Page 50 of Fearless
“I just want to talk to her. Once I know she’s all right, then I can go home.” Standing outside the psychic shop, that truly had been Noah’s only intention.
He didn’t realize he’d been lying until now—with little more than three… two… one meter separating them—the desire to talk was disappearing as fast as the distance between them.
Garreth tried to step between them. He held up a cautioning hand, a glitter in his dark eyes suggesting he knew the maelstrom cutting through Noah had to be far closer to explosive than it was to calm. “Let’s sit down over here.” He tried to intercept Noah and lead him to a different table. “I’ll get us a drink—”
Side-stepping him, Noah brushed past Jaxson’s outstretched arm too, skirting right past Hadlee, who jumped up to block him.
“Wait,” she said, but over the last twenty-four hours Noah had pinballed his way from confused abandonment to concern, through all five bloody stages of fucking grief, and right now, he was well and beyond the ability to wait.
Watching him come, Kitty didn’t back away. She stepped out instead, away from the table, away from Hadlee who moved to shield her. At the very last moment, right as Noah reached her, she lifted her chin. He didn’t even know he was reaching for her until he saw his own hand clasp her throat and all hell erupted.
Hadlee screamed. People at the tables nearest to them jumped from their seats, scattered backwards. Garreth shouted his name and both he and Jaxson grabbed his arms, but from Kitty there never was a sound. Not from the moment he seized her, first by the throat and then by her ponytail. Yanking her from the wall, he took her all the way to the floor.
It was the gentlest takedown he’d ever performed and he wasn’t even angry when he did it. From the moment he touched her, that maelstrom of temper that had propelled him vanished. He more guided than threw her down, but down she went and his grip on her ponytail kept her pinned there, with one knee drawn up and her weight balanced more on her hip than her belly. Her forehead touched the floor so close to his foot that all she had to do was turn her head to press the softest kiss to the side of his shoe.
“Don’t,” he warned, only half laughing, but it didn’t stop her from whispering to him, that trembling plea that needled straight through every common-sense reason he could think of not to listen and stabbed into the dominant heart of him.
“Please…”
‘Be careful what you ask for’ didn’t even begin to cover his gut-reaction to that single, whispered word. Please, just like they were back at home and she was asking for his dominance. Were he not being restrained, he might have given it. His grip on her hair tightened. So did his grip on her throat. He caressed his thumb along the curve of her throat until he found the heady rhythm of her pulse. Heightened, but not frightened.
Not like Hadlee, whose frantic attempts to duck past Garreth were only growing more panicked. “Please, what are you doing? You have to stop! Don’t you know what she’s been through?”
Jaxson and Garreth were different. Experienced doms both, they crowded to either side of him, their grips on his arm tense and ready to intervene if he gave them a reason, but Noah wasn’t anywhere close to losing control.
As soon as Hadlee came close enough, Garreth tried to catch her, but she dodged him.
“Stop,” Garreth told her, but her eyes were huge and she wasn’t listening. She couldn’t see what Noah could feel—Kitty beneath his hands, as soft and submissive as a woman could be. She was purring, of all things. God, he loved this woman. She had no idea the trouble she was in, or maybe she did and just didn’t care. Either way, she’d closed her eyes, trusting him completely. If he let go of her neck, he had no doubt she’d have crawled up onto all kitten fours and rubbed herself against him.
Letting go of her hair, Noah slapped her ass sharply twice, bringing her back to the here and now. The kitten could come out later, once he got her home again, and head down, ass up, with her tail inserted and flipped up onto her back. He could already see her little hands kneading the pillow as she bit it, smothering her cries as he set a punishing rhythm—yeah, sure it would be punishing. His cock stirred, sending low pulses of arousal throbbing all the way through him.
“You have to stop him,” Hadlee begged, tears spilling down her cheeks.
“No,” Garreth said over his shoulder. “You have to stop. Sit down.”
“B-but…”
“Sit. Down.” His tone would brook no argument.
Neither did Noah’s, although his command was not for Hadlee. He lowered himself over Kitty. He didn’t care if they were in the bar, on the floor, surrounded by gawkers with every alert club DM hovering on the periphery while they waited to see what Jaxson would do. Jaxson, who only adjusted his grip on Noah’s arm, watching carefully as Noah dragged Kitty up by her hair until the shell of her ear brushed his lips. “I have never in my life gone halfway around the world for anyone. You pissed me off. You scared the hell out of me. You,” Noah said, with no small significance, “went to Ethen for help when you should have come to me. Why didn’t you come to me, Kitty?”
She opened her eyes, no longer purring but still not scared. “I was tired of being a burden.”
Hot sparks of temper came very close to rekindling. After everything he’d just been through, she had the nerve to say that to him? He flexed his fingers on her throat, opened his mouth, and then closed it again without a word before turning to the club owner, still gripping his arm.
“I need a private room,” he growled.
“Not a chance,” Jaxson replied.
Oh, for… Noah ground his teeth, but he managed to refrain from saying something that might get him thrown out or arrested, and once he was sure he could be civil, tried again. “How about my arm, mate? Can I have that?”
Glancing at Kitty on the floor, the club owner released Noah’s arm and stepped back.
Noah turned his smile on Garreth next. “Blokey?”
“No, you can’t!” Hadlee wailed.
Letting go of Noah’s arm, Garreth grabbed his submissive and pushed her back until the crowd in the bar swallowed them both. The last Noah heard from either of them was Garreth’s low voice demanding, “Do you trust me?”
