Chapter 11
ELEVEN
A few more anxiety-riddled days pass trying to teach Emma how to defend herself.
Guns are a bust, the recoil scaring her to the point she’s too afraid to pull the trigger.
So we moved to knives, something easily concealable, but that could save her life if someone got close enough that she needed to use them.
It’s…tragically difficult for her, since the thought of stabbing into someone’s flesh makes her sick, she says.
Other than me, apparently. She’d found no issue slicing my head open.
But we keep at it, the grappling and form work making me frantic with need for her, so we reward the sessions of hard work by fucking wildly wherever we are. What can I say? She’s fucking beautiful when she has violence shining in her eyes.
Even the feel of her pussy can’t erase the unsettling feeling that grows inside my head for long. Something bad is coming, I can feel it in my bones. Mercy’s poked a hornets nest, and for the first time in my life, I’m not sure that our organization can handle it.
Things have fallen suspiciously quiet, the encrypted, teasing messages no longer arriving. And I’m not sure if it's because I finally made our systems hack-proof, or if they’ve simply stopped trying to reach me.
Stopped trying to barter with me, more like.
The latter is ominous. If ever there was a dog that viciously coveted everyone else’s bone, it’s Bundy. And he’s got a fucking hard-on for the pretty girl across the table from me, swimming in my sweatshirt and passing these doe eyes my way more often than she should.
It’s like being cornered, but by something I can’t even fucking see.
The endless fear that I’ll be killed, and they will get her.
I’ve done my research on these guys, on Bundy.
He makes Eric look like a fucking saint.
She’d be holed up in one of his brothels in no time at all, used as a treat for his puppets, or for whoever paid the most. Used by him, of course.
As much as I try to teach her, in the back of my mind I know if they want her, she’s not going to be able to stop them.
My jaw clenches and her passing glance turns worried, a small frown tilting her mouth down. I can’t have that, so I wink and she bites her lip, suddenly buoyed again.
Mom’s returned also, as I knew she would.
Nobody makes a bigger deal about Thanksgiving than my mother.
Any excuse, really, to throw a sit down dinner and get everyone together is a big deal to her.
She works herself to the bone for two days every single year, mixing and prepping and shouting at anyone who tries to step in to help her.
Emma stays respectfully out of the kitchen, but occasionally pulls up a stool at the island kitchen bar, making small talk. I can tell my mother likes Emma. She told me as much after first meeting her.
“She’s soft, Noah,” she’d said in a way that didn’t sound like a compliment. But her follow up threat as she’d gotten in the car had clarified her stance on the matter. “You better not let her lose that.”
I don’t want her to. It’s what draws me to her in a way that I haven’t felt with any other woman.
Don’t get me wrong, dominating that perfect fucking body of hers is the stuff of my dreams. When I work her into a frenzy that has her begging and whining for more?
I can’t imagine a drug exists that rivals that high.
But it wouldn’t hit the same if it wasn’t her. Her with all her gentleness, that sweet way of talking and making everyone feel safe in her presence. She’s just so goddamn good.
Except when I tell her not to be. Fuck me, I’m so addicted to everything about her.
I know she hates my nickname, but it fits. An angel, here on Earth to play just a little bit with a sinner like me. Thank god it's me. The thought of anyone else putting their dirty hands on her makes me break out in a homicidal sweat.
I know what it means. This possessiveness I feel toward her runs way too fucking deep. Even when I hated her, she was still mine to hate. Mine to defile and ruin. Her pain and punishment would have been mine to deliver.
Now it's her pleasure that belongs to me. It’s me that orchestrates the way that she feels good, how she gets to come.
Me that opens her mind to what could and does make her fucking fly higher than Eric ever fucking could.
I don’t even think she realizes it, but she has a way of looking at me that makes me want to give it all to her. Not just physically. Like everything.
The darker, obsessive part of my psyche wants her to feel like the sun sets on me, that I’m the provider of all her pleasure, her freedom, even that giddy feeling in her heart. It’s me that grants it. Not anyone else.
But an unfamiliar hesitance stems from that, in the way that I know I don’t own a thing about her. Emma’s like sunshine in that she’s boundless. I could try to keep her contained, only to myself, but that would choke the part of her I lov—
…
Love? Sigh.
Fuck.
“What was that about?” Emma says, breath heavy as I pull out of her and roll to the side.
She’s eyeing me with a curious glint in her eyes, wondering why I came to her so forcefully, picking her up off the stool and carrying her like a caveman to my bed.
Slamming the door. Lowering myself over top of her and pushing up her dress to slide inside that sweet pussy that sometimes is the only thing that can unscramble the chaos in my head.
It had been a little more…just more. More than usual. And I don’t mean in theatrics or dominance. More in feeling.
I guess she felt it as well. Whatever crash out is happening in my heart just jumped right through my chest and burrowed into hers. And now her eyes question me, rightfully so.
Propping myself up on my elbow, I look down at her. Blonde hair splays wildly on my pillow, a slight sheen covering her body.
I want to chain her to the bed so that she’s always right here with me. But then how could I watch her as she reads in the grass, the sun on her skin, a smile on her face?
She’s really pulled a reverse Uno on me. This girl I tried to steal away, to lock down and torment. Now it’s me somehow that’s caught in her trap, one she doesn’t even realize she’s set.
“I just needed you,” I say, and it's true. If she takes my words at face value I can’t tell. But I think she might hear what I haven’t said because she pulls my hand to her mouth and kisses my palm.
“Me too.” Her words are simple. Neither of us coming right out and saying it, but understanding all the same.
My jaw clenches, wanting to say the words, when she shimmies her dress back down and slides away from the bed, walking out the door.