Pull Me Under

Chapter Six - Unsafe

I lay down on the bed with my head on the pillow facing Noah who had already lay down on top of the covers. He was looking at me with sadness in his eyes.

"This is why you don't have time to date right?" I murmured. "Your job... It's kind of intense."

He nodded and closed his eyes

"Yeah." He replied finally, opening his eyes. "I did have a girlfriend, a couple of years ago... I couldn't tell her and she assumed I was cheating on her. Things got ugly and I decided that it wasn't fair to expect my partner to have half a boyfriend so I haven't tried again since."

I ignored the flicker of jealousy that stung my gut. Noah was my stepbrother and this had happened years beforehand.

"It can't have been easy." I whispered.

"It's the loneliness that gets me. Pretending to be someone else all the time doesn't help. Which is why I left... aside from the obvious. I wanted to be normal. Find a girl, fall in love... get married. I was being a dreamer..."

I slid my hand over Noah's, he flinched, but entwined his fingers through mine. "You'll find all of that Noah. I know you will."

"We should sleep." Noah exclaimed. "Big day tomorrow."

I nodded and closed my eyes. Daylight came to quickly, the brightness woke me, spilling in from the sunrise outside. I opened my eyes and looked at Noah, he was still facing me, our hands still entwined. He was still on top of the blankets and fully dressed. A couple of minutes later there was a knock at the door. I looked down at the clock on the nightstand, it was barely 7am.

"Room service." A males voice exclaimed. My eyes narrowed, neither one of us had been awake to call for anything. I sat up and ran around to the window, looking out through a crack. A man dressed in the hotel uniform stood at the door his hands on a food cart.

I turned to face noah and pulled the blankets out from under him until he was covered. I pulled off Noah's oversized shirt, leaving only my bralette and boy leg panties and swapped the ring on my middle finger to my ring finger.

"We didn't call for anything." I exclaimed as I stood by the door. I spoke with a southern accent but I wasn't entirely sure why.

"It's complementary miss." The man replied.

I opened the door ajar, leaving the chain on. The man with the trolley was at least fifty, he was gruff and not like any room service boy I'd ever seen before.

"Look I'm real sorry." I murmured. "My husband and I, well we're newlyweds and we're really only hungry for each other."

"All the same miss, I need to bring your food in." The man exclaimed.

"Oh, please. I'm sure there's some poor souls out there in need. Please, give it to them... if you could bring us back a do not disturb sign... well that would be great. Me and Jonas don't plan to be leaving the bed today."

"Uh, okay." The man exclaimed. "Sorry to disturb."

My heart thumped as I closed the door, deadbolting it for good measure. I turned and looked at Noah who was now sitting bolt upright. He looked me up and down and then pointed to the door.

"Henchman." He mumbled. "When need to leave now. They'll be back... and now they've seen you."

He stood up and picked up his t-shirt. "A lot of you." He mused. "You have a tattoo on your back."

I felt my skin redden. The small tattoo on my right shoulder blade was small, but obvious when I wasn't wearing a shirt.

"Roman numerals for the date my dad was K.I.A." I whispered. "I may not have known him, but things like that make me feel connected to him. Mom doesn't know about it."