.

He pushed the knife harder into my side, and
I looked down to see a thin line of blood appear on my skin.
 
I could tell it was a superficial
wound, not the kind of thing that was life threatening, but seeing the blood
made me dizzy.

Audi reached out and grabbed my breast,
kneaded it roughly.

“Moan,” he said.
 
“She moaned until I finally choked her
out.”

His hand reached out and grabbed my
throat, his grip just tight enough to hurt.

“Tell me you love it,” he said.
 
“Tell me you love it, or I’ll kill you
like I killed her.”

I moaned.
 
“I love it,” I said.
 
“Please, I love it so much.”

“Die, bitch,” he said, his hand
tightening around my throat.
 
I
took in a deep breath, trying to keep my lungs filled with oxygen for as long
as I could, but it had the opposite effect of what I’d wanted.
 
The huge breath of air made my lungs
burn, and my instinct was to hold onto it as long as I could, not knowing when
I would get another chance to breath.
 
By the time I finally let it go, my eyes were watering, and I gasped
again immediately, but this time, I couldn’t get any oxygen.

“Go to sleep, Sweets,” Audi James
said.
 
“Go to sleep, Sweet Sweets.”

I wasn’t sure if I was hearing him
correctly.
 
I wasn’t sure if any of
this was real, if what I was seeing was actually happening.
 
The room started to darken, and I
didn’t know if that was real either, if he’d turned off the light or if I was
just starting to lose consciousness.

He pushed his mouth up against my neck
and bit me softly, pinching my skin with his teeth.
 
The knife was still against my side, and I imagined a gaping
wound opening, blood pouring out of me and filling the room until it had
flooded the floor.

And then he was there.

Noah.

So quick, so sure, I was positive I’d
imagined him.

He came into the room, his eyes widening
as he took in what was happening.
 
And then I saw something flash across his face, something I’d never seen
from him before.

Fear.

Noah was afraid.

But then it was gone, replaced by anger
and action as he grabbed Audi James by the shoulder and pulled him off me.
 

As soon as Audi released his hand from my
neck, I took in a big gasping breath of air.
 
Everything moved back into focus, so sharp and clear and fast
that it made me wonder if I’d even been losing consciousness at all, or if
maybe I’d gone into some kind of weird altered fear state.

“Get your hands off her,” Noah growled.

Audi turned around, ready to fight.
 
He raised his arm, but Noah grabbed Audi’s wrist.

“Don’t,”
Noah said, and even though Audi James
was insane, in that moment, Noah was scarier.
 
Noah punched Audi
square
in the
face, his eyes blazing with the look of a man possessed.
 
It was the look of a man who would
kill.
 
And in that moment, I
thought,
he’s capable of it.
 
He’s capable of killing someone.

Audi took a few steps backward, reeling
from Noah’s punch.

“Well, well, well,” Audi said, his tongue
snaking out and licking his upper lip, which was already beginning to swell.
 
“The prodigal son returns.”

“Fuck you,” Noah said.
 
He rushed over to me and undid my
shackles.
 
“Shit,” he breathed when
he saw the cut on my side.
 
He ran
his finger over it, the blood staining his skin as it smeared across my
flesh.
 
“It’s okay,” he said.
 
“It’s not deep.”
 
He reached up and pushed my hair off my
face, looking me over.
 
“Are you
okay?
 
Did he hurt you?”

“I’m okay,” I said, rubbing my sore
wrists.
 
My arms felt like I’d been
lifting weights for hours, and my whole body was shaking.

Noah looked me over again,
then
turned back to Audi.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing,
you sadistic son of a bitch?”

Audi licked his lips again.
 
“Playing.”

“How’d you find her?”

He grinned.
 
“She was sent to me.”

“By who?”

Audi shrugged.
 
“I dunno.”

Noah pulled back and punched him again,
this time sending a sickening blow to Audi’s nose.
 
There was the sound of bones crushing and blood rushed down
Audi’s face in a river.
 

“Noah!” I screamed and grabbed at his
arm.
 
He tried to push me off of
him and go after Audi again, but before he could, Audi ran out the door,
disappearing down the hall.

Noah’s chest heaved, his breath coming in
rapid gasps.
  
I kept my hand
on his arm, just in case he had any ideas about going after Audi.

He turned to me.
 
“You shouldn’t have run away from me
like that,” he said.
 
“What the
hell
were you thinking,
Charlotte?”

I shook my head.
 
“No way, “ I said.
 
“Don’t even try to put this on
me.”
 
I reached down and grabbed at
my ruined dressed, trying to cover myself as best I could.
 
“Are you going to tell me what the
fuck
is going on?”

He shook his head. “I need to get you out
of here.
 
The car is waiting out
front.”

“No.”
 
Adrenaline was coursing through my body, and I was scared to
death.
 
If Noah hadn’t come to look
for me, if I’d been left alone with Audi James…I shivered, thinking about what
might have happened.
 
Would he have
killed me?
 
Would I have been raped
or cut up or hurt? The possibilities were horrific and unimaginable.

I didn’t want to spend one more second in
Force.
 
But for the first time in
my whole relationship with Noah, I had power.
 
He wanted me to leave the club – but I wasn’t going to
do that until he provided me with at least a little information.

“Charlotte,” Noah said.
 
“I don’t have the patience for
this.
 
You’re going to come with
me.
 
You’re going to get in the car.
 
And we’re going to get out of here.”

“No.”
 
I stuck my chin in the air.
 
“You stopped having the right to tell me what to do when you
ripped up our contract.”

I saw the pain flash in his eyes, saw the
regret written on his face.
 
It was
one of the first times I’d seen any real emotion from him – usually he
was as hard and as impenetrable as stone.
 
But I didn’t care.
 
I didn’t care if he was upset.
 
I was upset, too.
 
This whole thing with him had been confusing and heartbreaking and
confusing.
 
I didn’t know how I
could feel so close to someone and yet so far from them at the same time.
 
And when he ripped up that contract, it
felt like he was ripping my heart in two.

“Charlotte,” Noah said again.
 

“No.”
 
My voice cracked, but I kept my gaze locked on his, daring
him to contradict me.
 
“I’m not
going anywhere until you tell me what the
fuck
is going on.”

He took in a deep breath, the pain in his
eyes morphing into anger.
 
“Charlotte,”
he said, his voice raising.
 
“Do.
 
Not.
 
Push. Me.”

But I was done listening to him, done
letting him have all the control. “No
 
 
I’m not going anywhere with
you, Noah.
 
Not until you tell me
what happened here tonight.”

“Charlotte –”

“Stop saying my name!”
 
I raged, my hands balling into fists at
my side.
 
I took a deep
breath.
 
“You know what?
 
Forget it.
 
I’m leaving.”

I went to push by him, but he grabbed my arm,
pulling me back toward him.
 
His
chest pressed against mine, so tight that I could feel his heart beating.
 
He tilted my chin up until my eyes met
his.

“Charlotte,” he whispered.
 
“Please, I don’t…” He trailed off,
seemingly at a loss for words for the first time since I’d met him.
 
He pushed a stray hair off my forehead
and for one blissful moment, I thought he was going to kiss me.

Kiss
me,
I thought.
 
Kiss me and tell me
you’re sorry.
 
Tell me you just got
scared, tell me you take it all back,
tell
me you have
some explanation for all the crazy things that have been happening.
 
I’ll believe you, even if none of it
makes sense.

“Come with me,” he said.
 
“Please.
 
And I’ll explain.”

He took my hand, his fingers wrapping
around mine, strong and firm and protective.

Suddenly, I was exhausted.

“You’ll explain to me?” I pressed.
 
“About Audi James?”

He nodded.

I hesitated for just a second.

And then I let him lead me out of the
club.

***

Once we were outside, I gulped in the
fresh air.
 
My lungs were still
burning from what had happened, and the fresh air felt cool and soothing.

Noah opened the door to his car for me,
and we both slid into the backseat.

“Let me see your cut,” Noah instructed as
his driver pulled the car away from the curb.

“I’m fine.”

He reached out and pulled the fabric of
my ruined dress aside, and I looked down at my wound for the first time.
 
A thin line of blood ran across my upper
belly, but the cut itself didn’t look that bad.
 

Noah reached over and hit the intercom
button, which allowed him to talk to Jared.
 
“Jared,” he said.
 
“Please stop at a drugstore and purchase a first aid kit.”

“Yes, sir,” came the reply.

“No,” I said.
 
“I’m fine.
 
I
just… I just want to go home.”
 
Now
that I was out of the club, now that the rate of adrenaline pumping through my
body was starting to slow, the harsh reality of the situation was starting to
set in.