Page 88 of Defend Me

“Yes,” I gasp.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, please,” I moan, and then he’s there, filling up that tender aching need inside me. Noah’s cock fits just right, as if it was made for me, and I cry out at the heavy drag of him, the licks of pleasure spiraling over me. His other hand strokes my clit as he thrusts himself inside me, urgent and insistent, and I beg him for more, feeling him grow harder as that center of need grows, sparkling and aching, each thrust bringing me closer to the brink. Noah fucks me until I can’t see straight and then he hits…just…there and I explode, my body quivering with release. I feel him come too, feel him spend himself inside me as I shatter in the ultimate bliss.

Noah’s head drops to my shoulder, both of us panting hard. He eases himself out of me and grabs a tissue from the nightstand, coming back to kiss my neck, my cheeks, to wrap me in his arms and kiss me tenderly. I love the dichotomy of this man—so commanding during sex, so sweet and sensitive after.

I look down at the scrap of black lace on the ground. “You owe me a thong,” I say.

He grimaces. “I did get a bit carried away.”

“Probably not a good idea to do this when people in the house are still awake,” I say. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him in for a kiss. “But I’m planning to sneak down here every night, after everyone’s asleep.”

“Well,” Noah says grinning. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”

“We need to set some ground rules,” I warn him.

“Right.”

“Absolutely no texting. We can’t leave any sort of digital trail. Unless it’s some kind of emergency about the case, zero contact on our phones, okay?”

“Got it,” Noah says.

“And when we’re in front of other people, we have to keep up appearances. No looks. No smiling. Definitely no physical contact of any kind. We have to stay professional.”

“Professional,” Noah says. “Got it.”

“Good,” I say, grinning wickedly, then I push him back down onto the bed.

Over the next few weeks, I discover just how hard being professional is when you’re falling for your brother’s best friend.

But I did not graduate top of my class without being able to take on hard tasks. I’ve got a mountain of work on my plate to keep me occupied, and during the day, I maintain focus on that.

Every night, however, I shut off the back door alarm when the rest of the house is asleep and sneak down to the guesthouse to see him. There’s an entire continent of Noah that I want to travel, and my nights are consumed by him, exploring his body, discovering all his different peaks and plateaus. During the day, though, I miss him so much it takes my breath away. I know this is the honeymoon period, where everything is shiny and new. It’shard not to think of what happens next—when I go back to work at Phillips, Brace, and Horowitz and Noah stays here in Magnolia Bay. I’m still not sure how that will work. Orifit will work. But we don’t talk about the future yet. Almost like we don’t want to jinx anything.

Noah spends his days going through the logbooks while I set up interviews with everyone on Wilbur’s witness list. Grayson helps whichever of us needs him most. Noah and I make a good team. We communicate efficiently and effectively—and he’s excellent at prepping me for the interviews, since he knows everyone in town. The logbooks are frustrating. Each book contains multiple years, jumping from one to another in a matter of a page, and there’s no order to them, so it’s far more time consuming than either of us thought.

I get to know the people of Magnolia Bay, the people I once considered beneath me, through the interviews. My line of questioning is always the same. I start with Mrs. Greerson, Magnolia Grapevine Queen.

After asking her about her memories of the party, I turn my questions to the morning of the shooting. “Do you remember what time you woke up that morning?” I ask.

“Same time as always,” she replies, like it’s obvious.

I pause. “And what time is that?”

“I get up at six and make my coffee. Then I watch the news at six-thirty. Then I usually start checking in with people around town.”

“People like who?” I ask.

“Rebecca Watson—she and her husband, Lyle, run Furever Friends, the animal sanctuary. Rosemary Davenport, Isla’s mother, at the Thorn.”

I jot down all the names. “Do you remember that morning?” I ask. “Did you happen to look out the window or go outside or anything?”

Mrs. Greerson grimaces. “You mean did I see Noah, far awayfrom Everton Estate? No, I did not. I wish I had, child. I truly wish I had.”

I interview Rebecca Watson and Mrs. Davenport, also on the list, along with both of their husbands. The Davenports didn’t even go to the anniversary party and were busy preparing breakfast for their guests in the morning. The Watsons left the party early—they were awake that morning, but they were tending to a sick goat. None of them saw Noah.

Next, I interview Dev Kumar, who runs the Grater Good. He’s a cheerful guy with a corny sense of humor, always at the ready with a terrible cheese pun. He assures me he was not awake until later that morning—he woke up to a phone call about the murder from Franco Amercini.

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