17. Chapter 17
Chapter 17
Noah
D ragging my fingers through the warm water, the bubbles accumulate fast, forming a thick layer over the surface.
Before tonight, the bath salts and bubble bath tucked under my sink had been long forgotten, an unopened, useless gift from a student who probably assumed I had a partner who would appreciate them more than I ever would.
They had been tossed under the sink, buried and ignored, until now.
Until her.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
A gift from one student, now used to relax another student, one I just fucked senseless, one I just ruined.
What the hell is wrong with me?
The way she makes me feel when she enters a room is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.
The way my body and mind ignite when I touch her, when I hear her whimper my name, makes me question everything.
Why have I ever laid a hand on another woman before her?
Craving her pain, I also crave her gratification.
I’m addicted to her pleasure.
The way she fights for control, the way she forces me to give her what she wants, it’s unlike any other sexual experience I’ve had.
Most women shamelessly submit, letting me fuck them into obedience, into silence, into nothingness.
But her?
She fights back.
She makes me earn every scream, every moan, every fucking piece of her.
And somehow, that only makes me want her more.
Staring at my reflection in the hazy water, I let my fingers drift to the back of my neck, grazing over the ridged scars hidden beneath my hair.
A familiar sensation, a memory etched into my skin, one I never let myself linger on.
But she saw them.
And for the first time, I saw fear in her eyes.
Not the intoxicating kind that sends shivers down her spine when I claim her.
But something else.
Something I can’t name.
Her petrified expression when I came up from cleaning her up still lingers in my mind.
The way her body shook, the way she froze, as if fragile, as if she were seeing me, really seeing me, for the first time.
She didn’t know.
She didn’t know what those scars meant.
She didn’t know what they turned me into.
And for the first time in a long time, something ugly and foreign swirls in my chest.
Something I don’t recognize.
Something I don’t want to recognize.
Guilt.
Every other time, I dismissed women without a second thought, watching them stagger out of my building, their bodies marked, ruined and used without a shred of regret.
So why do I feel so fucking guilty now?
"Hey."
Her voice is soft.
Too soft.
I snap my focus toward the doorway, startled, my heart tightening at the sight of her.
Ana stands there, wrapped in nothing but her own arms, her legs shaking, her skin painted in bruises and nail marks, all evidence of what I did to her.
What she let me do.
My chest tightens.
She looks so small like this. So exposed.
I didn’t even think to get her something to cover up.
Fucking idiot.
She tries to hide herself, arms pulling tighter around her body, her confidence faltering for the first time since I met her.
No.
No, Ana-
"Come here." My voice is low, steady, "Come feel the water. Make sure it’s okay."
I reach for her, my hand outstretched, but she hesitates, keeping her arms locked over her body.
"T-thank you," she stammers. "I’m sure it’s fine-"
"Ana."
Her name leaves my lips gently, but firm enough to stop her.
"It’s okay."
Slowly, I reach for her wrists, rubbing my thumb over her skin, coaxing her arms down.
She lets me.
She lets me see her.
And for the first time, I allow myself to see the aftermath.
Her blood streaks her inner thigh, marring her soft skin.
The bruises bloom across her hips, wrists, thighs, the evidence of my lack of restraint.
This is the part I choose not to see.
This is the part I always avoid.
But with her, I can’t look away.
Her voice cuts through the silence, small, fragile in a way that makes my stomach churn.
"Cole used to make comments," she whispers.
My fingers still against her wrist.
"After he was done fucking me, he would point out everything I needed to ‘work on.’"
Her breath shakes, but she keeps going.
"He always blamed it on his ‘clarity’ after finishing, but now I know-" she swallows, her voice dropping, "Erica was on his mind."
Something dark and cold coils inside me.
Fucking bastard.
In every other moment, Ana has been fierce, unyielding, never afraid to challenge me, never hesitating to take what she wants.
I never imagined she carried this.
I never imagined she had been torn down like this before.
The men in her life have only ever known how to do one thing.
Hurt her.
And now I’m faced with a decision.
Repeat their patterns.
Push her away.
Use her until I’m done and let her walk away like all the others.
Or...
Or I do something that feels foreign to both of us.
Something that scares me more than anything else ever has.
Affection.
A slow breath leaves me as I pull her closer, guiding her between my knees as I sit on the rim of the tub.
Her body trembles, but she doesn’t pull away.
She lets me hold her.
"There is nothing you need to work on," I say, voice rough, edged with something I don’t quite recognize.
Her breath catches.
"If you’re waiting for me to look at you differently after what we did, I won’t."
I don’t give her time to protest.
I lean forward, pressing my lips to the soft skin of her lower stomach, right above the bruises, right where I know she’s sore.
Her fingers hesitate, hovering above my head, before finally, they touch me, drifting into my hair, barely applying pressure.
"You don’t need to do that, Noah-"
"Yes."
The word leaves me sharper than I intended.
I tilt my head up, meeting her gaze, what I see there nearly unraveling me.
Hope.
Fucking hope.
"I do," I murmur, my hand sliding down to her thigh.
"I won’t allow anyone to disrespect you in my presence." My fingers tighten slightly, just enough to ground her. "And that includes yourself."
Her lips part.
She doesn’t look away.
And for the first time since this entire night started, neither do I.
Guiding her toward the warm bath, I help her step in, my hands steadying her trembling frame.
She tries to mask it, tries to pretend she’s fine, but the way her body flinches, the way her breath hitches, tells me just how sore she really is.
Fuck.
I force my eyes away from her marked skin, from the bruises and nail marks that shouldn’t turn me on, but somehow still do.
She settles into the water, eyes fluttering shut, and I take a seat beside the tub, keeping just enough distance.
For her.
For myself.
"Tell me about Cole." My voice is quiet, edged with something colder than before.
I watch her tense, her fingers gripping the porcelain rim. "And don’t leave out any details."
A part of me already knows why I want those details.
All it would take is a single call to one of my lingering connections, the ones who stepped aside when I walked away from my family's business.
One conversation.
One favor.
And Cole would cease to exist.
Because unlike Walker, Ana fears Cole.
That makes him a problem.
Her lips part, but she hesitates.
"I don’t need you looking at me differently, Noah."
If only she knew the blood I already had on my hands.
If she did, she’d never let me touch her again.
I lean in slightly, my voice low.
"Try me."
She exhales, the sound almost defeated, and shifts forward, resting her cheek against the cool edge of the tub.
The makeup smudged around her eyes makes her look haunted.
I reach for the washcloth, dipping it into the warm water before dragging it gently beneath her eyes, clearing away the remnants of the night.
She doesn’t move away.
"The night of prom, our senior year, I ran into Cole with Erica."
My grip tightens around the cloth.
"At that point, I was already a laughingstock at school. Erica and Cole spun our breakup as me being a whore. He said I cheated. One of Cole’s friends, someone I had a fling with before him, had taken a picture of me during one of our hookups."
A slow inhale fills my chest.
I already fucking know where this is going.
"That picture got passed around. That was all it took. Suddenly, I was that girl. The easy one, the liar, the bitch no one wanted to sit next to at lunch."
She tries to laugh, but it’s empty, bitter.
I keep wiping her face, but something shifts in her eyes.
Something detached.
"My dad wanted to see me in my dress," she continues, her voice quieter. "He wanted to take pictures. He wanted to feel like he was part of something big in my life. But I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth... that Cole had fucked my best friend and left me. So I showed up. Just long enough for my dad to see me off. Just long enough to sneak out and take an Uber home."
I don’t say anything.
Just keep listening.
She swallows hard.
"As I was leaving, Cole found me."
I fucking knew it.
"He begged me to talk. He looked so sincere, so genuine, and I was stupid enough to believe him."
I want to break something.
"I needed a ride home anyway. The least I could do was let my dad see his car dropping me off. I should have known better than to trust that he was sober. Let alone had good intentions."
Her jaw locks, and I see it then.
The moment she leaves this room.
She’s back in that car.
She’s stuck in that memory, suffocating in it.
"He took a back road to my house," she murmurs. "And he warned me, if I spoke up about what really happened, he’d make me regret it. Then he… then he grabbed my head, laughing. Told me I should ‘give him head for old times' sake.’"
The air drains from my lungs.
Something in me breaks open, something visceral.
I see red.
Fucking red.
"There was no way to stop it," she sobs suddenly, the words ripping out of her. "There’s no way to get the sound of the impact out of my head."
Impact.
I dial back in, heart pounding.
Tears fall freely from her eyes now, shaking her frame.
"Cole wasn’t paying attention." Her breath is shallow. "He was too focused on forcing my head down to see the road."
She pushes her hair back, revealing a small scar along her hairline, barely visible.
"I hit my head on the dash. The car spun out. And the-"
Her voice breaks.
"I heard a scream."
I stop breathing.
Her body shakes, her fingers curling into the water.
"And then a thud."
The kid.
The fucking kid in the paper.
The one who was hit while riding his bike.
"Cole did it," she sobs.
The room spins.
"And me." Her hands shake, her lip quivers, her entire body folding in on itself. "I fucking left that kid in the street while he was gasping for help. I let Cole drag me back to the car. I let him convince me to stay quiet."
She lifts her hands.
Trembling.
"His blood was on my hands. I could have saved him-"
I grab her face, firm but gentle.
"Anastasia."
She’s spiraling. Hyperventilating.
I hold her still, pressing my forehead against hers, anchoring her.
"It wasn’t you."
Tears stream down her face.
"Noah-"
Her eyes lock onto mine, glassy, shattered.
"Where did you get your scars?"
Panic punches into my chest.
The warmth of her body against mine is suddenly too much.
The weight of her question is suddenly too much.
I don’t answer.
Can’t answer.
Instead, I force my voice into something cold, detached.
"I think tonight, I’ve already shown you more of myself than I’ve ever cared to show anyone else."
Tilting her chin up, I force her to look at me.
"Cole won’t hurt you."
It isn’t a statement.
It’s a fucking promise.
And if I have to put him in the ground to keep it, I will.
"You’re safe, so long as I’m around."
Her lips tremble, but then, finally, she smiles.
Small.
Wary.
"Promise?"
Fuck.
I don’t make promises.
I never keep them.
But this time…?
Her glossed over eyes make the words slip from my mouth before I can stop them.
"I promise."