Read What He Shields (What He Wants Book Seventeen) for Free Online Page A

another sip from his whiskey,
his eyes still studying my face carefully, waiting for my reaction.
    The word, impaler, sounded scary and
foreign.
    I took in a deep breath.   “And you want to put me in it?”
    Noah nodded.
    I licked my bottom lip.   “Why didn’t you tell me you owned an
apartment building?”  
    “I own a lot of buildings, Charlotte.   Here, overseas, in other parts of the
country… Commercial property and apartment buildings are a significant part of
my portfolio.”
    “I thought we said no more secrets.”
    He raised his eyebrows, and I could tell he was
going to bring up the fact that I’d kept a secret from him.
    My eyes returned to the impaler.   “How does it work?”
    He set his bottle of whiskey down on the floor
and crossed the room to the row of filing cabinets.   He unlocked one of the padlocks with a
key that was on his keychain, then reached inside and pulled out two separate
padlocks.
    “You will get locked into it,” he said.   “Laying on your stomach, with your arms
and legs pulled back and cuffed in.”
    The filing cabinet drawer was still open, and I
could see what was inside of it, a mix of file folders, papers, and what looked
like a picture.
    I walked closer so I could get a better look,
and as I did, I felt Noah tense beside me.   His hand reached out and clamped down on the top of the drawer, but he
didn’t make a move to close it.
    I reached past his hand and picked up the
picture.
    It was of a woman standing on a beach, wearing
a huge brown straw hat, a pair of khaki capris, a flowing white shirt, and red
pedal pushers.   She was smiling, but
her eyes were fixated on something out of the camera’s lens, like someone was
about to take a picture of her but she got distracted by something or someone
else.
    “Who is this?” I asked.
    “My mother.”
    I looked at him.   His face was a blank, but I could hear
the pain in his voice.   I placed the
picture back down in the drawer, and when I did, I caught sight of a file folder.   The tab read The State vs. Noah
James, District Juvenile Court of New York, Case No. 34576.
    I sucked in a long breath.   Noah’s court case.   The one where he’d
been arrested for hurting his stepfather.
    Noah took the picture from my hand and placed it
back inside the cabinet then shut the drawer and locked it back up before I
could ask any more questions.   Then
he unlocked another drawer and pulled out a long leather switch.
    “Noah –”
    “Go stand over there, Charlotte.”   He pointed to the side of the room,
where a small area the concrete the floor was raised, creating a small
platform.
    I thought about disobeying him, but there was
no denying it.   I was turned on, the
strength of his voice and the brazenness with which he was ordering me around
drawing me in and pulling me under his spell.
    I went and stood on the platform.
    “Take your shirt off.”
    I reached down and gripped the sides of my
sweater, pulling it over my head slowly, the chill of the air instantly making
my skin prickle with goose bumps and my nipples harden under the sheerness of
my bra.   Noah had begun to unbutton
his shirt, revealing his chiseled body, the six-pack abs, the hard ridges of
his broad chest, the soft line of hair that started at
his navel and dipped below his belt.
    “Noah,” I said, swallowing.   “I want to talk about what’s in the
filing cabinet.”
    He grinned wickedly and trailed the switch over
the dusty floor, his eyes burning.   “You want to talk about what’s in that filing cabinet, Charlotte?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then take your skirt off, nice and slow so I
can see that ass.”
    I turned around and reached for the side of my
skirt, my hands fumbling as I struggled with the zipper.
    I turned around and tugged it off my hips nice
and slow, making sure to bend over as I did it, giving Noah a full view of my
ass and pussy as I did it.   Both
were bare, my panties taken by Noah in the elevator and not returned.