REX (The Billionaire Croft Brothers, Book Three)

by Paige North

  At the end of my orgasm, just as my pussy was spasming on his cock, I felt him release his load inside of me, shot after shot, filling me with his cum.

  He collapsed against me, both of us spent.

  When we’d finally caught our breath, I unwrapped my legs from around his waist and lowered them to the floor. I was breathless, light-headed, almost high from what we’d just done.

  “Charlotte,” Noah said, pushing my hair back from my face. “I don’t ever... I thought I’d lost you. I don’t want to ever feel like that again.”

  He pulled me close, so close I could feel his heart beating rapidly against mine.

  Then, finally, he pulled away.

  “Well,” he said, picking his sweater up off the floor. “I should probably head back to the table. I’ll give you a second, and then you can join me.”

  Once he was gone, I let out the breath I’d been holding.

  I splashed some water on my face. My cheeks were flushed and my hair was a mess, but other than that, I didn’t look that bad. I dressed quickly and smoothed my hair down, hoping the waiter wouldn’t realize what we’d been up to, but knowing he probably would.

  When I got back to the table, Noah was standing by the table, with his coat on.

  “Hi,” he said when he saw me.

  “Hi.” I looked at our table. It had been cleared and reset with new place settings.

  “Oh,” I said. “I guess we’re not having dinner.” I was disappointed. I was suddenly ravenous, and I wanted my steak.

  “I had them wrap it up,” Noah said. “I thought it would taste better at my place.”

  I smiled. “It will taste better at your place,” I said.

  “Then let’s go.” He took my hand and led me through the main part of the restaurant toward the front door. I liked that he was holding my hand, that he was showing the world that we were together.

  I liked belonging to him.

  When we got out onto the sidewalk, I looked around for his car.

  “The car’s waiting down the block,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to take it, or if you were more comfortable walking.”

  “I’m okay with the car.” I appreciated that he was asking me this, loved that he wanted to make sure I was okay with taking the car after I’d been hesitant before. And I was okay with it now. I felt foolish for not trusting him, for going against my instincts and thinking he might have done something wrong.

  Noah wasn’t a murderer.

  He was the man I was falling in love with.

  We were halfway to the limo when it happened.

  Three police cars pulled up to the sidewalk, their sirens blaring, throwing beams of red and blue light onto the concrete.

  Two cops got out of the car, guns drawn.

  “Noah Cutler,” one of them yelled. “Put your hands up in the air! Right now, put your hands up in the air!”

  My heart pounded in my chest, the blood rushing in my ears. Noah dropped my hand and stepped away from me. I went to grab it again reflexively, but he was already moving away, out of my reach.

  “Really?” Noah asked, sighing. “It had to go down this way?”

  The cop reached into his pocket and pulled out his handcuffs. “Noah Cutler,” he said. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Katie Price. You have the right to remain silent…”

  He kept talking, reading Noah his rights, but I couldn’t hear him. It was suddenly like everything was happening in the slow motion haze of a nightmare I couldn’t get out of. I was rooted in place, unable to move, unable to talk, unable to even process what was going on.

  “Call Worthington,” Noah instructed me before they loaded him into the back of the police car.

  I tried to pull out my phone and call Professor Worthington, but I couldn’t. I was frozen in place. And I stayed frozen in place, watching as the sirens started back up and the cruiser pulled back onto the street.

  Bile rose up in my throat and I leaned over and dry heaved onto the sidewalk.

  Noah had been arrested.

  Which could only mean two things.

  One, they had evidence implicating him in Katie’s murder.

  And two, things were about to get even more complicated.

  Finally, I pulled out my phone and dialed Professor Worthington.

  “Professor,” I said when he answered. “We have a problem.”

  END OF BOOK FIVE

  WHAT HE PROTECTS

  (WHAT HE WANTS, BOOK SIX)

  C HARLOTTE

  IT BOTHERED me that I knew exactly how to get to the police station. In fact, it almost seemed normal now, walking in and seeing the same receptionist who had been there when Noah was questioned.

  She was decidedly less friendly today. This time, there were no private looks about how hot Noah was, no professional tone or polite attitude. She gave me a sigh when she saw me, and acted put-out when I told her I was there to speak with someone who’d just been arrested.

  “Name?” she asked.

  “Mine or the, um, sus—person’s?”

  “Suspect’s.”

  “Noah Cutler.” I’m sure I was just being paranoid, but I felt like she could somehow tell I had a personal interest in the case.

  “Are you his lawyer?” she asked, looking me up and down skeptically. Not that I could blame her. I didn’t look like a lawyer.

  “No,” I said. “I’m a law student. But I’m part of his legal team.”

  She shook her head. “Did he call his lawyer?”

  “Of course he called his lawyer.” It wasn’t technically true. I was the one who’d called Professor Worthington, explaining to him what had happened while I stood on a busy street corner. He hadn’t seemed shocked or alarmed at all – he just said ‘I’ll meet you there’ and then he’d hung up.

  “Well, then you can wait over there,” the receptionist said. “Until the lawyer gets here.”

  She said “lawyer” very pointedly, like since I wasn’t one, I had no business being there. I sighed and sat down in one of the folding chairs in the lobby. I rummaged through my bag and pulled out a notebook. But there was nothing for me to make notes on.

  I could have opened my iPad and tried to catch up on my reading for school, but I was too antsy. Noah had been arrested. There was going to be a trial. And evidence. The prosecutor would dig deep into Noah’s life and ask him all kinds of questions.

  If anyone found out about our relationship, I’d be subpoenaed. They’d ask me about our sex life, if Noah had ever gotten rough with me, if he’d ever hurt me. And even though he hadn’t ever hurt me, I knew enough about the law to realize they would make it look like he had.

  The prosecutor would ply me with specific questions, like if Noah had ever left marks on my wrists, if he’d ever spanked me so hard it made my skin red. And Noah had done those things -- not in the way they’d try to paint it, but it wouldn’t matter. They’d ask me, and they wouldn’t understand about the sexual part of it, about the domination and submission. Hell, I didn’t even understand most of it.

  If I lied, I could get arrested for perjury. And if that happened, I could kiss my law career good bye.

  What a huge fucking mess, I thought to myself. Why couldn’t I have just fallen in love with some normal law student, the kind of guy who would study hard and get good grades and then take some boring job in corporate law? Why did I have to get involved with an older man, one with a penchant for BDSM and a tortured past?

  I pulled out my phone and watched the second hand on the clock icon slowly move around the screen, willing it to move faster. Professor Worthington should have been here by now. I thought about calling him, but I didn’t want to be a pest or seem too eager. Now that Noah had been officially arrested, it was even more important for me to make sure I stayed involved in his case.

  I got up and paced the room, because the energy inside of me needed somewhere to go -- I was starting to feel like I was going to scream.

  “You know, he was probably tak
en to Central Booking,” the receptionist piped up helpfully.

  I turned around. “Excuse me?”

  “Central Booking. It’s where they take people after they’ve been arrested. While they wait to be arraigned.”

  I took in a deep breath through my nose and resisted the urge to scream at her for not telling me that sooner. Obviously she knew I was waiting for Noah and Professor Worthington -- I’d told her that when I’d gotten here. So why would she let me sit here like some kind of fool, wasting time when Noah wasn’t even here? Although it wasn’t entirely her fault. Of course I knew clients didn’t speak with their lawyers at the police station, that once they were arrested and had their information recorded, they were sent to Central Booking. I should have known better -- when Professor Worthington had said ‘I’ll meet you there,’ he’d meant Central Booking -- but I was so frazzled I hadn’t thought of it. My total lack of forethought definitely didn’t bode well for my law career.

  Get it together, Holloway, I told myself.

  I ran outside and hailed a taxi while looking up the address for Central Booking on my phone. I had a frantic energy about me, and I tried to force myself to calm down, but my hands were shaking as I opened the door to the cab and gave the cabbie the address.

  By the time we pulled up in front of Central Booking, I’d calmed down a little, but not much. There were a bunch of people loitering on the steps of the building, smoking and talking on their cell phones. Men in hoodies wandered around the sidewalk, looking me up and down as I walked up the front steps.

  I thought about calling Professor Worthington to ask if he was here yet, ask him to come outside and walk me in, but then I told myself there was no reason to be intimidated. If I was going to be a lawyer, I was going to have to get used to doing things like this. And besides, there were tons of cops right inside the front doors -- it wasn’t like anything bad could happen to me here. The irony wasn’t lost on me – here I was, going inside to voluntarily look for a man who’d been accused of murder, all the while being afraid of the people outside.

  No one gave me a hard time as I walked past, all of them busy on their cell phones, probably calling lawyers or bail bondsmen as they tried to help their relatives and friends on the inside.

  The inside of Central Booking was nothing like the police station. At the police station, even with the curt receptionist, you could sense a certain kind of order, a certain kind of safety. The people at the police station were there to fill out reports, or answer questions, or provide information. The police station hummed with activity, but it was a kind of controlled activity. You could tell whatever was going on there was serious and somber, but at the same time, it had a certain rightness to it that made it feel like it was the normal order of society.

  Whatever was happening at Central Booking had nothing to do with normalcy. The walls were grey and the paint was peeling badly, the linoleum scuffed and in serious need of repair. I could smell the stench of urine and hear the clanging of bars coming from somewhere far away. Down the hallway, about a hundred feet or so, I could see the shadow of a man in handcuffs being led into a cell.

  “I didn’t do that shit! I’m high, man, I’m on the junk!” he was screaming as two officers held onto him. His skinny limbs went akimbo as he twisted and turned as the officers threw him into a cell. The sound of groans followed the clink of the bars, the people already in the holding cell obviously not approving of their new neighbor.

  “Can I help you?” a uniformed office asked from the other side of the metal detector.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m here to see Noah Cutler. I’m part of his legal team.” I purposefully left out the part about me not being a lawyer. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. I imagined Noah back in that cell, crowded in with all those crazy people. I wondered what would happen if his mouth got him into trouble. Would they come after him? Did they have weapons in there? Was it like prison where you could get in fights and the corrections officers might not do anything about it?

  “Has he been arrested?” the officer asked me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “What was the date?”

  “Um, today. Just about an hour ago.”

  The officer sighed and shook his head. “An hour ago? Honey, no one gets out of Central Booking in an hour. Your client is going to have to be arraigned before he’s even ready for bail, and that’s going to be – ”

  But before he could finish, Noah appeared in front of us, looking no worse for the wear. His coat was immaculate, his hair still perfectly styled, his stride commanding and purposeful.

  When he saw me, his face darkened. “Charlotte,” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here?” I asked. “I came to find you!” I looked behind him for and officer or someone escorting him out, but there was no one.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said, grabbing me by the arm and leading me out the door and down the stairs, through the throng of people that were still congregating on the steps.

  Once we were around the corner, he pulled out his cell phone and put it to his ear. “Jared,” he said. “I’m ready.” He ended the call and slid it back into his pocket. “Charlotte, I told you to call Worthington, not to come down to Central Booking. Are you insane?”

  I looked at him, aghast. “Am I insane? No, Noah, I’m not insane. I did call Professor Worthington, and he told me to meet him here.”

  “Colin told you to meet him at Central Booking?” His eyes flamed with anger, and he pulled his phone back out. “I’m going to have to have a talk with him.”

  I grabbed the phone out of his hand and held it out of his reach. “You’ll do no such thing!” I said. “He’s my boss, and I’m on your case. If he tells me to meet him at Central Booking, I’ll meet him at Central Booking.”

  I thought Noah would be mad at me for defying him, thought I might have to pay for it later, and the idea sent a warmth flowing through my center. I flashed back to what he’d just done to me in the restaurant bathroom.

  Show me your tits, Charlotte.

  But Noah actually didn’t seem to care that I was contradicting him. In fact, he seemed almost bored, the way you’d be when a child was having a tantrum and you were just waiting for them to burn themselves out so you could put them down for a nap.

  “Please give me my phone back, Charlotte.”

  “No,” I said, not because I thought he was actually going to call Professor Worthington, but because I felt like being difficult. I was acting out because I wanted Noah’s attention, or at least some acknowledgment of what was going on. He’d just been arrested for murder. He’d been handcuffed, thrown into the back of a police car, brought to Central Booking like a common thug. And now he was standing there lecturing me about how I shouldn’t have come to such a dangerous place, like that was the most important thing happening right now. “Where is Professor Worthington, anyway?” I asked.

  “He’s not coming.”

  “He’s not coming?” I frowned. “Why not?”

  “Because it pays to know people,” he said cryptically, and held his hand out. “Please return my phone to me now, Charlotte.”

  I handed the phone back grudgingly. “What does that mean, it pays to know people?”

  “It means that I know a lot of the right people who are able to get things done. And so I didn’t need Worthington.”

  My jaw dropped. “You were able to get a judge to sign an order letting you out on bail?”

  “Yes.”

  “By acting as your own lawyer.”

  “Yes.” He glanced over at me. “Don’t look so surprised, Charlotte, I am a lawyer. And in this great country of ours, you’re allowed to represent yourself.”

  “Yes, but it’s always considered a bad idea.”

  “Not when you’re the best.”

  I shook my head. How could he have negotiated his own release so quickly? And on a murder charge? I wasn’t naïve enough to think that there wasn’t a
certain level of politics involved in the court system – getting the right judges, knowing the right lawyers, payoffs and back room deals. Some of it was just how things worked, and some of it was dark and against the rules, the kind of thing the people lost their careers over. Was that what Noah had done? Had he called in some kind of favor with some shady judge?

  I took in a deep breath. “Does Worthington know that you acted as your own counsel and negotiated yourself out on bail?”

  “Yes, Charlotte. I called and let him know.”

  “And he didn’t care?”

  “The contrary. He was very upset. Even so, he should have called to let you know you wouldn’t be needed at Central Booking. It was very irresponsible of him, and I don’t like the fact that he put you in harm’s way.” His jaw set in a line, and I saw him grind his teeth ever so slightly.

  “I wasn’t in harm’s way.”

  “The fact that you think that makes it even more apparent to me why you shouldn’t have been there.”

  “Please,” I said, rolling my eyes. “There were cops all over that place.”

  “And vagrants.”

  “Yes, and cops.”

  He laughed a little bit, his laugh making it clear he thought I was naïve not only for not realizing how bad the vagrants were, but for thinking that the cops could protect me. His car pulled up to the sidewalk then, and he held the door open for me. I hesitated for a minute before sliding in.

  When we were settled inside, Noah folded his hands in his lap and looked at me.

  “Are we going to talk about the fact that you just got arrested?” I asked.

  “Are you saying that’s what you’d like to talk about?”

  “No. I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want it to have happened. But since it’s a pretty big deal, you’d think we’d have some kind of discussion about it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what people do, Noah, when something huge like this happens. They discuss it, they talk about it, they tell each other how they feel.”