His voice carries easily.
I whimper, torn between going forward and turning back. If I go to him… maybe he won’t be so mad that I fled from him, making him chase. Just because Patrick won’t hurt me, that doesn’t mean he won’t make me pay for my disobedience…
Fuck.
Disobedience.
This isn’t just a trap, is it? It’s atest.
And that’s why, when he says one more word, I go against every instinct inside of me and listen.
“Stop.”
I stop. Shivering in the snowy weather, stuck between a couple of snow-covered trees, stamping my boots to keep the chill from creeping in… I stop.
On the plus side, his cable-knit sweater combined with the exertion it cost me to run as fast as I did… yeah, I’m notthatcold. Not yet. I suddenly understand why he insisted on making me wear it, and when he appears out of the darkness a few moments later, carrying an oversized bag with him, it hits me that this… like everything else Patrick’s done so far… was meticulously planned.
He didn’t open the door to see if I’d go. He opened it because hewantedme to.
Dropping the bag at the base of one of the toweringtrees with its empty branches and the snow piled up on the naked wood, Patrick stalks toward me. His hand closes around my arm, pulling my body so that I’m backed up against his hardness. He’s solid and warm behind me, his scent suddenly going to my head, and it’s like the world just narrowed to the space we occupy together.
“You were doing so well,” he murmurs, hot on my ear.
I swallow nervously. “What? You said I could choose.”
“I did,” he agrees. “You chose to run. But when I told you to stop, what did you do?”
Fuck. He wants me to tell him. He wants me to admit it.
On a sigh, I tell him, “I stopped. Okay?”
He drops a kiss to the side of my neck. “You obeyed, Noelle. That’s what you did. And now, when you continue to do so, you’ll see just how… pleasurable it can be to do what you’re told.”
My heart skips a beat, but I can’t tell if it’s because I’m scared again—or because I do want to see exactly what Patrick means by that.
Another kiss before his teeth scrape down gently. “Be a good girl, won’t you? Stay here. Let me get set up and, I promise you, you’ll be glad you did.”
Going over to the large, black bag he carried with him, he unzips it calmly, as if we’re about to decorate atree instead of unraveling whatever’s left of my resistance. I almost laugh out of stunned surprise when my analogy proves apt as he pulls out a long string of—I shit you not—Christmas lights.
A click of a button on an attached battery pack has them turning on. Unlike the twinkling white lights on the Christmas tree in the chalet, these are colorful. Red, green, orange, blue, yellow… it’s like a rainbow coming to life in the dark as he sets them down on the pristine snow.
Next, he pulls out a dark tarp. Could be black, could be blue, but I whimper again when I see it. It looks like something a butcher would put down before he got to work… and it’s in the hands of a contract killer.
Patrick lays it out, but not before turning to me. “Don’t worry about this. Understand me? It’s not what you think. But it might be necessary, and, my dear Starling, I’m nothing if not prepared.”
And, as though eager to prove it, he pulls one last item from the bag. To my clear confusion, I see it’s one of the decorative wastebaskets from the chalet. He turns it upside down, jamming his boot on top of it a few times to get it caught in the pile of snow. Then, once he’s sure it’s not going anywhere, he looks back at me.
“Join me in front of this tree, Noelle. Stand on that. We don’t want you losing your toes from the cold.”
What the fuck?
I glance over at Patrick. Beneath the moonlight, the look in his face tells me thatthisis the true test. I could refuse him. I could tell him to bite me. I could scream and hope that someone, anyone, might be out late this Christmas Eve and help me… or I can do what I’m told and trust that I can believe this man who walked into my life and has takenit over.
“You wanted obedience,” I say hoarsely, shuffling over to the tree. “Is this it?”
“Yes,” he answers simply.
Thought so.
