Chapter 13 Forever #2
I can’t help it. I smile in pride at Noelle’s cunning.
Carefully, and as quietly as I can, I roll onto my side and test the restraint.
It’s solid and snug, though she didn’t purposely cut off my circulation or anything.
So long as she didn’t think to escape me while I was trapped myself, I’ll forgive her for trying to get some sort of revenge against me.
Well, no. She’s my Starling. I’ll forgive her anything, even if I might have to teach her another lesson in obedience first…
The idea that I might be missing Noelle for Christmas freezes the smile on my face. I have to find her. I have to see her. And since I’d purposely left the key to the handcuffs back in my suitcase in my room, there’s only one way for me to accomplish that.
Biting down on the corner of the nearest pillow, I dislocate my wrist without a sound, slip it free from the cuff, then quickly reset the joint with a muted pop before cursing under my breath.
It’s nowhere near the worst pain I’ve ever experienced, and considering the thought that Noelle took off without me hurts me even more, I’m over the discomfort in my wrist by the time I’m bounding out of the room, searching for her.
I don’t have far to go. Once I reach the living room, I find her standing in front of the large front window, wrapped in a blanket.
She glances over her shoulder at me. “It snowed again overnight,” she says conversationally as though she didn’t leave me cuffed to the bed. “We have a white Christmas.”
“Is that why you’re still here?” I ask.
Noelle shrugs. “I still don’t have my keys.” She glances down at my quickly swelling wrist. I don’t think she notices the slight injury, though, because she wrinkles her nose before adding, “Looks like you found the one for the handcuffs, though.”
“Nope,” I tell her, popping the ‘p’ almost as loudly as the joint in my wrist popped as I was putting it back into place. “I had to dislocate my wrist to slip it out of the cuff. Thanks for not making it too tight, sweetheart. I don’t think I could’ve otherwise.”
Her eyes go big and wide and, fuck me, beautiful. “Holy shit. You really are insane, aren’t you?”
“You just figuring that out?”
She shakes her head. “No. I… no. But it’s Christmas, Patrick. Please… I don’t want to play your games today.”
If I’m playing, I’m playing for keeps—and though there’s a soft, exhausted plea to her voice, that’s not going to stop me.
Not yet.
I shush her softly, trying to make the noise as soothing as I can.
Walking over to Noelle, I brace my hands on her shoulders, guiding her over to the Christmas tree; she stiffens momentarily, releasing the tension almost immediately as though finally understanding that it’s pointless to resist me.
As always, the twinkling white lights are on, reflecting against the silver foil wrapping paper of the gifts I tucked under it yesterday morning.
“It’s Christmas,” I agree. “So why don’t you open your presents?”
“I don’t think—”
I grab a large rectangular package. “This one first, Starling.”
She thins her lush lips, prepared to fight me on this.
I gentle my tone. “Please. Like you said, it’s Christmas.
And you might not have known me before the twenty-second, but I’ve been fucking obsessed with you for over a year.
I cleared your wish list, but I count that as last year’s present, Noelle.
These are for you this Christmas. Humor me, okay? Open it.”
She takes it from me with only a touch of hesitation. “I don’t know… if it’s, like, a body part you cut off or something, I’d rather keep it in the box.”
I’m sure she’s dead serious. I am a contract killer, after all. But because it is Christmas, I play it off like she’s joking. “Maybe for your birthday in May,” I tell her, and, yes, Noelle, I know when your birthday is, too. “No fingers or toes for you this year.”
She gives me a strange look, though she does unwrap the box. I accept the discarded wrapping paper from her, balling it up while she takes the lid off of it.
“Oh.” Her eyes light up as she pulls the faux leather-bound journal and matching pen set from the box. “Is it a notebook?”
“A journal,” I tell her. “I can’t promise that I won’t find it and read it, but writing it on paper might be safer than on your computer.”
Okay. Maybe I shouldn’t remind Noelle that I’ve been hacking her computer for the past year, but I don’t want her to ever forget how dangerous I am—or how I will use every skill in my arsenal to protect this woman.
She puts the lid back on the box. “Thanks. I think.”
Good enough for me. I take the box, tucking it under the tree before grabbing a small box. “This one is next.”
This time, she doesn’t try to fight me. She opens the small package, wordlessly handing me that paper, too, before discovering a small plastic sleeve with a business card in it.
Noelle lifts her eyebrows at me quizzically.
I jerk my chin at the business card. “That’s the name of a recruiter I know.
He’s part of the Family, but he’s got connections with every damn business in Springfield.
You need an interview? A job? You want to get back into marketing?
Give Cody a call. Tell ‘em Saint sent you and he’ll fix you up right away. ”
There’s more to this gift than giving her a fellow Dragonfly’s contact information.
First of all, Cody is gay, so I have no concern that he’ll hit on my Starling.
For another, it’s a sign that I don’t always plan to keep her in a cage.
Once I know that Noelle is mine, I can share part of her with the rest of the world.
She loved her job at Evergreen & Co. before it all went to hell.
She’s jumped from temp job to temp job since, and from her journal entries, I know she’s dying to break back into the same career those assholes stole from her.
Cody will help, and I want her to know that I encourage her to spread her wings and fly… so long as she returns to me.
I see the moment that Noelle understands that the business card is also a bit of a peace offering. She flutters her lashes, then gives me a small, shy smile.
“That’s actually really nice,” she murmurs. “Thank you, Patrick.”
“There’s one more,” I say, brushing past her ‘thanks’. “The bigger one over there.”
Noelle doesn’t quite hide her look of confusion that there’s a fourth present in the same wrapping paper, even as she reaches for the one I pointed out. I bend quickly, grabbing it first just because it’s heavy enough that I want to make it easy for her.
Noelle accepts the final gift, ripping into the wrapping paper with the most enthusiasm she’s shown so far.
When another white box appears, another rectangle, she doesn’t seem to know what it is…
until the rest of the wrapping paper is removed and she can’t miss the image of the silver ‘L’-shape on the left side.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she breathes out. “You got me a MacBook?”
“Hacker guy I know says it’s harder to get into than that Windows laptop you have.” Look, Noelle. Another peace offering. I won’t stop trying to infiltrate every part of your life, but now I’m giving you a few tools to stop me. “I thought it would go well with the phone you already have.”
“Yeah, but… this is too much. At least a thousand bucks! I can’t take this—”
More, actually, though if she’s suddenly panicking again at how much I spent on her new laptop, I’ll conveniently forget how much I paid. “Of course you can. Especially when you see what you gave me for Christmas.”
That stops her dead in her tracks. Head bobbing up from where she was staring at the laptop’s design, she asks, “Me? I didn’t get you anything.”
That’s what she thinks.
I point at the final square-shaped box that’s under the tree. “Hand me that, would you, Starling?”
Setting her new computer down on the coffee table, Noelle drops down, her blanket fanning out behind her, as she grabs the last gift.
“‘Patrick’,” she reads out loud as she stands up again. “It has your name on it.”
Of course it does. After all, everything I’ve done over the last year has led to this very moment. And now? It’s time I get my Christmas wish.
I wait for her to hand it to me. After she does, I unwrap it, letting the foil wrapping paper fall to the floor until all that’s left is a three-inch by three-inch black velvet jewelry box nestled in my palm.
I flip the lid, the diamond shining even brighter in the light of the Christmas tree.
Noelle freezes. Her fingers slowly lift to her mouth, pressed to her lips as she speaks around them. “That’s not from me.”
I pluck the engagement ring from its bed. “Depends on how you look at it. This represents the one thing I wanted most of all this Christmas.”
Then, before she can stop me, I take her hand from her mouth. She doesn’t resist as I separate one from the rest, giving me just enough room to slide the ring onto that all-important fourth finger.
“Patrick…”
“I told you. When we made our deal. I wanted five things from you. Your lips.” I brush my forefinger over her lush bottom lip.
“Your mouth.” I swipe it to the corner of her mouth, dipping it inside, smiling when she licks the tip of it.
“Your body.” My hand traces the edge of her jaw next before dropping to caress her left tit.
“Your obedience," I add in a husky voice as we both remember what she let me do when she was tied up with Christmas lights.
“But that was only four. Now you know the fifth one.”
“Last night… right before I climbed on top of you and fucked you, I thought it was my surrender.”
Yes. Obviously. Only not just for one night, sweetheart—and know she knows that. “My prices are a little higher than that.”
She gulps, but she doesn’t remove the ring. “Me?”
Always, though that’s too obvious. “No, Starling. Forever.”
She turns her hand slowly, watching in a daze as the diamond catches the glow of the Christmas lights.
“I didn’t write that on my list,” she says quietly.
“No,” I agree. “You didn’t.”
She looks up at me, searching. “Then why?”
“Because, Noelle, it was on mine.”