Page 16 of Keeping Noelle

Noelle

I smileas I lazily draw circles with my finger on Ansel’s bare chest. My body is sore from everything that we did together, but I’ve never been happier. I can’t stop smiling, can’t stop touching him.

Being in bed with him, naked, feels almost surreal. I’ve wanted Ansel for so long, and now it’s finally happened. Now he’s finally mine.

“Feels nice,” he says sleepily, and I lean up on my elbow and look down at him. “What time is it?”

“Just after six.”

“Are you hungry? I can go make us some dinner. Or we can order something,” he says, and I grin.

“I’m hungry, but I think that I could wait for a bit,” I say, leaning forward to kiss him.

He kisses me back greedily.

“Fuck, I love that I get to kiss you whenever I want now,” he says, and I giggle.

“I love that too.”

“We sh?—”

“Noelle!” Someone screams outside, breaking the quiet calm around us, and we both freeze.

Then comes the sound of someone banging on the front door.

“Who is that?” I ask as Ansel leaps out of bed and grabs his clothes off of the floor.

“I don’t know. Stay here, okay?”

“Wait! Don’t go down there. Maybe we should just call the cops or?—"

“Noelle! Get out here!” They scream, and I tense.

“It’s my stepdad. It’s Paul,” I tell Ansel, and he looks grim.

“Stay here,” he orders before he heads out of the bedroom.

“Ansel!” I call after him, but he’s already gone.

I can’t stay here, naked, and wait for him to come back, so I scramble out of bed and pull on my clothes, cursing, when I realize that my sweater is on backward and inside out.

I can hear raised voices coming from the floor below me, and I rush out of the bedroom and to the top of the stairs.

“You’re not coming inside. Noelle is staying here, and you need to leave,” Ansel says forcefully, but Paul just glares at him.

“I’m not leaving without her. She has her mom and brother worried sick.”

“I doubt that.”

“It’s true!” Paul screams, and Ansel shuts the door an inch, trying to force Paul back out onto the front porch.

I wonder how he even made it so far into the house. I know that Ansel hates him, so I’m guessing that Paul pushed in when Ansel first answered the door.

I take a step down onto the first stair, and my eyes stray to the splintered wood. I didn’t see it before, with Ansel’s body in the way, and my mouth drops as I realize that my stepdad must have kicked the door in enough to break it and get into the house.

What was his plan? What was he thinking?

“What are they worried about? That they just lost their live-in maid?” Ansel snarls at Paul.

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