Chapter 1 #3
Noah stays buried inside me for a while, both of us breathing hard. Then he slowly pulls out, and I feel his cum start to leak from my hole and I love the feeling.
"Don't move," he says, and I hear him set the candle aside. Then his fingers are there, pushing his cum back inside my now sensitive hole. "Keep it in. Keep me inside you."
I let him do what he wants before he helps me roll onto my side, then pulls me against his chest, his body curving around mine. His hand settles on my stomach, still possessive even in the aftermath.
"No one will ever take you from me, Chase. I won't allow it," he murmurs into my hair, the promise sending a chill down my spine.
"I know," I say, my voice hoarse from all the pleasure screaming.
Later, when he's asleep beside me, I lie awake and think about what I've become. I'm complicit now. Not just in Noah's obsession, but in his violence. I know what he does in the name of keeping me, protecting me, though his definition of protection would match no one else’s. And I don't stop him. I’ve barely reacted to Luca the server and what may have happened to him, because if I’m honest with myself, it makes me feel special. I preen at the very idea that he would go so far to keep anyone away. It’s sick. I’m sick, because I revel in it. I want it.
What does that make me? But what does it matter? I'm falling into darkness with him, and I don't want to be saved.
I just want to fall deeper.
I wake at 3:47am to cold sheets beside me. My hand reaches out instinctively, finding an empty space where Noah should be. I sit up, disoriented, and my heart suddenly racing.
"Noah?" I call softly. No response.
The suite is dark except for the faint glow of streetlights through the window. I get out of bed, pulling on my sleep pants, and check the bathroom. Empty. He’s not here.
My chest tightens with something that feels disturbingly like panic. Noah never leaves me. Never. During the day, he's always within sight, always watching, always beside me. The only time I'm ever alone is when I'm sleeping, and even then I usually wake to find him beside me, awake and vigilant.
But now he's gone, and I don't know where. I sit on the edge of the bed, trying to calm my racing heart. He'll come back, I tell myself. He always comes back. But where did he go? And why?
Then it hits me like a train. Luca.
Shit.
As I sit here, my mind starts spinning through increasingly dark possibilities, when I hear the suite door open.
I'm on my feet immediately, moving into the living area.
Noah has returned, closing the door quietly behind him.
He's dressed in dark clothes, black jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and soft-soled shoes.
His hair is slightly disheveled, and there's something in his expression that makes my breath catch.
"Where were you?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
"Walking."
"At four in the morning?"
Noah scrutinizes me, and tilts his head as if trying to understand my reaction, like he is confused by the question.
"I thought you were clever, Chase. Or are you still living in the denial phase? Ask me again and I will answer, but can you handle it?"
"Don’t talk to me like that, Noah, like I’m a dumb fuck."
Again he watches me, and I can see him processing what he just said. Noah is so blunt he doesn’t understand how things can sound. I don’t think he is even capable of being sarcastic or patronizing, but it’s how I feel.
“Is that how it sounded? Huh…noted. But you haven’t answered the question, baby. Truth or denial?”
“You’re an asshole,” I scold and cross my arms, as I’m not sure if I want the verbal clarification, because that makes this side of our life real. Noah smirks at me, but it looks like a feral sneer. It should be scary, but instead I find it sexy. He looks like a monster and I love it.
"Go back to bed." he says, walking toward me in a commanding manner, long strides that dwarf the room.
Part of me wants answers and to know the details, but something in his eyes stops me, because I know he will explain in detail his plan.
He never hides anything, Noah is the most open and uncensored book you could find.
So I let the old part of me, the good Chase that had ethics and morals, take over and let him guide me back to the bedroom, where we collapse into bed.
I lock my curiosity away as I know what he is doing, but denial is a good spot for now.
The next day, Noah is perfectly normal. We have breakfast on our balcony overlooking the Grand Canal.
We walk through the narrow streets of Venice, his hand always at my back or holding mine.
We visit museums and churches, and Noah is attentive and present and completely focused on me. He never leaves my side. Not once.
But that night, I wake again to find him gone. The difference is this time, I don't panic. I just lie there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, my mind working through the implications.
Noah is hunting. That's what this is. He's stalking Luca’s home, calculating his next moves. He has to be more careful over here and I’m grateful he is at least thinking of that.
My heart swells knowing he's doing it at night, while I sleep, because he would never leave me alone during the day.
Never let me be unprotected or unwatched.
But at night, when I'm unconscious and safe in our locked suite, Noah uses those hours to make his plans.
I feel a dark thrill run through me, to the point I’m unsure whether to acknowledge the swell in my underwear.
This time, Noah returns and I pretend to be asleep, watching through barely-open eyes as he undresses and slips back into bed beside me. His body is cool, like he's been outside for hours. He pulls me against him, and I let myself relax into his embrace.
"I know you're awake," he murmurs against my hair.
I don't respond, but try to move closer into his arms.
The following day we return to Osteria della Luna for dinner, and my stomach is a ball of knots. Noah suggested it and I know why. He wants to play with his food and he is trying to involve me in it, testing me.
Luca's face lights up when he sees us, his attention immediately focusing on me. Throughout dinner, I watch Noah watch Luca. It’s not obvious as Noah is too controlled for that.
But I see it in the way his eyes track the waiter's movements, the way his jaw tightens fractionally when Luca touches my shoulder, the way his fingers drum once against the table when Luca leans close to describe a dessert. Noah is fantasizing about every little thing he wants to do to him and I’m not sure whether I feel sick or am intrigued.
After dinner, we walk back to the hotel in silence. Noah's hand firmly holding mine, his body radiating that coiled tension I've learned to recognize.
As I predicted, when I wake, Noah is not here.
This time, I get up and go to my journal. I sit at the desk in the living area, the city lights casting shadows across the page, and I write.
Noah is gone again. Third night in a row. I know what he's doing. He's learning the area Luca lives in, monitoring his home for other occupants or guests. Checking the roads and alleyways.
I should stop this and demand he leave Luca alone. But I won't. Because I understand that this is Noah and this is what it means to be truly his, to be owned fully.
During the day, he never leaves my side. But at night, when I'm asleep and safe, he uses those hours to shut down what he perceives as a threat.
And I'm aroused by it.
I'm aroused by the knowledge that my husband is out there right now, stalking a man who dared to flirt with me. Noah is planning to kill, and one day he'll come back to me with blood on his hands, metaphorically or literally, I’m not sure.
I’m officially a part of this. I know he plans and I refuse to stop it.
I know it’s wrong, but I’m allowing it to play out.
I’m so interwoven with every fiber of Noah that nothing will make me part from him.
The side effect to that is that I’m falling into his dark way of thinking, looking at it as a beautiful show of love and devotion.
My shadow has turned me into his perfect object. Totally reliant on him in all aspects.
I'm still writing when Noah returns. He finds me at the desk, the journal open in front of me and he doesn't look surprised.
"Writing about me?" he asks quietly.
I watch him for a moment and notice something different.
I drift my gaze over his entire body from head to toe.
His fists flex as my eyes fixate on those strong hands.
He’s not wearing his rings and that’s when I see the tiniest speck of red.
Oh shit. He’s done it. I look back at those green eyes and I know he can tell what I’m thinking.
My breathing increases as my pulse quickens, my mouth dry with anxiety and something akin to excitement.
“What did you do, Noah?” I whisper. Noah tilts his head to the side and his right side of his mouth curves up into a sharp smirk that even the devil would fear.
“You know. Would you like details?” he asks, but not in a teasing tone, he is genuinely asking me if I want more details.
“You killed him,” I say, but more to myself.
“Yes.”
What do I say to that? I’m not sure how much time passes as I try to process what is happening, as this is the first time I have spoken directly to Noah about what he does.
I briefly think of Noah hurting Luca. Did he stab him?
Strangle him? Warn him to never look at me again?
Because this is why he is dead. Because of me.
Heat blooms in my groin as I start to go hard at that thought. This is so fucking wrong.
When I look back at Noah he is staring at my very obvious stiff cock behind my boxers, but I don’t hide it. I’m so confused by the feeling that it feels like I’m floating in a dream, an alternate universe.