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

WHAT HE COMMITS
 
(What He Wants, Book Thirteen)

by Hannah Ford

Copyright 2015, Hannah Ford, all rights
reserved.
 
This book is a work of
fiction, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

NOAH

I wanted to kill him.

As soon as the mask came off, I wanted to
beat him until he was dead.
 
I’d
wanted to kill him from the beginning, wanted to hurt and maim whoever it was
that had put Charlotte in danger.
 
But seeing Josh’s face caused the rage inside of me to roar to life, like
a furnace being turned on for the winter.

The heat and fury blew through me, and
before I knew what I was doing I’d picked him up and thrown him against the
wall of the hallway, so hard I could hear his ribs rattle.
 
The sound gave me a sick satisfaction.
 

Scenes from that long-ago night with my
stepfather flashed through my mind, the solidness of the bat in my hands, the
shattering of his knees as I slammed the heavy wood into his legs.

I’d thrown up later that night, had
walked outside and vomited into the bushes as my adrenaline dissipated and the
realization of what I’d done had hit me.
 
The present and the past morphed together now, the scent of vomit
filling my nostrils, the sound of Audi’s screams from that night echoing
through the hallway, Josh’s face morphing into that of my stepfather’s.

For a moment I thought I was going
insane, thought I was going to have a break with reality that would end with me
killing Josh, with me losing my shit right here and beating him to death. The
irony wasn’t lost on me -- I’d spent all this time trying to prove to Charlotte
that I wasn’t a killer, and yet here I was, about to kill someone right in
front of her.

It was that thought that snapped me back,
the watercolor painting of my mind sharpening until everything was back in focus.

The smell of vomit was replaced with the
musty smell of Force, my stepfather’s face turned back into Josh’s, and Audi’s
screams disappeared until all I could hear was the beat of the music from the
main room.

Still, I kept my grip on Josh’s shirt,
pushed him up against the wall until he was forced to turn his face away from
me.

“What the
fuck
is wrong with you?” I spat.

“Relax,” he said, trying his best to
sound cocky.

I loosened my grip on his shirt, and his hands
balled into fists like he was going to hit me.
 
The thought was laughable.
 
I grabbed him again and slammed him back into the wall.

“Noah!” Charlotte yelled from behind me.
 
She was clawing at my shoulders, trying
to pull me off of Josh.
 
She was
scared of what I might do, scared of how far I would go.
 
Scared I would kill him.

I grinned at Josh, then leaned in close
to him so he could hear everything I was about to say.

“She doesn’t have to worry,” I said.
 
“I’m not going to kill you.”

He rolled his eyes, but I could feel his
heart beating fast, could tell he was scared.

“But I am going to fuck you up real
good,” I said and then I released him.
 
Before he could react, I pulled back and punched him in the face.
 

He immediately fell to the ground.

I smiled.

Maybe I would kill him after all.

CHARLOTTE

“Noah!” I screamed again as Josh’s body
crumpled to the ground.
 
I was
grabbing at Noah’s arms, trying to stop him, but it was futile -- he was made
of steel.
 
There was nothing I
could do.
 
If Noah wanted to hurt
Josh, he would.
 

Noah turned and looked at me, our eyes
locking on each other, and he nodded shortly, letting me know he wasn’t going
to hurt Josh.
 
At least not too
badly.

“What the hell do you think you’re
doing?” Josh asked, getting up from the ground.
 
His nose was bleeding, his right eye already swelling.
 
“You can’t just go around punching
people, you stupid asshole.”

Noah went for him again, but I put my
hand on his arm.
 
“Stop,”
I said.
 
As much as I hated Josh, as much as I
wanted to see him get his comeuppance, beating him to a pulp would serve no
purpose.
 
This time, miraculously,
Noah listened.

I turned to Josh.
 
“What are you doing here?” I
demanded.
 
“Why were you watching
me?”

“Because you’re sexy,” he said, all cocky
like, and Noah pushed forward and punched him in the stomach.
 

Josh doubled over and groaned.
 
“Fuck,” he swore.
 
He spit onto the ground, a thick pool
of red blood and dark grit.
 

“You called me,” I said.
 
“You called me and you killed Katie.”

“What?” Josh said.
 
He was leaning against the wall now,
still holding his stomach.
 
“I
didn’t call you.”

“Stop lying!” I screamed.
 
“You called me and you threatened me
and you said you were going to kill me.”

He shook his head.
 
“You’re crazy.
 
I didn’t call you.”

“Then how did you know I was here?”
 
I had my hand on Noah’s arm as he stood
there, silent, the rage radiating off of him so strongly I could almost see it,
hazy and shimmering in the air.

“I followed you,” Josh said.

Noah took another step toward him, but I
tightened my grip on his wrist, and he stopped.
 
But I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to keep him
calm.
 
Calm wasn’t even the right
word – he was anything but calm.
 
He was pulsing with heat and energy and violent hate.
 
“You followed me?”
 
I repeated.

“I was worried about you, Charlotte.
 
Julia told me how much time you’ve been
spending with Noah, about the reporter that showed up at the apartment.
 
She told me she’s afraid for you.”
 

Noah pushed his shoulders back and a vein
throbbed in his neck.

“So you followed me here because you were
worried,” I said, not believing it for a second.

“Yes.”
 
Josh shook his head.
 
“I saw you come in here with him and I wanted to make sure you were
okay.
 
When you went into that
room, I thought he was going to hurt you.”
 

“And you were so worried that you went
into the room next door to watch?”
 
I asked sarcastically.

“It was an accident.
 
I went into the room next door to see
if there was anything in there I could use to help you.
 
And then I saw the holes in the wall,
so I looked.”

“How long were you watching me?” I
whispered.

“A while,” he said.
 
And then he gave me a look, that same
depraved, controlled look he’d given me the night I’d caught him in my room,
jerking off into my panties.
 
The
industrial lights flickered overhead, illuminated his face and making him look
even more sinister and perverted than he had that night.
 
Then his voice softened and he looked
at me.
 
“You looked so beautiful.”

That was it.

Noah snapped.

He wrenched out of my grasp and pitched
forward, punching Josh square in the jaw.
 
Josh fell back to the ground as Noah descended on him, punching him in
the face over and over, until bright red blood covered Josh’s skin and
spattered the concrete floor.

“Stop!” I yelled.
 
“Noah, stop!”
 

Noah punched him a couple more times
before I was able to get him to stop, then stood up and kicked Josh in the
ribs.
 
“You sick
fuck,”
Noah growled.
 
“You sick little bastard.”

“Noah,” I said quietly.
 
“Noah, please.
 
Just… let’s call the police.”
 

Josh staggered to his feet, put his hand
to his mouth, and pulled it back, looking at the blood.
 
He shook his head.
 
“Oh, I’m the sick fuck?
 
What about you two?
 
Fucking in public like that?
 
Blindfolded and chained up?
 
You’re the sick one, Charlotte.
 
You’re a fucked up little whore,
wanting to be with him.”

Noah went after him again, but I grabbed
him and held him back.

I was really scared now.

Scared of what Noah might do to him.

Josh must have been too, because a second
later, he took off down the hall, hobbled over and limping.

“You sick little whoooorreeee,” he yelled
as he went, the singsong tone of his voice echoing off the walls.
 

I started after him, pulled my phone out
and began dialing.

“What are you doing?” Noah demanded.

“We have to call the police,” I
said.
 
“We have to call them and
tell them what happened.”

Noah shook his head, reached out and took
my phone out of my hand.
 
“We can’t
call the police, Charlotte.”

I stared at him, my mouth agape.
 
“What do you mean we can’t call the
police?”

“I mean we cannot call the police.”
 
He began walking back down the hallway
in the same direction Josh had gone, the same direction we’d came from, and I
followed him.
 
His gait and pace
were slow, controlled.
 
If he was
trying to catch up with Josh, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

“Why not?
 
We can tell them – ”

He turned around, his eyes blazing.
 
“We can tell them what, Charlotte?
 
That we got an anonymous call from
someone who was threatening you, and instead of calling the police, we went to
a BDSM club, where we began fucking in a side room?
 
That we saw someone watching us so I followed him and beat
the crap out of him?”

“No.” I shook my head.
 
“No, that’s not what we’re going to
say, we’re going to say that we didn’t know what to do and so –”

“And so what?
 
We came to a club to fuck?”
 
He shook his head.
 
“We can’t do that, Charlotte, they’ll think we’re insane.”

“We can just
explain
to them – ”

“Stop!” he raged.
 
“We cannot just
explain
anything to them.
 
This is a BDSM club, Charlotte, things like what just happened are
commonplace here.”
 
He shook his
head.
 
“Which is why I wanted to
call the police before.”

“So this is my fault?”

“It’s not anyone’s fault.”
 
He was pacing the hallway now, and I
hated being back here, hated being in this hallway, in this building, in this
club.
 
The place on my stomach
where Audi had sliced me open began to throb, and I took in a deep breath and
let it out, telling myself that it was just in my head, that my body was just
reacting to my fear.
 

“That little shit planned this whole
thing,” Noah said.
 
“He has us
right where he wants us.
 
He knows
there’s nothing we can do, knows we can’t call the police, knows we have no
evidence to show what he’s done.”

He exploded a second later, letting out a
guttural scream that came from deep within him.
 
He punched the wall, his hand exploding into the
concrete.
 

“Noah!” I yelled.
 
“Noah, stop!
 
You’re scaring me.”

He stopped and turned to look at me, his
broad chest heaving with effort, color high on his cheeks.
 
His eyes met mine, and I saw the pain
that lived inside of him, bright and raw.
 
Longing filled my body, and I wished more than anything I could take his
pain away, that I could push my body close to his and tell him everything was
going to be okay.
 
But that would
be a lie.
 
And even if it wasn’t,
whatever was inside of him went far deeper than what had just happened with
Josh.