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TWO WEEKS LATER, around three in the morning, and Roni drove her Porsche up to the electronic gate of Brax’s mansion. The guard in the booth opened the gate, allowing her passage through without hesitation. But it was Roni who stopped at the booth and pressed down her window to ask the guard a question.

It wasn’t her first time coming over in the last couple weeks, although it was still rare for her to drop by, but she had the same question every time she came. “Is he,” she started to say, but the guard always finished the sentence for her.

“He’s alone, Miss Ross. No sleepovers.”

Roni smiled. She hated to enlist the aid of his gate security, but she didn’t want to call Brax and wake him up either. Not this time of night. She thanked the guard and drove on through to the main house.

She had just left a particularly messy homicide where the victim was an infant, and she didn’t feel like going home. She couldn’t bear to be alone after such a heart-wrenching experience. She had many friends she could call on in times like this, but for some reason she always felt she needed Brax in times like these.

She got out of her Porsche, utilized her code that also knocked off the alarm system, and went inside his mansion.

Once inside, she re-entered the alarm code on the wall keypad and then went to his bar, poured herself a shot, and drank it all in one gulp. She stood there momentarily, trying to let it all sink in, and then she made her way to one of the downstairs bathrooms and took a long, cold shower. Then she put on the terrycloth bathrobe and made her way up the spiral staircase to his master bedroom.

Brax was fast asleep, and alone in bed as the guard had assured her. She walked over to the opposite side of the bed, removed the robe, and got in bed beside him.

She tried to stay away from him. Just be glad to have somebody in bed with her. But that wasn’t good enough. The look of that victim kept haunting her. And she felt lonelier with Brax in the same big, custom-made King bed.

She turned over, moved her body all the way over until the front of her naked body was spooning the back of his naked body, and she immediately felt his wonderful body heat. It was enough. She wrapped her arms around him and was able to fall asleep.

It was the darndest thing to her. For the past two weeks they had defined their relationship as friends with benefits. But in all those two weeks, he’d spent the night at her house several times, and she’d spent the night at his house three times already, but they had yet to take advantage of the benefits. Mainly because they both viewed it as a special privilege not to be taken lightly or overused. But also because whenever they were together, they just wanted to be together. No strings, not even benefits, attached.

When Brax realized she was in his bed, her presence alone warmed his heart and he turned over and pulled her sleeping body into his arms. He knew why she was there. She wouldn’t have come but for some terrible crime she had to investigate. At least that was why she came those other times. But whatever the reason, he was glad to have her in his arms.

It was enough.