REX (The Billionaire Croft Brothers, Book Three)

by Paige North

  “You know plenty about me.”

  “Not really.” I swallowed. “I don’t know where you’re from or if you have any brothers and sisters.”

  “I’m from a very small town. I have one brother. We’re not close.” He pushed my hair off the back of my neck and kissed me. “Is that enough?”

  “No,” I said honestly. “I feel so close to you, and yet that seems crazy. Because I don’t know anything about you. It’s frustrating.”

  “It is extremely difficult for me to get close to people,” he said.

  I thought about that woman, Nora, his ex-fiance, who died. I wondered if she was the reason he was afraid to get close to people. I intertwined my fingers with his. I wanted to ask him about her, but I sensed he would cause him to become more shut down than he already was.

  “Is that why you wanted to bring me to that club?” I asked. “Because you feel like if you maintain control physically, you can maintain control emotionally?”

  “Perhaps.”

  I waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t.

  I wanted more.

  I wanted him to tell me about his childhood, about where he grew up, about college, his parents, his favorite foods, his favorite cases, just… I wanted to talk to him.

  In another sense, though, this was enough, the way he was being with me. The fact that he was holding me close, our bodies perfectly meshed together, felt like some kind of victory, some kind of tiny progress when it came to getting close to him.

  “Goodnight, Charlotte,” he said.

  “Goodnight, Noah.”

  A second later, I was asleep.

  I WOKE before it was light out, blinking groggily in the dark.

  “Morning,” Noah said. He was standing on his side of the bed, dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and running pants. Even in his running clothes, fresh out of bed, he looked amazing. I shivered. “I’m going for a run,” he said. “It’s too early for you to be awake. Go back to sleep.”

  He kissed me on my cheek and I slipped back off to sleep.

  I was dimly aware of him coming back, of the sound of the shower running, of him emerging wearing only a towel, a flash of him in a suit, carrying a briefcase.

  When I finally woke up, sun was streaming through the window and the clock next to me said 10:07. So much for getting up early.

  I had a text on my phone from Noah.

  At the office. Call me when you get this.

  I sighed and lied back on the bed. The text was so perfunctory, so brief. I’d felt close to him last night, at least for a moment, and now I felt distant again.

  I was just about to call him when my phone rang.

  Professor Worthington.

  “Charlotte?” he barked when I answered.

  “Yes,” I said, trying to infuse my voice with enough energy so that he’d think I’d been awake for hours instead of sleeping in the bed of our client, a potential murderer.

  “You need to get down to the park right now,” he said.

  “Okay.” I sat up. “Is everything okay?”

  “No, Charlotte, everything is not okay. They’ve found another body.”

  “Another body?” My heart pounded in my ears.

  “Yes. It’s Katie. Noah’s secretary. She’s dead.”

  END OF BOOK THREE

  WHAT HE NEEDS

  (WHAT HE WANTS, BOOK FOUR)

  N OAH

  I COULDN’T STOP THINKING about her. Her eyes. Her skin. The way her body felt against mine. It was disconcerting, how I couldn’t get her out of my head.

  My morning run was the time I used to quiet my mind, to block out all the noise of the city and the world and my own obsessive thoughts.

  But she kept creeping in.

  And I couldn’t stop it.

  I ran faster, trying to escape her, but it was no use. My thoughts drifted to last night, how those men were looking at her in the club as I led her to the basement. They’d been salivating over her breasts and that gorgeous round ass of hers, and she’d had no idea. I’d wanted to fuck her right there, right in front of them, to show them that she was mine. But I was too protective of her for that. I didn’t even like that they got to see her in her sexy little dress. The thought of them looking at her body made me boil with jealousy.

  She was so curvy that no matter what she was wearing, she was going to become the fantasy of every man she crossed paths with. I was going to have to set some rules about how she could dress in public. I couldn’t stop men from staring at her completely, but I could certainly make it more difficult.

  My dick twitched as I remembered how she was afraid she wasn’t enough for me. The fact that she was worried about this already, after just one session at the club, made my cock hard. I couldn’t wait to explore her body, to push her, to tie her, to spank her, to fuck her and take her in every way she could even dream possible.

  I picked up my pace, trying to channel my sexual energy into something physical, but it didn’t even take the edge off.

  When I got back to my apartment, she was lying in my bed, her hair spread in a halo on the pillow. Her face was peaceful, the covers in a tangle around her body. She’d slept naked, and it took every ounce of self-control I had not to pull the covers off her, push her legs up and bury my face in her tight little cunt. Her pussy was soft and smooth and tasted like honey.

  She’d been asking questions last night, about why I needed the things I needed. I wanted to let her in, wanted to give her the answers she so desperately wanted.

  I was beginning to realize that I would do anything to keep her close to me, to make sure I could have her near me whenever I wanted. And if that involved letting her in, I would have to find a way to do that.

  My heart pulsed faster in my chest, as much at the sight of her long shapely legs and pouty little lips as the fact that I might have to let my walls down.

  The thought itself was a threat, terrifying in its intensity.

  If I let her in, what would happen? I asked myself.

  She might not understand.

  She might leave.

  She might get scared.

  She might see you for what you really are.

  A monster.

  Someone who shouldn’t be loved.

  She’ll leave you.

  Just like you deserve.

  CHARLOTTE

  STRANGULATION WAS a horrible way to die. The victim was aware of everything that was happening until their very last breath. There was usually a struggle as they clawed and fought and raged against their attacker until finally they were pulled down into the abyss of unconsciousness.

  I’d read about it back when I wanted to be a doctor, when I would spend hours in the public library, forcing myself to read study after study about the ways people could die. I learned about how people would stop eating as they got closer to death, how they would become more and more tired, about how you should never say something around a dying person that you didn’t want them to hear, since hearing was the last of the senses to go. I forced myself to learn all about death, because I was terrified of dying.

  And it had worked, at least a little, to calm my fear.

  But when I saw Katie’s body lying there on the ground, her body covered in leaves, her face calm, her lips blue, I almost threw up. I dry heaved into the bushes, thankful that Professor Worthington couldn’t see me. He was over on the other side of the trees, talking to a police officer.

  We were right off the jogging path in the park, and it was that weird time of morning where the early birds, the people who got up at five, six, seven, even eight or nine, had finished their runs. It was also unseasonably cold, and so it was relatively quiet for a Sunday morning. But there were still people walking on the path, and I ran over to one of the police officers who’d blocked off the area with yellow police tape.

  “You should cover her body,” I said. “She can’t just be… she shouldn’t just be visible like that.”

  I was surprised I’d been allowed to
get as close as I had. This was an active crime scene, and the police were supposed to be taking every precaution necessary to make sure it wasn’t compromised. I’d read about things like that happening in my case studies, police letting crime scenes become a trampled-on mess, so that no one could trust the evidence that had been collected. I’d thought those were the exception, but now I was beginning to realize how easily it could happen.

  I shook my head as the police officer just kind of shrugged at me, obviously blowing me off as a concerned citizen and not someone who knew what they were talking about. It made my blood boil, and any discomfort I’d had at seeing Katie’s body was replaced with righteous anger.

  I stomped through the leaves over to Professor Worthington. “The police are totally screwing everything up,” I declared when I saw him. “They haven’t even covered the body.”

  Professor Worthington looked at the police officer he was talking to, who held his hands up. “We were told not to touch anything until homicide got here,” the officer said. “Not my call.”

  Professor Worthington shook his head and led me a few feet down the path, out of the officer’s earshot. “Jesus, Charlotte,” he said. “You need to learn to keep your mouth shut. This is a police investigation into a murder, not some excuse for you to come down here and start playing Big Shot Lawyer.”

  I frowned. “That’s not what I was doing,” I said. “I was trying to make sure that none of the evidence got tampered with. There’s a dead body in full view of anyone who’s – “

  “They’ve cordoned off the other side of the path,” he said. “No one’s being allowed down here.”

  “I got through no problem.”

  “Yeah, well, you must have been let through right before they blocked it off.” He pointed down to the other side of the path, where sure enough, there were roadblocks set up. Two policemen stood on one side of them, directing people to either turn around or veer off onto the side trail so they could loop back around to the other side of the park.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling slightly stupid.

  My phone buzzed with a text.

  I looked down.

  Noah.

  Awake? Been thinking about fucking you all morning.

  I hesitated. Obviously, he hadn’t heard about Katie. Which was kind of weird. Shouldn’t Professor Worthington have told Noah that his secretary was dead? Unless… was it possible Noah knew, and was just acting like everything was okay?

  “Professor,” I said. “Did you… I mean, does Mr. Cutler know about Katie?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to tell him until we had more information.”

  “But don’t you think we should have gotten in touch with him immediately? It will be imperative he has an alibi.” I said a silent prayer that Katie had been killed last night, while we were at the BDSM club. It would be embarrassing to have to be Noah’s alibi, but I couldn’t have been the only one who’d seen him there, and if it was a matter of proving Noah’s innocence, well, then, I’d just have to deal with it.

  If Katie had been killed this morning, well… my breath caught in my throat. Noah had gone out for a jog. Maybe right through this park. He could have been in the vicinity of the murder right when it had happened. Katie’s body hadn’t looked like it had been there for a long time, but it was hard to tell from the quick glace I’d gotten.

  And then I remembered. Katie couldn’t have been killed last night. Because I’d seen her name on Noah’s caller ID when his phone rang. My heart began to race, my pulse pounding in my ears. What was it he’d said when he’d hung up? Something about how Katie had been having a problem but that he was taking care of it?

  It had been pretty late – so unless Katie had decided to head out for a run in the middle of the night, it was most likely she’d been killed this morning.

  The taste of bile filled my mouth and my stomach turned inside-out. The thought of Noah killing someone made me want to wretch again. I started to feel queasy, and I forced myself to take deep breaths. I remembered Noah coming home this morning, in his running clothes, taking a shower and then dressing in his suit before leaving for work. Could he have killed Katie in that time? Killed her and then just come home and gone to work like it was nothing?

  I thought about last night, how he’d held me close, how his lips had felt against the back of my neck, how his arms had felt around me. Heat flooded my body as I remembered how he rushed over to my apartment as soon as he’d heard what had happened with Josh.

  The thought that I could have been sleeping next to a murderer, that I could have been falling for a murderer, made me sick.

  You’re not falling for him, Charlotte, I told myself. You barely even know the guy. He took you to a BDSM club and gave some vague excuses about how he couldn’t let you get close to him because of his emotional barriers. Don’t confuse that for real intimacy.

  But it did feel like real intimacy.

  It felt so intimate that I let the girl part of me take over, the part of me that was a woman who was falling for a man. I ignored the law student part of me, the part that was at an active crime scene, the part that was supposed to be listening to Professor Worthington.

  I knew it was wrong, but I texted Noah.

  Your secretary’s dead. They found her in the park. Any idea who might have done it?

  It probably wasn’t the best way for him to find out. I could have been more subtle. But I needed to know what he knew.

  Where r u? came the reply.

  In the park. Answer the question.

  “Charlotte,” Professor Worthington was saying. “I’m going to need you to meet with me this afternoon. We’re going to have to start going over the police report, and find out when the autopsy is scheduled. We’ll have to meet with Mr. Cutler, we’ll have to find out exactly where he was during the time of Katie’s death.” I wanted to point out that was exactly what I’d just said, but I resisted. Professor Worthington ran his fingers through his hair and then looked over at me, his eyes sharp. “Are you taking notes, Charlotte? Or am I to assume that you have a photographic memory?”

  “Oh, um, yes... I mean, no, I don’t have a photographic memory. I’ll take notes.” I rummaged around in my bag, pulling out a legal pad and a pen. It was all I could do not to pull my phone out and hold it in my hand possessively, waiting for Noah to text me back. I had it on vibrate, but sometimes I wouldn’t hear it if it was in my bag.

  “We’re going to need to put in an information request for Katie’s computer, find out if there’s anything on it that could be helpful.”

  I was scribbling furiously, trying to keep up with everything he was saying.

  “We’ll also need her phone.” He was looking through his own phone, and I wondered if he was considering finally calling Noah. “We’ll need a computer expert, get Courtney Randio, she’s the best when it comes to that stuff. And tell her we’re going to need a lower rate, that I know what she charged Fitzgerald.”

  I was writing faster and faster, trying to keep up with all the information. The whole time, all I could think about was Noah. Noah, Noah, Noah.

  Could he have killed someone? Could I have spent last night with a killer? My instinct said no. But that was how sociopaths and psychopaths got you. They charmed you and made you think they could never be capable of the heinous things they did. It was part of their personality disorder. We’d had to read all about personality disorders in intro to criminal law last year when we studied insanity defenses.

  Would Noah be charged with murder? Would we have to plead him as being insane? Would I be defending a man I’d slept with from murder?

  “Oh, good,” Professor Worthington said, looking down the walking path toward the police barrier. “There’s Josh.”

  I turned to look. Sure enough, there was Josh. He was standing on the other side of the barrier, obviously having been stopped by the policemen. He was gesturing to Professor Worthington.

  “What’s he doing here?” I asked.


  “I asked him to come down,” Worthington said. “You’re going to need help with all the paperwork.”

  My head was spinning, adrenaline pumping through my veins. Now not only did I have to worry about Noah being a murderer, but I had to worry about working with Josh.

  “I thought Noah said he didn’t want him on the case,” I said, trying my best to keep my voice from betraying any emotion.

  “Noah?” Professor Worthington asked, raising his eyebrow.

  “Um, I mean, Mr. Cutler.”

  “Mr. Cutler didn’t want Josh working directly with him, that’s true. But I’m sure he wouldn’t have any objections to him working on paperwork.” Professor Worthington put his fingers in his mouth and whistled down to the police officers. “Hey!” he said. “Let him through! He’s with me!”

  “Why are we allowed back here anyway?” I asked. Now that I thought about it, it was definitely bizarre. Why was someone’s lawyer being allowed onto an active crime scene? Especially since Noah hadn’t even been charged with a crime.

  Worthington turned to me and glared. “Charlotte,” he said. “Please don’t be so naïve. With the law, it’s all about who you know.” His gaze focused on something over my right shoulder. “Josh,” he said. “Finally.”

  “What’s up?” Josh said, obviously deciding to be totally unprofessional. Not that I was surprised. Someone who’d been jerking off into my panties twelve hours ago probably wasn’t too concerned with decorum.

  “What’s up is that there’s a dead body,” Worthington said. He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe how obviously incompetent we were.

  “Hey, Charlotte,” Josh said. He gave me a big smile and held out a paper Starbucks cup. “I brought you a coffee.”

  I thought about taking it from him and throwing it in his face, or spitting in it and then throwing it in his face, or maybe just spitting in his face. But then I thought, fuck it, why should I even give him the satisfaction? I knew he would have loved to see me rattled, would have loved to see me squirm and have some kind of freak out in front of Professor Worthington. Josh was a pervert and a snake. And perverts and snakes had a lot in common, especially their desire to get under your skin.