My eyes widen, and I freeze in place as their gazes settle on me. But more importantly, Noah’s penetrative gaze, which says more than words ever could. Those eyes could set a girl’s body ablaze, and with just a single look, he’s made me the object of everyone’s fascination, including his. Almost as if to say … she’s mine, back off.
A blush spreads on my face.
I don’t mean for it to happen, but my body responds to him in ways I can’t explain and don’t even dare to talk about.
“Natalie, how kind of you to join us,” Noah says as he approaches me. He places a kiss on the top of my hand and gazes at me from underneath his lashes, the look bold and captivating as though he’s telling me this won’t be the only body part he’ll be kissing tonight.
A sudden slam makes me jolt from surprise. An older man’s hand is smashed onto the table, a napkin underneath. He turns his head toward Noah. He’s the only one who hasn’t looked at me. He clears his throat.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” Noah suddenly says, and he pulls me with him toward the table.
“Noah, what’s the meaning of this?”
The man refuses to look, even as I stand beside the table, right where Noah was seated.
“Have you forgotten the rules?”
“I haven’t,” Noah replies. “But I think this is more important than the rules.”
“Nothing is more important than the rules,” the man says, still refusing to look at me. “You out of everyone should know that by now.”
The man gets up and, without even glancing at me, leaves the room. I stare at the doors through which he left until another elder closes them again. Seems like Noah’s got some issues with this particular patriarch. This could get interesting.
Noah snorts, shaking his head, and he redirects his attention toward me. “No matter. I’ll deal with that later.”
“Who was that?” I whisper as he brings me toward a seat.
“My father.”
I gulp at his response, but he pulls back a seat, and says, “Sit.”
Everyone else glares at him.
“This is Patrick,” he says, pointing at one of the men sitting at the table, “a fellow patriarch. But I think you two already met before … at the Jacuzzi.”
“Hello,” I say, swallowing away the lump in my throat. The man averts his gaze and focuses on Noah. “You know this isn’t allowed, right?”
“Rules are made to be broken, Patrick,” Noah replies sternly.
They both glare at each other, and then Patrick scoots his chair back and gets up. “Okay. I’m done,” he says, briefly glancing at his plate of food which is only half empty. He too walks to the door, but he does throw a final glance my way and winks, leaving me with an awkward, unsettling feeling in my stomach.
“Sit,” Noah says as he holds the chair in place almost like a threat.
I do what he asks, and he scoots me closer to the table where there’s an empty plate in front of me. But I don’t dare to touch any of the utensils … or the lovely food begging to be eaten.
Noah walks to his side of the table, right across from me.
“Well, I guess I’m finished,” the other patriarch says, right before Noah sits down next to him.
“John, you too?” He sighs.
“I’ll see you at prayer time,” John says, and he walks out of the room, clutching a book. When the doors are closed again, Noah and I are all alone in a giant room meant for many … but none like me.
“They don’t want me here, do they?” I ask.
He makes a face. “Acute observation.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, neither do I.”
He smirks. “I do.”
He grabs two pieces of bread and some jam and peanut butter and spreads them onto the bread before smashing the two pieces together and taking a bite.
“Go on. Eat,” he says.
I frown and stare at the plating and the utensils. My fingers automatically reach for my mouth. Normally, there would be a cloth tied around my mouth and the women wouldn’t be allowed to speak. It’s been so long since I last felt my own lips while in front of a dining table, it’s almost surreal.
“What’s wrong?” Noah asks, taking another bite.
“Nothing.” I look away.
“You’re not used to eating like this?” he asks with a genuine voice. When he sees my surprised face, he adds, “I know the ladies at the dining hut only let initiates eat with a scarf around their mouths. But you don’t have to do that when you live with me. Besides, you’re not an initiate anymore.”
I blink a couple of times, confused as to how he knows we had to eat like that. Did I miss more cameras, or did someone tell him? Or did he and his fellow patriarchs decide that this is how initiates—women—are to eat? Voiceless and without emotion?
“Don’t be scared to eat and converse. You’re allowed here. I promise you won’t be gagged. At least not at the dining table,” he jests and winks. I’m sure he means something entirely lewd. “Perks of being mine.”
Mine. Every single time he says that word, it reverberates in my ears.
Did I make the right choice?
Should I have chosen another man over him?
Stuck in the huts for life or a life of luxury as a pet to a man determined to own me?
No one should ever have to make that choice … but I did, and now I have to live with the consequences. There’s no easy way out. No escape button. No exit game.
There’s just him, me, and this goddamn table filled with yummy treats. I can no longer ignore my growling stomach, so I grab a piece of toast and the butter too. Picking up my knife is another hard job, though, as we didn’t get them in the dining hut. All we got were spoons and occasionally forks, if the food was difficult to pick up. But everything was pre-made, ready to be gobbled up in one go, none of it this exquisite.
There are actually blueberry pancakes and maple syrup.
Just like in the real world.
It’s as if everything’s normal again … but it isn’t.
Smearing on the butter feels like it takes forever, especially with his persistent gaze.
When I’m finished, I place the knife down and take a bite. God, it tastes amazing. I can’t remember the last time I had butter on toast. Was it always this good?
“Glad you’re enjoying the food,” he muses, smiling.
I put down the toast.
“Is this how things will go from now on? We’re going to pretend everything’s peachy?” I retort.
He cocks his head. “I’m just asking if you’re enjoying the food. That’s it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say.
“Yes, it does. I want you to enjoy yourself,” he says.
“Why? To make all this more palatable?” I raise a brow.
He stops in the middle of cutting a pancake into pieces. “This is just one of many benefits of becoming my wife, Natalie.”
I sit back in my chair, leaning away from the food. “Well, I don’t want it.”
He snorts. “You sound like a petulant child now.”
“Why me? Why not any of the other girls in the community?” I ask. “You could pick any one of them, and they’d fawn all over you. They’d drop to their knees right in front of you.”
He leans onto the table with his elbow. “I don’t want any other woman, Natalie. You’re the one.”
There’s such persuasion in his voice that I’m almost starting to believe I’m special.
But I’m not. I’m just a girl who was taken from her simple life and thrust into a cult-like world without any explanation other than a symbol. That symbol is what binds us and what keeps me from getting killed.
So I ask the only question that could bring me close to real answers. “Where is my mother?”
He smiles. “All in due time, Natalie. Now eat your breakfast.”
“Why should I? It’ll only keep me alive longer.”
He cocks his head again. “Are you threatening to go on a hunger strike? Because I can arrange for you to be tube-fed if necessary.” He picks up a piece of pancake with his fork and casually stuffs it into his mouth.
“There are no limits to your depravity, are there?” I say with tears staining my eyes.
“No. You’re too important,” he says.
“The others didn’t seem to think that way, did they?” I muse, cocking my head too now.
“The patriarchs, you mean?” His nostrils flare. “They’ll come around.”
“You aren’t following the rules, are you? Am I even allowed to be in here? To eat with you?”
There’s a pause before he answers. “No.” He swallows down a piece of pancake. “But rules can be changed.”
I knew it. He’s going against protocol, which means he’s vulnerable right now. Maybe, just maybe, if I kick up enough of a ruckus, they’ll make him change his mind about me.
“I know you’re scheming, Natalie. I can see it,” he says. “But I will warn you now, if I don’t get my way … no one gets what they want.”
I press my lips together. He says it like he means it, and I believe him … I believe wholly that he’s capable of killing me if push comes to shove. If he had to … if there was no other way to save his own skin from the wrath of the other patriarchs, he’d probably do it.
There goes my idea.
But I can’t give up yet. Maybe if I can find out more about the others living here, I could use it to my advantage. If I could talk to one of them, maybe they’d let me go or convince Noah to do so.
“Normally, the women eat separately from us men, as business is discussed at the breakfast table, which is not relevant for the women.”
Because they’re wives, and their only objective in life is to please the men, but he won’t say that out loud.
“But I want to make an exception for you because you’re special.”
“I’m not,” I say.
“You are,” he says. “Just because you don’t believe it doesn’t make it any less true.”
Why is he always so cryptic? Why can’t he just tell me and get it over with? Or is he saving the details for some kind of devious plan?
I grab my toast and take another reluctant bite. The smile that follows on his face makes me want to spit it all out again.
“Tastes good, doesn’t it?” he muses.
“Not when I’m being held captive,” I say.
“You’re not. You can go anywhere you want as a patriarch’s wife.”
“Except home,” I spit back.
He puts down his fork and knife, and says, “This is your home now.”
My lip twitches. “You do know I had a life, right? I had a job. Friends. People will miss me, and they will tell the cops about my disappearance.”
His brows rise again. “No, they won’t, because they’ve all been sent a text or email with the notification that you’re moving to another country and will not be coming back.”
My jaw drops.
“You’ve also resigned from your job … at a local food shelter, right?” he adds, grabbing an apple and taking a bite.
I don’t know what to say. “You … You can do that?”
“Natalie …” He sighs. “You underestimate me.”
Maybe I have.
“And our ability to disguise our actions,” he says, taking another bite.
No wonder he knew my name. He must’ve found out where I lived and invaded my apartment just to get my private details and erase me from my own life.
“Right, because you’ve done this before to other girls,” I say, letting out a sigh.
“Not me. The other patriarchs,” he replies. “Some of them have … special wishes.”
“Fresh wombs,” I add, feeling queasy just from uttering those words.
“You could call it that,” he says, casually leaning back in his chair. “But it’s mostly for pleasure. The girls usually end up getting married to other men in this community first.”
“But not me,” I say with a scowl. “You’re the only patriarch to ever marry an outsider?” I ask.
When he nods, I scoot my chair back and get up. “You didn’t want an easy girl. You wanted one who would fight back,” I say, as I step aside and walk around the table to his side. “A girl to please your every savage need.” I steal the apple from his hand and take a bite myself.
Noah turns around just enough to fully face me, and he grabs my hips and puts me right in front of him against the table. “If I wanted that, I would’ve taken any other random girl who fought me,” he says, his hands sliding down toward my thighs. “But I want something special, something no other girl can give me.”
Something special … but what does that mean?
He bites his lip, and for a second, I almost want him to bite me instead. His hand dives underneath the black and red dress, and my legs instantly tense up. We stare at each other as he relentlessly continues, his fingers slithering up toward my underwear and curling underneath it to pull it back.
I cross my legs, so he grabs me by the waist, sits me down on the table and nudges my legs apart.
“I didn’t dress to get undressed,” I say.
A smirk forms on his lips. “You didn’t get dressed. She dressed you.” He tears away the fabric of my underwear with no remorse, and I gasp as he chucks it into the corner. “Because I wanted you dressed.” He pushes up the dress over my knees and beyond my thighs until my pussy is exposed again. I swallow hard when I catch him glancing. “And now I want you undressed.”
With a finger, he presses down on my nub, and a spark lights my body on fire. I wish he didn’t have this effect on me. Makes me wish I could resist. “You want a whore,” I say, trying to make sense of all of this.
His eyes narrow as he spreads my legs and slides two fingers up and down my slit. “I want a wife. Someone to cherish and love. Someone ripe to become a queen. Someone to be mine for the rest of my life.”
He circles my clit in such a way that it’s hard for me to breathe, let alone think. But I have to rebuke, I have to keep fighting, because if I don’t … all my struggles will have been for nothing.
“Someone to birth a child,” I add.
“Let’s not talk about that,” he murmurs, expertly playing with my clit until I’m beginning to lose all sense of decorum. “Let’s talk about this little pussy … my pussy … and how it didn’t come last time when you were with me in the bath.”
My eyes widen. “Wha—”
“You thought I wouldn’t notice?” he says, shaking his head. “I may be headstrong, but I’m not foolish. I know when a woman is faking it.”
Even though I don’t want it to, a blush still spreads on my cheeks. I draw my legs together, but he sticks a thumb between to prevent them from closing. He gazes up at me from underneath his thick eyelashes, and says, “Uh-uh … Shame has no place here.”
“You knew all this time?” I mutter.
He nods slowly. Well fuck. And here I was thinking I’d one-upped him.
“Bad girl,” he says, licking his bottom lip. “I’ll have to punish you for that.”
Of course, he has to. He’s the patriarch after all. Can’t have someone deny his wishes, even if it involves my body.
His fingers slide up and down my slit, almost to tease me, but then he shoves one finger inside without warning, and my mouth drops.
“But first, I’m going to finish what I started in the bathroom,” he says.
His finger thrusts up and down, causing sweet, delicious ripples in my body that I wish I could ignore. I’m defenseless against him, and he knows it. I can see it in his eyes, in the way he looks at me with a hint of arrogance. He knows he owns me, and that there’s nothing I can or will do to stop him.
And as he dives in deep, I struggle not to clamp my legs together and come right there and then. He really knows how to drive me insane with lust.
“That’s it, Natalie … let me own you,” he murmurs, circling my clit with his thumb too all while thrusting into me.
I sit there, taking it all in, wondering how long I can keep up this charade of not caring, of letting this man do whatever he wants to me without fighting back. I should push him off, should kick him in the balls, I should do so many things, yet I can’t bring myself to actually do it.
Suddenly, he pulls out of me, and I’m left with a wantonness that makes me feel dirty, inside and outside. Sweat drips down my back as I swallow away the saliva while he brings his fingers to his mouth and licks them.
“Mmm …” The groan that follows creates goose bumps all over my body. “That won’t do.”
He places a hand on my belly and pushes me until I let myself go and slide down onto the table. Then he leans in and plants his face between my legs. His tongue against my clit is all it takes for my mind to go numb. Nothing else registers anymore. Not the fact that I’m on a dining table with food stuck in my hair, or that I’m in a home that doesn’t belong to me, nor that this community that wants to turn me into a birthing machine for one of their seven rulers.
All I can think of is the sweet bliss of his tongue circling around my clit, sliding down into my crevice, turning my mind into mush. And as he digs his fingers into my skin, I no longer tense up. Instead, I close my eyes and let it all wash over me … like a sinner on drugs.
