Page 72 of Protected By Duval

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Noelle didn't have to see to know what McCrae was doing.

She heard him unbuckle his belt and unzip his pants.

The soft scuff of his shoes on the carpet. And the soft drop of his shirt, likely on the chair beside the bed. "Which side?"

She was happy he'd asked the question, but in the time since she'd lost her husband, she'd stopped picking one side of the bed over the other.

"Anywhere," she answered him. "I just sleep where I fall."

"Okay then."

She heard the bed sink under his weight.

And heard the soft sigh from his lips as he relaxed into the mattress.

"Come here," his voice reached for her like a touch. "I want to hold you while we fall asleep."

Yeah.

I do, too.

She crawled up onto the bed and moved on her knees toward him.

She didn't have to see him to know here.

The mattress naturally sank toward him and she just followed it like giving into gravity.

He'd wrapped his arms around her and she'd let the warmth of his body soothe her to sleep.

Now she was awake.

The sun was still below the horizon.

And she had the time to consider why she wasn't nervous about having McCrae alone with her in the house.

Alone with her in bed.

She wasn't a virgin, not by a long shot.

She'd been together with... with her husband for a couple of years before marrying him.

They didn't wait until they were married to have sex.

No, she'd been all to eager to see what she 'wasn't supposed to do.'

And she liked it.

After the whole awkward period of refusing to put the lights on.

Smiling to herself, she wondered if McCrae was a lights on or lights off kind of guy.

Did he like to look as much as he liked to... F?

Yeah, she couldn't even think theword.

It wasn't a word that she used. Her husband hadn't either.

When they talked about it, they talked 'around' it.

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