What He Bargains (What He Wants, Book Nineteen) (3 page)

“Ever since we’ve been together?”

“No.”

“Then when?”

“Ever since Force.”

I closed my eyes tight, feeling like I was on a merry-go-round, one that was leaving me dizzy and off-balance. I started to walk again, trying to gain my footing, but Noah stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

“Answer my question, Charlotte. What were you doing with him?”

“I wasn’t doing anything with him. I ran into him at the gym.”

“And you accepted his invitation to go for a drink.”

“It wasn’t a drink, it was juice.” I said it just to be bratty. Obviously juice
was
a drink, but the way Noah said it, like Jason had taken me out to some dive bar or something – he made it sound so nefarious.

I saw a vein in Noah’s neck throb, and his jaw set in a determined line. His eyes were blazing with fury, the storm intensifying at seeing me with another man, and also at my disobedience. But I didn’t care. I wanted to disobey him. I wanted to hurt him, or at least to make him feel something, anything, the way he’d made me feel last night.

“Did he touch you?” Noah asked.

“No, he didn’t touch me, Noah.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “That’s insane. He works at the school, he’s my therapist.” It was another line designed to hurt him, to make him jealous..

But Noah wasn’t listening. His eyes were on my hand.

“Charlotte.”

“Noah.”

“Where is your ring?”

I glanced down at my finger, half-expecting it to be there, brought back from the sewer by some ring fairy who was in charge of bringing back lost rings. But my finger, of course, was bare.

I rubbed my thumb against the place where it had been, missing the feel of the metal entwining my skin, the sparkle of the diamond.

“It’s gone,” I said softly.

“Gone where?” Noah demanded.

“I dropped it down a sewer grate.”

Noah took in a deep breath, his impressive chest swelling. He rocked back on his heels, almost like my confession was bowling him over, but then he stopped.

“Go to my office, Charlotte.”

“No.” I shook my head and started rushing down the sidewalk the other way, back toward campus. “I’m not going to your office.” I was mad, mad at him for always needing to have his way, for leaving last night and then showing up here and trying to act like nothing had happened.

“You will take the car back to the office.” Noah stepped in front of me again, and I took a step back from him, because I was afraid of his proximity, was afraid that he would suck me back under his spell. Already I could feel him sweeping me up in his charisma. His voice too commanding, his presence too dominating for me to resist.

“No,” I said, feeling my resolve slip. “No, I won’t.” I pushed my chin into the air. “Noah, I’m…” I wanted to say I was so tired of this, was exhausted from the push and pull, that I just wanted things to settle down and be normal between us.

But I was afraid.

Afraid that if I said all that, he would end it, he would tell me this was how it was, that he would force me to make an impossible choice. Him or normalcy. I closed my eyes for a moment and thought about all those guys back in the gym. All of them went to my school, all of them were probably smart enough and nice enough. Why couldn’t I just want one of them? A nice, normal guy who would take me home to meet his parents and stand by me while we finished school and started our law careers.

Why did this have to be how it was? Why did I love Noah? He was too good-looking for me, too damaged, too… everything.

“Charlotte,” Noah said. “Get. In. The. Car.”

“No.”

I quickened my pace, walking away from him, turning the corner and climbing the stairs to the Larson Building, which housed most of the first year classrooms, along with a bunch of meeting rooms and one of the computer labs.

I opened the heavy double doors and walked inside.

I wasn’t sure where I was going or what I was doing. I just knew I wanted to put as much distance between Noah and me as I could until I could figure out what to do.

The building was beginning to come alive as students cut through on their way to the library or used the computer lab to print out their papers, and I walked quickly, dodging in between them.

I was only halfway down the hall when Noah caught up to me.

“Stop,” he growled, and the then his hands were on the small of my back and he was pushing me through an open door and into an empty classroom.

“What the hell are you doing?” I protested as he shut the door behind him.

He was livid, and I could see the rage reflected in his dark eyes. “Your behavior is completely unacceptable.”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the heavy desk metal desk at the front of the room. He sat down in the desk chair, then grabbed me around the waist and took me over his knee.

“What the
hell
are you doing?” I tried to sit up, but he was too strong, and he held me down. I struggled and squirmed, but his grip on me was too tight.

“You think this is a game?” he demanded. “You think it’s funny to be out with other men, to throw your ring away?” His hand cupped my ass through the tight lycra workout pants I was wearing, and I felt my body betray me, felt my pussy flood with desire.

“Noah,” I pleaded. “Please, not here, there are people in the hallway.”

“Good.” He pulled back and slapped me hard on the ass, open palmed over my pants. “They’ll see how bad you’ve been.”

“Noah,” I moaned. I could feel my submissive side taking over, could feel myself losing the battle within myself to fight against him.

Noah pulled the back of my pants down, nestling the fabric right below my ass cheeks. His hand caressed my bare skin, and then he pulled back and spanked me again.

I yelped.

“Do you know why I’m spanking you, Charlotte?” His voice was low, gruff, controlled. It was so sexy my panties got even wetter.

“Because I was bad.”

“How were you bad?”

“I threw out my ring.”

Another stinging slap on my ass, this time so hard I cried out. I could feel the smart of the blow, the tingling bite of my disobedience against my skin.

“What else, Charlotte?” Noah’s voice was still low and throaty, and the raw desire I felt for him overtook my body as I felt myself give in to him, to his wants, his demands. My body existed only for his pleasure.

“You saw me with another man.”

Another slap, even harder, so hard I reached down and braced myself against the floor, the cool linoleum smooth against my palms as I bit my lip to try and distract myself from the pain.

“What else, Charlotte?”

I closed my eyes, trying to think of what else I’d done.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“What did you google this morning, Charlotte?” His hand was moving down between my legs now, spreading my pussy open from behind.

“Sir?”

“Think hard.”

I closed my eyes and tried to think, but it was hard when his hand was all over my pussy. His finger rubbed my clit softly, the touch designed only to tease, and I pushed my palms into the floor as hard as I could and tried to focus.

His other hand was placed on the small of my back, holding me steady. Every time I tried to squirm away, it did no good. He held me down, pushing me tighter against his hard cock.

“Charlotte…” he said warningly.

I swallowed. And then it came to me.

Lameuix.

I’d googled him this morning.

“Lameuix,” I said. “I googled him.”

Noah kept his finger circling and swirling around my clit while his other hand slapped my ass again.

I cried out again.

“Why do you insist on disobeying me, Charlotte?”

Another slap.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Another blow, so hard my ass cheeks jiggled as Noah pushed a finger inside of me.

“Oh,” I whimpered, and he pulled his finger out of my pussy and slid it to my mouth, making me taste myself on him.

“Why do you insist on disobeying me, Charlotte?” he demanded again.

“I don’t know, sir.”

He spanked me again, over and over, changing the force and angle of the blows as his other hand worked my clit, his finger sliding in and out, fucking me, while he held me down with his forearm, immobile, not able to move.

“You’re so wet, baby,” he murmured, his fingers sliding into my hole and spreading me. “You like being punished, don’t you, baby girl?”

“Yes.”

“Look at yourself,” Noah commanded. I glanced up and saw my reflection in the shiny metal of the desk, my hands on the floor, my pants pulled down. I watched as Noah slapped my ass again, and the sight of myself, so submissive to him, his body and hands so big, making me feel small and helpless against him, caused raging desire to overtake my body.

I felt my pussy clench around his fingers, signaling that I was about to come. Noah must have felt it too, because he immediately took his fingers from me and then pulled me up until I was sitting on his lap.

He adjusted my body until I was straddling him, but he held me by the ass, firmly in control of my body.

He reached behind me and opened the top drawer of the desk, rummaging around until he found a black marker.

“Do you remember the first night we met, Charlotte?”

I nodded.

“Do you remember the X I drew on your arm?”

I nodded again.

He took my wrist in his hand and turned it over, very slowly, then drew another X on me now, branding me, the ink sliding smoothly over my skin as he marked me.

“You are mine,” he said, his eyes a dark tornado. “I own you.”

He reached up and grabbed the back of my neck, pulled me toward me, kissed me full on the mouth, his tongue pushing past my lips. I tasted him, minty and dark. He hadn’t shaved that morning and his stubble brushed against my chin, rough and raw. I pushed into him, wanting to feel the roughness against me, wanted him to bruise me, to leave marks all over my skin.

For once, he let me have my way, or perhaps it was just that my own desires were matching up with his, because he deepened the kiss, so hard and deep that when he finally let me go, I was gasping for air.

He wrapped his hand around my hair and pulled back hard. “Take your shirt off.”

“Someone will see,” I whimpered.

“I don’t give a fuck.” He sat back in the chair and placed his hands on my thighs, his grip firm, his eyes shining bright. I was sitting right on his cock, and my pants were still pulled down in the back from when he’d spanked me, and I could feel his erection buried between my ass cheeks.

I reached down and pulled my shirt off, the fabric tangling with my hair. I shook it out and my hair brushed against my bare shoulders. I shivered and gripped the t-shirt tight to my body as I glanced nervously at the door. What if someone came in and saw me here, my ass out, my shirt off? Noah hadn’t bothered to lock the door.

“Eyes on me.” Noah pulled the shirt from my hands and placed it behind me on the desk. “Now your bra.”

“Noah.”

“Now. Your. Bra.”

I took it off and immediately went to cover myself, but he took my hands and placed them behind me on the desk.

The position thrust my bare tits out toward him, and Noah leaned down and blew a short hot breath across my nipples. They hardened instantly, my response to him automatic, my body betraying my mind and my reason.

He took the marker and began to write on me, right across my chest.

“Noah –”

“Shhh.” He slapped my tit and I groaned and leaned back further, my hands on his thighs, my fingers twisting around the material of his crisp dress pants, as I fought the urge to cover myself.

I looked down, watching as he wrote on my skin with the marker.

BAD
he wrote on one breast and
GIRL
on the other.

I closed my eye and took in a long, slow breath. I
was
a bad girl, I realized. I was bad and I needed to be punished. I no longer cared about anyone coming in and seeing me here, topless, my tits hanging out, my nipples hard, my ass raw with Noah’s handprints. He was breaking me down, I realized, was making me his submissive, a true submissive who wanted to be degraded, to be owned.

He handed me the marker.

“Write,” he demanded. “On your other wrist. Property of Noah Cutler.”
“Yes, sir.” I wrote the words on the inside of my wrist, wondering if my shirt would cover them once I was dressed or if everyone would see them. The thought filled me with a thrill. When I was done with the last R, Noah took my wrist and blew on it, drying the ink. His breath tickled my pulse point, the gesture so erotic I almost couldn’t take it.

“Do you want to be fucked, Charlotte?” he asked wickedly.

“Yes.”

His hand was down the front of my pants, back on my clit now, his touch so slow, so sexy that it burned me from the inside out, the need for him roaring through my veins and sending hot shivers in its wake.

“Take my cock out.”

I did as I was told, unbuckling his belt, unzipping his pants, letting his cock out. He took my hand and placed it on his shaft and I began to stroke him, up and down, while he gazed into my eyes and rubbed my clit.

Finally, he stood me up and removed my pants, then picked me up, easily, like I weighed nothing, my legs wrapping around his waist as he pushed my back up against the whiteboard that hung on the wall behind us. His cock found my pussy and pushed into me, fucking me, taking me. I wrapped my arms around him, gripping the strong muscles of his upper back, my nails digging into him through his shirt as he took me.

He wrapped his hand around my neck, his forehead against mine as he screwed me senseless.

“Your pussy is so wet,” he groaned. “You liked that, didn’t you, being spanked like a bad girl?” He took one of my tits in his hand, using it as leverage, squeezing and pulling on my nipple as he fucked me.

“Yes, sir.”

“Come.”

His words, so out of nowhere, sent ripples through me, and on his next thrust, I did come, my orgasm rushing through me in a wave, pulling me out to sea, pulling me under the riptide that was Noah.