Chapter 5 Come In

Ava fought the urge to argue further, recognizing the futility of negotiating with a man who had already seized all the power. Luckily, she hadn't met such men in the courtroom and she hoped it stayed that way. Most of the men in her firm were intimidated by her anyway.

The challenge in Noah's gaze was an acknowledgment that let her know he intended to do more fuck her.

The door clicked shut behind her, plunging them into a deep, heavy darkness, broken only by the faint light coming from the small lamp.

The apartment was immediately, eerily quiet. There was no trace of the frantic energy that had rattled her wall just an hour ago, no lingering scent of perfume, only the clean, masculine scent of Noah.

She blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. She found herself standing in a large, open space.

The apartment was sparsely furnished. There was a low, heavy sofa, dark and minimalist, and little else in the main room. The walls were bare. It looked less like a home and more like a high-end, temporary staging area. Everything about the space screamed no permanence, no attachments.

Hadn't he been here for years, though? Ava began to wonder.

She pulled off her coat and hung it on the rack.

Her Winnie the Pooh PJs were now on full display. But she didn't feel any less of herself. She loved Winnie, and that was that.

Noah didn't move toward her. He simply watched her, his presence a heavy, commanding weight.

She took another deep, shaky breath, trying to anchor herself.

"Protection," she managed to say, clinging to her last verbal boundary. "I have my own, if you don't, and I rush to my apartment to get it."

He gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. He then turned, his back to her, and walked toward the far side of the apartment. His steps were silent on the dark wood floor.

He reached a door she hadn't noticed before, tucked into a wall that seemed to line up exactly with where the shared wall was between their apartments. The door was darker than the wall, unadorned, and solid.

Noah paused at the door, glancing back over his shoulder. He didn't speak. He didn't gesture. He simply held her gaze, his expression unchanging, a silent command hanging in the air between them.

Follow me.

Ava didn't hesitate this time. Her professionalism was gone. Her anxieties were dissolving into liquid lust. She walked toward the center of the room, toward the mysterious door, and toward the man who had promised her everything with a single, silent gesture.

As she reached the door, Noah pulled it open. Beyond was an even deeper pocket of blackness, and from the direction of the opening, Ava felt a noticeable drop in the temperature of the air. It felt vast, cold, and utterly removed from the relative warmth of his living space.

She paused, her hand hovering near the doorframe, a sliver of primal fear returning. She glanced at the wall and realized that this room, whatever it was, was located directly adjacent to her bedroom, the room where she had spent months listening to the sounds of his passion.

This is the source.

Noah stepped fully through the threshold, vanishing into the darkness of the inner room.

"Come in," his voice instructed, the words muffled slightly by the strange acoustics of the room, sounding low, utterly irresistible, and infinitely far away. The sound wrapped around her, pulling her forward.

She stepped across the threshold, past the silent, watchful sentry of Noah's body, and into the absolute blackness of the hidden room.

The door swung shut behind her with a heavy, final clunk.