Page 87 of Finding Noah

Because let’s face it …

Us Mason men never could leave things alone.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

INNOCENT BOYS & BAD MEN

“Maybe you're spelling it wrong,” Meg suggested a few days later, sitting at the edge of her side of the bed. “Maybe it's … N-O-L-E-N, not A-N.”

“Hmm,” I grunted.

She could be right, but I was also beginning to feel that no amount of digging was going to uncover the mystery of what had happened that night. The guy was a ghost—maybe literally as much as figuratively—and that made sense, considering the company Seth used to keep. They were criminals, people who wanted to remain hidden.

It had crossed my mind more than once to give it up. But the more I allowed myself to look, the more obsessed I became with finding him and the answers to the questions that had haunted me most of my life.

Had he died? Had his son? Or had they simply been injured, and they were both out there now, living their lives?

What kind of people had they ended up being? Who were they now?

Had they taken inspiration from the happenings of that night and turned over a new leaf? Or were they somehow worse? Deeper in whatever nefarious shit they’d gotten themselves into?

The questions were endless, and I had answers to none of them. Meg—bless her—had listened to me ask them aloud over and over throughout the weeks since I'd told her my version of the events that had played out that night in Massachusetts, and not once had she seemed at all perturbed. She listened; she humored me. From time to time, she even put forth her own input, as she had just now, and I appreciated it.

But while I was obsessing over Tommy, I had also started to neglect her and my role as her fiancé. I recognized it, and I was ashamed. But why couldn't that have been enough to turn this shit off in my head long enough to talk to her about something, anything else?

I have to try.

I turned from the screen to watch as she worked lotion into her hands.

“Or, uh, maybe it's N-O-L—”

“I'll worry about it later,” I said, dropping my phone onto the nightstand. “Come here.”

She glanced over her shoulder as I reached across the bed. A single blonde brow rose as her lips twitched toward a knowing smile.

“For what, Detective?” she asked, mischief heavy in her tone.

“I think you know what.”

Her cheeks flushed, and she turned away, but not before I could catch her smile. She was still such a good girl, even all these years later, and I loved that. I loved that, after half a decade together, I could still make her blush, make her excited, make her want me in the way she deserved to be wanted.

I bet she's already wet, I thought, biting the tip of my tongue around a grin.

It never took much.

She put the bottle of lotion back into the nightstand drawer and stood. I watched her back as she loosened the tie of her robe and let the white, fluffy material drop from her naked shoulders and onto the floor, revealing her smooth, fresh, clean skin, all the way down to her mid-thighs.

Through lazy, hooded eyes, I stared at the length of her backside, from the curve of her ass up to the long column of her neck.

What a stunning work of art she was. A painter could only be so blessed to have a subject half as beautiful as her, and somehow, I was the lucky bastard who got to share her bed for all of eternity.

Over the mattress's surface, I went to her on my knees, taking my shirt off and throwing it aside. I pressed my chest to her back, slid my hands around and up, moving over her belly to the rounded weight of her breasts. My lips found her neck as I kneaded her flesh, rolling her pebbled nipples between my fingers, and I groaned with mounting pleasure, my erection painful in my now-too-tight jeans.

Meg gasped, laying her hands over my wrists, pulling them away, allowing her the freedom to turn and press her bare chest to mine.

“My boobs are so sensitive right now,” she said, wrapping her arms around my neck.

“Isn't that a good thing?” I asked, moving my hands over the expanse of her back to grasp the rounded curve of her ass.