Page 22 of Bobbing for Bodies
Noah ticks his head to the side. “Prize?”
My mouth opens once again, and I beg for anything to stream out of it. I’d settle for a not-so-white lie at this point.
“Coffee.” I shrug. “He bet I couldn’t go through the funeral without balling like a baby, and I managed to hold it together well enough, so he owes me coffee.”
Noah inches back at the thought. “That’s a terrible bet.” He wraps his arms around me, and I rock steady in his arms.
“Everett’s a terrible person.” I’m only half-teasing at this point.
He belts out a laugh. “Go easy on him. He’s only rough around the edges because he was raised to be.”
It never occurred to me that Everett’s tough persona was something inbred into him.
“Fair enough. I guess you’re looking at your new neighbor. How fast do you think I can get the keys?”
“I’ll talk to my realtor and find out asap. But let me be the first to welcome you to the neighborhood.” He lands a heated kiss to my lips, and a moan works its way up my throat.
I pull back, nibbling on his lower lip playfully. “I’m thinking about hosting a housewarming party once I settle in, but since I’m on a strict budget, I’m only able to invite one person. Any idea who that should be?”
A dark laugh rumbles from him as he presses me against his chest. “I have an idea.” His lids hood as he gets that naughty look in his eyes, and then just like that, he looks suddenly downcast. “But I have to ask. Are you and Everett hiding something from me?”
“No, not at all. I promise. It’s not like that.”
Did I just lie to Noah’s face? Oh my God, this is all Everett Baxter’s fault. If I lose the one good thing that’s happened to me in a long time—aside from the bakery, of course—I’m going to wring Judge Baxter’s illegally gorgeous neck.
“Good.” He touches his forehead to mine. “Because I think we should start things off with open communication and one hundred percent honesty.”
“Start things? Are we starting something?”
His eyes bear hard into mine, and my stomach does that roller coaster thing that makes me feel about thirteen-years-old again.
A crooked grin breaks out over his devilishly handsome face. “I think we’ve already begun.”
“I think we have, too.”
Noah crashes his lips to mine, and we indulge in a kiss far more daring than any of those shared before. Noah rides his arms up and down my back, along my hips before securing me tight in a warm embrace. Noah and I have started something. We are at the beginning of something that I predict will be spectacularly beautiful.
Noah wants open communication and one hundred percent honesty.
I can’t help but sigh as I indulge in everything he’s willing to give me.
One out of two isn’t bad.
Chapter 11
It turns out, Martinelle Finance isn’t located in your routine run-of-the-mill bank, nor is it located in an offshoot due to the fact the loans department is under construction. As fate, a heck of a lot of googling, and utilizing Everett’s connections would have it—the two of us find ourselves seated in a holding room that happens to be in an underground gambling casino hidden behind your average strip club—if indeed the scandalous venue Everett and I walked through to get here was average. That’s yet to be determined, and not by me. I held Everett’s hand the entire time we were whisked through the place, and as soon as the bras came off those heavily made up dancing girls, I closed my eyes and let Everett lead me blindly through that den of depravity. Red Satin is a dicey establishment that I never want to set foot in again, let alone have an entire string of catcalls shouted at me as I strutted my way through it. Although, in hindsight, those catcalls were most likely for the topless girls dancing for their dinner.
“We’re going to get shot,” I whisper directly into Everett’s ear.
He pulls back and rolls his eyes as if it were an asinine thought while a man in a white suit clicks away at a computer monitor in front of us.
If this seedy locale, and this dizzying cube of a room they’ve stuffed us in, didn’t ring any alarms, then his glaring fashion faux paus should have sent us running.
The heavyset man seated in front of us chokes on a cough. His nose sits crooked on his face as if it were broken at one time and someone didn’t set it right. “You’re in luck, Mr. and Mrs. Essex. We’ve got a special lending program for folks such as yourself.”
Yourself. That fake grin on my face expands once he lets that grammar offense fly.
I give Everett’s hand a firm squeeze, and he gives a slight squeeze back. And in no way and at no time did it feel at all sexual holding Everett’s hand—more like self-preservation. I’m sure Noah would forgive me if he knew the circumstances. And yet, Noah can never ever know the circumstances—which, of course, completely dismantles all that whole open communication and one hundred percent honesty clause we hammered out the other night. But there are simply some things that need to be done for the greater good of the people—even if that particular person is dead. Hunter needed justice, and I’m not sitting on my hands—or baking a cake as Noah would have it—until Ivy Fairbanks decides she’s going to solve this mystery.