Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Noah
The woman beside me reminds me of an ambushed warrior—bloodied but unbroken. Watching her pull herself back together rubs a raw spot in my chest. She’s regrouping, and surrender isn’t remotely an option.
DC hums around us in indifferent rhythm—horns, coffee carts, commuters—an entire city moving on while her world burns behind tinted glass.
“How did things go with Stella this morning?” Five minutes of silence, and this is her first question. “Went well.” My throat’s dry. I can feel her eyes on me, weighing whether I softened the truth too much. “I was light on the details. Told her that you had to be in court unexpectedly.”
“You didn’t tell her I’ve been charged?”
“No. She came down the stairs panicked about being late. Didn’t feel like the time.”
Her lips purse, and I can’t tell if she’s annoyed or if she’s already moved on in her mind to the next hurdle.
“Do you have my phone?”
I point to the glove box and she opens it, removing it. She left it at the house as the police would have confiscated it.
She flinches.
“Everything okay?”
“Richard.” Her lip catches between her teeth. “Wonder when he learned.”
“Is he offering support?”
She scoffs. “No. But I am surprised he didn’t appear at the hearing. The timing on these messages… He knew before the hearing.”
“What’s he saying?”
She’s scrolling. I can’t tell if she’s reading his texts or if she’s moved on.
“He doesn’t want me coming anywhere near the school.”
“He can’t stop you.”
“He’s worried about media attention.”
“Are you expecting they’ll follow you?”
“No.” She’s circumspect. “But he’s right. For today. He’ll bring her home after school. Stella doesn’t know, and a news reporter following me on campus isn’t the way for her to find out.”
I sense she’s unhappy I didn’t give Stella the lowdown, but there really wasn’t the time, and she didn’t ask.
As I cut through traffic, she’s on her phone. Tapping away responses to whoever is out there.
I spent the morning going over everything with the KOAN team.
It blurred into intel briefings and half-cold coffee.
Gabriel’s coordinating with her defense team, tracking Delacroix’s widow.
Jake’s chasing ghosts—namely, the missing witness.
Quinn is looking into the judge assigned to this morning’s hearing—confirming standard process was followed.
She’s also doing background on the prosecutor and the detectives.
But, given how smoothly the arraignment went, I’m not sensing the judge was shopped.
Now, the detectives and the prosecutor… There’s nothing worse than a rotten judicial system.
“I’m surprised you’re still here.” Alicia’s soft words bring me back to the vehicle. Her phone rests on her thigh.
“Wouldn’t be anywhere else,” I say, passing a slower car.
“You mean that, don’t you?” Her voice is soft, disbelieving, like she’s testing the ground before she steps on it.
I side-eye her, wondering where this is coming from.
“I admitted to you that I cheated on my husband, and you’re still by my side.”
“Ten years ago, Alicia. If you think I was a saint ten years ago, think again.” Hell, at twenty-one, I’d been the furthest thing from a saint. “I don’t need to know the details to know that you weren’t in a good place. That’s not who you are now.”
“Oh? I’d say I’m not in a good place at all right now.” Her laugh is dry, like she’s testing if humor still exists.
I half-chuckle, then reach for her, squeezing her knee. “You know what I mean.”
She exhales, the sound half sigh, half surrender, and turns toward the window. Her fingers slide through mine, a quiet declaration: not done, not broken. “I’m still… I’m grateful you’re here. Many men wouldn’t be.”
“Maybe that’s true. But I doubt it.” My words are the absolute truth.
“You didn’t kill anyone, Alicia. And even if the world doubts you, I don’t.
I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, you’re innocent.
And if someone is framing you—if this isn’t just half-assed police work—then they just slipped.
Because you’ve got an all-star defense team, and they’re going to track down the source.
By all accounts, the prosecution has a weak case. This is a bump in the road.”
She mouths the words: bump in the road.
She’s still dazed. Likely exhausted. I doubt she slept at all last night.
When I pull into her drive, the gate grinds open, metal on metal. Cold drizzle slicks the windshield. I pull in, and the gate creaks closed behind us.
It’s a cloudy day, brisk, and rain is forecast for the afternoon. A woman pushes a baby stroller while walking her dog. Cars pass back and forth on the front street.
No one’s lurking.
Satisfied, I enter the house, lock the door behind me, and reach for the remote that closes the shades. Sure, she normally keeps them open during the day, but she’s due some privacy.
“Can I get you something? You hungry?”
She braces against the island, palms flat on the marble, eyes unfocused—as if the weight of the world is pressing through her arms.
“I’m not hungry at all,” she says, voice airy, like she’s speaking to herself and she’s all alone. “I want a shower,” she says, a hint of finality to her tone.
“Understandable.” I want to follow, to guard, to hold. Instead, I stay rooted. “I’ll be here when you get out.”
She pauses at the stairwell. “Join me?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer, just begins the climb. The soft thud of her bare feet on the stairs feels like an invitation and a test.
I fall in behind her.
In the bathroom, I reach past her, turning on the shower.
She undresses slowly, methodically, as if neatness might rewrite the last twenty-four hours.
Each piece folded with the discipline of someone desperate to reclaim control.
I undress too, my eyes moving over her with a hunger I don’t try to hide.
She’s stunning—all elegant curves and creamy skin, the kind of woman who stands before a judge without flinching—and still trembles in my arms. The kind that undoes me without trying.
I reach for thick, white towels and set them on the counter near the shower for easy access.
She steps into the shower, tilting her head back, letting the water flow from her crown down. A cleansing.
I step in beside her and reach for the sponge hanging on the hook. I drip soap onto it and drag it over her shoulders, slow and deliberate, the slick trail of lather chasing my touch down the curve of her spine. Her skin is warm silk beneath my hands. She shivers despite the heat.
“Cold?” I ask, my mouth close to her ear.
“No.” Her voice is barely a word. “The opposite.”
Reaching around her, I wash her curves with unhurried care—the flare of her hips, the soft roundness of her belly, the long lines of her thighs. She leans back into me, her head tipping to my shoulder, mouth slightly open, lashes lowered.
I bend to kiss her. Light. Loving. No expectation other than I am going to take care of her.
I brush my lips over her cheek, then reach for the shampoo.
My fingers work the lather into her scalp, slow and reverent.
She makes a sound low in her throat—not quite a moan, but close.
Surrender in miniature. A memory forms unbidden—the way my father once washed my mother’s hair after her cancer diagnosis.
Back then, I’d looked away. Now, I can’t look anywhere else.
I follow the shampoo with conditioner, marveling at the silky weight of her strands as they glide through my fingers.
She’s facing me now, the water at her back.
I cup her face, tilting it up, and kiss her properly—deep and slow, the kind of kiss that says everything I’m not ready to put into words.
Her hands spread flat against my chest, then slide up to my shoulders, and I feel the shift in her—the woman who walked out of that courtroom starting to come back online.
Then she presses into me fully, rising on her toes so our bodies align. My erection is trapped between us, hard and undeniable, and when her fingers wrap around me, a rough sound escapes the back of my throat that I don’t try to contain.
Steam clouds the glass. The steady thrum of water on tile is the only sound.
She strokes me slowly, grip firm, devastating, watching my face with dark, knowing eyes, and I let her—let her take some of the control back, let her feel what she does to me. My jaw tightens. My hand slides into her wet hair.
“You have no idea,” I manage.
“I think I do.” Her mouth curves—knowing.
My fingers ghost between her thighs, finding her heat. She’s warm and slick, and when I stroke her, her breath stutters on an exhale, her forehead dropping to my chest.
“Noah—”
“I’ve got you.” I work her slowly, reading every catch of her breath, every roll of her hips against my hand, until she’s trembling and her fingers are digging into my arms. She’s close—I can feel it in the way she goes taut, the way she whispers my name like a question.
I don’t let her get there. Not yet.
I spin her gently, pressing her palms to the tile. She spreads her legs, welcoming me without hesitation, her back arching to invite me in. I grip her hip, positioning myself, and pause.
“I don’t have anything with me.”
She turns her head just enough to meet my eyes over her shoulder. “IUD. And I’m clean.”
I press my mouth to the back of her neck. “Same.”
Then I take her in one slow, certain stroke.
Her sharp inhale bounces off the tile.
Mine isn’t much quieter.
God, she’s—I don’t have words for it.
“Fuuuck.” The strained expletive is all I get out.
I stay still, jaw tight, one hand flat against the tile beside hers. Steam. The sound of water. Her breathing. That’s everything there is for a moment.
Then I move.
One hand curves around to her center, fingers working in rhythm with my hips. The other slides up her ribcage to cup her breast, thumb tracing her nipple until it peaks and she makes a sound that goes straight through me.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Just like that—”
I find our rhythm and hold it—steady, deep, angled so every stroke draws a sound from her. Her palms slide on the wet tile. The water’s going lukewarm but I don’t stop. I learn what makes her breath break and give her more of it, again and again, until she’s saying my name in fragments.
Water rains down over both of us. She pushes her hips back to meet me.
I feel it in the way she tightens around me—sharp, electric.
I nearly lose the rhythm, nearly drive too hard, too fast. Instead, I slow by a fraction, shift the angle just enough to make her gasp, and hold her there—right on the edge.
When she comes, it rolls through her like a wave—her whole body tightening around me, a low, broken cry muffled against her forearm. I follow seconds later, burying myself deep, my forehead bowing to the back of her neck, her name the only thing I manage, my whole body going to static.
For a long moment, neither of us moves.
Then we’re sliding down together, a graceless, boneless descent onto the shower floor, tangled and breathless.
Her back to my chest, both of us half-laughing at the undignified landing.
Water spills over our legs—mine brown with dark hair, hers creamy smooth—and neither of us makes any move to get up.
When she lifts her pruned fingers to show me, something about the gesture cracks me open a little. Proof that time still moves. That we’re still here.
“We should probably get out,” she says, but doesn’t move.
“Probably,” I agree, and pull her a little tighter.
Eventually, I help her up, wrap her in a towel, and take my time with her—pressing lotion into her skin with slow, warm hands, kissing the long lines of her throat, the curve of her shoulder, the soft swell of her chest. Not with urgency now. With adoration.
I settle her beneath the sheets, her lashes damp, her breath already softening into the rhythm of sleep. The world outside can spin and burn.
For now, she’s safe.
And I’ll make damn sure she stays that way.