Chapter 31 #2
He remained thoughtful for several seconds. Then he nodded. “Okay. I’ll get us a drink and let you talk baroque to me until you’re ready to leave.”
Champagne appeared as if by magic. Noah commandeered the head valet and requested a tour after the mouth-watering banquet was served on long wooden tables.
Every time his gaze slid to hers and she saw his concern, she knew her face was betraying the anxiety eating through her stomach.
He touched her at every opportunity, guided her through the stunningly decorated palace and listened with interest at the history of the place.
But she couldn’t dismiss the vibrating tension that belied his calm.
They swept back down the grand staircase just as a gong sounded and the guests split into four groups. In the middle of the room stood a giant stone urn containing small indigo envelopes.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“According to the brief, this is where the evening takes on swinging masked ball status.”
Her eyes widened. “We’re not doing that, are we?”
“Hell, no. Your name isn’t in there. Neither is mine. Do you want to stay for another drink or do you want to leave?”
“Leave, please.”
He squeezed her hand. “Good.”
The limo whisked them through the Old Town with its quaint charm and history-rich streets. Noah whipped off his mask and dropped it onto the seat between them. He settled one hand on her thigh and caressed her.
“Are you going to take off that mask?” he asked.
She shrugged and traced the velvet pattern. “In a while. I like it.”
“You can’t hide behind it forever, Leia.” His tone was half gentle, half warning.
She swallowed. “I know.”
He caught her chin and dragged his thumb over her lower lip. “Poor baby, you’re shaking. Did no one teach you not to start something you couldn’t finish?”
She jerked and knocked his hand away. “No, don’t!”
He inhaled sharply. “Leia, what’s wrong? You’re as white as a fucking sheet.”
As if floodgates had been open in her mind, vile words flowed over one another. “Just…” She breathed deep, struggling for calm. “Don’t say that to me.”
Puzzled eyes searched hers. “Don’t say what?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “What you just did?—”
The limo drew to a halt at the entrance of their hotel. She jumped out before Noah could stop her. “Dammit, Leia. Stop.”
Her heels clicked on polished stone as she rushed past reception. “Miss Michaels, I have several messages for you?—”
She stumbled to a halt and turned to look at the concierge and the papers he offered. She held out her hand for them and stuffed them in her purse.
Noah reached her and took her arm. “Besides Snyder, who else knows you’re here?”
“No one.”
“Okay, so we’ll assume the messages are from him. Whatever he wants can wait until you explain what just happened.”
He pulled her into the elevator and caught her in his arms. A swift, hard kiss landed on her temple before he tucked her head beneath his chin. She couldn’t stop trembling, couldn’t stop the sickening reel of words and images in her head.
I’ll teach you not to start something you can’t finish.
They rode up in silence, her arms stiff at her sides, her heart hammering loud and relentless in her ears.
When the elevator doors opened, he swung her into his arms and entered their suite. The door slammed behind them. He strode to the large armchair and sank into it, his arms clamped around her.
“Take off your mask.” It was a command, figurative and real.
Hands shaking, Leia drew off the mask and glanced at his face.
He cursed. “Jesus, what the hell’s going on? You look like someone’s just killed your puppy. What did I say?” Anguish coated his voice.
“Someone said that to me once… about teaching me a lesson for starting something I couldn’t finish.”
Hooded blue eyes narrowed. “When you were a kid?”
“I was sixteen when he first said that to me.”
“Who?”
“My stepfather. This… this was what I was going to tell you.”
He tensed beneath her and his eyes darkened, but his face remained a cool mask “Go on.”
“I talked my mom into letting me move into our pool house when I turned sixteen. She resisted for a while, but she knew I couldn’t stand the tension and passive-aggressive fighting between her and my stepfather.
Anyway, she helped me turn what had been my dad’s home office into my bedroom.
” She plucked at the corner of her mask and swallowed.
“But my mom forgot that my dad had installed cameras in his office after a break-in. At first I didn’t think anything of it when my stepfather walked in at inappropriate times or in the middle of the night when I took the odd skinny dip in the pool. ”
Noah’s hand tightened on her knees, and his jaw turned to steel. “Fucking Christ.”
“I hated the way he looked at me, but I was a brat back then. The world had taken the most important person in my life and replaced it with an asshole who didn’t treat my mom right and looked at me with his cock in his eyes.
I acted out a lot, almost dared him to do his worst.” She whispered that last part, icy fingers of guilt clenching her heart.
His arms caressed up and down her arms. “Oh God, baby.”
A furtive look at Noah’s face showed the braced anguish in the dark blue depths of his eyes. Her heart squeezed, and she forced herself to go on.
“A couple of months after I turned seventeen, I threw a party. It was a classic parents-out-of-town party with too much booze and rich bratty kids. My boyfriend stayed over. I woke up minus my virginity and completely underwhelmed by an experience I could barely recall.”
“Leia.” His voice was a rough rumble. The hand on her thigh rose to splay over her stomach, and the other gripped her nape. His chest rose and fell in a jagged exhale.
She’d become attuned enough to his reactions to know he didn’t like the idea of someone else having her, even if it was past tense. But it was also coupled with a gentleness and strength that calmed her roiling emotions.
“Sexual frustration and self-destruct mode isn’t a healthy mix. I was using my vibrator when my stepfather walked in on me.”
Noah’s growl was low and deadly. She shivered.
“He told me he’d seen the video of Brad and me. He described it in vivid detail and told me how much better he would do it.”
“ Motherfucker! ”
“He called me a cock tease… A shameless whore.”
You’re a dirty little cock tease. You deserve my cock up your ass for your little stunts…
“Then he raped me in my bedroom.”