All Chapters of They Know What She Wants: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Then, through the warped blur of water, a strong arms wrapped around my middle, and dragged me upward. My head broke the surface with a violent gasp that tore through my chest. I coughed, choking up water as he hauled me toward the edge. “Whoa! Damn… she really went under!” “I didn’t think she’d panic that hard—” “Is she okay?” Their voices came in fragments, floating above me as he propped me up on the pool ledge. My throat burned and my hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t even grip the tile at first. And then… Laughter. Actual fucking laughter. I turned, water streaming down my face, vision blurring with tears and chlorine. He was laughing. They all were. “Oh my God,” one of the girls giggled, covering her mouth like she was trying to hide it but failing miserably. “You really freaked out.” “She looked like someone threw a cat in the pool,” one of his guy friends added, sending another wave of laughter through the group. Ha. What a bunch of lunatic’s.T

His grip on my wrist tightened just slightly, and his chest rose in the faintest inhale— BZZZ BZZZ BZZZ His phone rang. The sound slicing through the spell. His eyes shifted away, his jaw flexed, and he let go of my wrist, but not abruptly, no, it was a controlled release that told me he knew exactly what was happening… and so did I. Without a word, he reached down, grabbed his suitcase, and lifted his phone with the same hand that had just touched my chin. “Yes,” he answered, voice clipped and distant now, as if the last sixty seconds had never happened. He didn’t look at me again. He just walked past me, heading up the stairs with calm, measured steps, phone at his ear, discussing business or something mundane while my heart thundered like I'd run miles. As soon as he disappeared around the corner, heat rushed to my face so violently I thought I might combust on the spot. I pressed my shaking hands over my cheeks. “Oh my God,” I whispered. I stood rooted to th

I expected him to question me. To demand why I was here, why I knocked at his door in the middle of the night with my pulse in my throat. But Mr. Gage didn’t ask a damn thing. He just looked at me with those dark eyes for a long, quiet moment, and then he stepped forward and kissed me. Just like that. Not even giving me enough time to inhale. His mouth claimed mine, and the noise that slipped out of me wasn’t dignified at all… It was a low, hungry moan I didn’t even recognize as my own. His hand came up to the back of my neck, guiding me, angling me, deepening the kiss like a man who had been starving for years and had finally been handed a meal, and I melted so fast I could barely hold my own weight. Fuck…. The way this man kissed me. My fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt and pulled him closer like I couldn’t bear even an inch of space between us. I felt alive and ruined all at once. “Fuck!” I cried out as his hand slid up under my thin T-shirt, his

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ I didn’t remember falling asleep. The last thing I remembered was lying on my bed, replaying everything that happened. But at some point exhaustion must have drowned everything out, because the next sensation I recognized was the feeling of someone gently shaking my shoulder. “Thea, dear?” I groaned into my pillow before my brain even processed the voice. It wasn’t Noah and it sure as hell wasn’t Mr. Gage. It was softer, older, and warm in that maternal way only women who ran entire households seemed to have. When I finally blinked my eyes open, the blurred outline of the housekeeper came into focus. She stood beside my bed holding a small laundry basket, her expression apologetic as if she hated waking people even when it was her job. “Sorry to disturb you, dear,” she said with a kind smile. “I need to clean your room.” For a moment I just stared at her, confused. My brain felt thick, heavy, fogged by sleep in a way it never was. I rubbed my eyes and

I should’ve known, honestly. Why the fuck didn’t I think of that! The fact that Noah wanted us to go somewhere without giving me any details should have been enough to set off alarms, but I was too preoccupied with thoughts of his father to notice. Of about the whole fucked up situation to be honest but the the second the car slowed down in front of that familiar brick building with the little brass plaque and the fake “laundry service” sign, a cold knot twisted in my chest. A fucking speakeasy bar?? The tires crunched over gravel as he parked, and before I could even reach for the handle, he was already stepping out, walking around the front of the car and opened my door. The air hit me first when I stepped out, cool and faintly perfumed with that mix of smoke and citrus the place always had. Like the scent clinged to the walls and refused to leave, even when the staff scrubbed everything down at dawn. I leaned a bit closer to him before I lost the courage to speak. “H