“Yes?” the voice came.
“We’ll be taking my guest home now,” he said. “Do you remember her address from this morning, Jared?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you.”
He clicked off and I stared at him, aghast. “We’ll be taking my guest home now?” I repeated incredulously.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” He was pulling a bottle of water from a cooler that was attached to the side of the door. “Did you have somewhere else you were planning to go?”
“No, I just…” I trailed off, looking out the window so he wouldn’t see the hurt in my eyes. I enjoyed having sex with him. I did. It was amazing and wonderful and physically the greatest pleasure I’d ever felt. But to be just called into his limo like this and then brought home?
I blinked back a few tears and took a deep breath. You’re being a baby, I told myself. He’s a beautiful, rich man who could have any woman he wanted. You saw that girl in the picture. She could have been – probably was – a model. Noah hadn’t made any promises to me, he hadn’t told me he wanted to be with me in any way other than a sexual one.
It was my decision to get down on my knees and suck his dick like some kind of unpaid prostitute. So if I should be upset with anyone, I should be upset with myself.
I blinked a few more times until my eyes were clear. And then I realized we were in my neighborhood. This whole time I’d thought we’d been driving around aimlessly, that Noah had told his driver to waste time. But instead, we’d been heading toward my neighborhood, like Noah had always known he was going to be sending me home.
I was mad now.
And not just at myself.
“Would you like some water, Charlotte?” Noah asked me.
“No.”
We were getting closer to my apartment, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I couldn’t wait to leave him in his stupid limo with his stupid driver and his stupid everything. I never wanted to see him again in my life. I was already opening the door as the limo slowed to a crawl.
I stepped out onto the sidewalk and rushed toward my building.
I heard Noah call my name, but I ignored him.
I fumbled with the key to my front door, cursing the fact that I lived in a three-story walk up and not one of those fancy apartment buildings that came with a doorman. Flouncing off to my doorman would have been much more dramatic.
“Charlotte,” Noah said, suddenly by my side. “Charlotte, what’s wrong?”
“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “You’re seriously asking me that? You’ve fucked me three times now, and each time, you pretty much just leave. No ‘I’ll call you later’, no ‘talk to you soon, Charlotte’ or ‘I had a nice time, Charlotte.’ Just nothing.”
“I asked you to have breakfast with me this morning.”
“Right before you kicked me out of your apartment!”
He looked shocked. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s just how these things go for me.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that it is what it is.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have to do whatever this is anymore.” I pushed open the door to my building and stepped inside, but he followed me into the lobby.
He grabbed my shoulders and pushed me up against the wall. “Do you know how hard it is for me to keep my hands off of you?”
“I’m not your toy,” I said. “You can’t just have me whenever you want. I’m a person, Noah.”
“I know that,” he said, his dark eyes fiery with passion. “You think I don’t know that?”
“Then why aren’t you acting like it?” I didn’t care if I was breaking every rule in the girl code book, the one where you weren’t supposed to ask a man where your relationship stood. Especially one you’d just met. But I wasn’t going to let Noah just use me like that. Even if the sex was incredible.
“Because I can’t, Charlotte, okay? I can’t.”
“That’s bullshit.” I started to push past him, but he reached out and put his arms on either side of me, pinning me in.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. “Do you have any idea what it would be like to be with me? To really be with me?”
“I’m not talking about being with you,” I said. “I hardly even know you! I’m talking about just being nice to me. You know, polite. Keeping up with social norms?”
He shook his head. “There is no middle ground with you, Charlotte. If I let my guard down, if I even – ” He dropped his hands, walked over to the other side of the lobby, put his hands on the wall and leaned over and stared at the ground.
“What?” I asked. “If you even what?”
“You don’t understand my demons, Charlotte,” he said, his voice soft. “You don’t understand the kinds of things I require from the women I’m with.”
He turned and looked at me then, all traces of bravado gone. An electricity thrummed between us, and I had the feeling that even this tiny admission, this tiny bit of nothing, was hard for him.
I reached out and put my hand on his arm, but he pulled away.
“What kind of things?” I asked gently.
He ran a finger down my cheek. “Things a woman like you would never understand.”
“Try me.”
His eyes searched mine, and I had a feeling I was standing at the precipice of something dangerous, like staring into an abyss at the moment right before you’re about to fall. I wanted him to pull me in, to pull me under, to take me wherever it was he was going.
“Please, Noah,” I pressed. “I want to understand.”
His face darkened, and a second later, all traces of vulnerability were gone. He straightened up. “I wish you could, Charlotte,” he said. “But I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking me,” I said. I put my hand back on his arm, and this time, he didn’t pull away. “I want to.”
We stood there for a moment, neither of us saying anything, the silence stretching for what seemed like forever. And then his cockiness came back, that disarming grin of his returning to his face.
“Very well, Charlotte,” he said. “I will take you out tonight and show you what I mean. Jared will pick you up at 8:30.” His eyes slid up my body. “Wear the sexiest thing you own.”
I’d done what I was told. I was ready by eight, dressed in the sexiest thing I owned. Well, the sexiest thing my roommate, Julia, owned. She’d let me borrow a little black dress that was too big for her. Which meant it was a little too small for me.
It plunged down in the front, showing off my ample cleavage, and hugged my hips before ending right above the knee. I’d blown my hair out into big waves, then slipped into high-heeled stilettos. Bangle bracelets adorned my wrist, and dangly silver earrings clinked as I walked.
Noah sent me a text at 8:15.
Are you ready?
Ready.
Willing?
Willing.
Show me what you’re wearing.
I snapped a selfie and sent it to him, and the reply was immediate.
I can’t wait to get you out of that dress.