When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.
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“Turning here.” Dash announced to no one in particular, his voice rough from their sprint across shadowed lawns.
Bunny nodded absentmindedly next to him, lost in her thoughts as he guided them through empty streets until they reached a modest neighborhood she didn't recognize. He pulled into the driveway of a duplex.
“Your place?” She asked as they sat in his idling Ford, neither moving to get out.
“Yeah,” His hands rested on the steering wheel, fingers still trembling slightly, “We should probably debrief what we found before I drop you o–”
“I can’t go home yet,” Bunny interrupted, surprising herself with the admission, “I’m too wound up.”
Dash studied her in the dim glow of the streetlight. He was slightly disheveled from their tree climbing, a scratch along his forehead from where a branch had caught him. He looked dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with criminal activity and everything to do with the heat in his eyes when he watched her.
“Come up,” He said, “I’ve got bourbon that’s better than what we found at Glen’s place.”
They climbed out of the Bronco, the night scented with intrigue and the silence shattered by singing cicadas in the canopied backyards. He led her across the walkway, punching in a code in the keypad of the duplex door. It opened with a protesting shriek, and he stepped aside to let her in as the gate noisily creaked shut behind them. She tried to ignore the heat of him as she passed, the size of him next to her. They walked up a flight of wooden steps, the distinctive wood paneling harkening back to an older time in Magnolia Heights’ history. They bounded to the door of his apartment, a silver knocker on the front. He reached into his shirt, pulling his signature chain from around his neck. On the end, a singular key dangled.
The inside of his apartment surprised her. She’d expected something spartan, temporary– the kind of place a man lived when he was between better options. Instead, she found warm wood floors, built-in bookshelves crammed with everything from mystery novels to philosophy texts, and furniture that looked chosen rather than inherited. A record player sat on a side table, Miles Davis still spinning from earlier in the evening. She stepped in and looked around with unabashed curiosity.
“Make yourself comfortable.” He said as he pulled his jacket and gloves off, tossing the key onto the sidecar with a clatter.
“Nice,” She said as she walked through his apartment and to the bookshelves, running her fingers along the spine of a worn copy of Raymond Chandler, “Very noir detective meets weekend academic.”
“Thanks,” Dash moved to the kitchen, pulling down two glasses and a crystal tumbler from the bar, “Though I’d argue Chandler’s more hardboiled than noir.”
“Literary distinctions while we’re still coming down from breaking and entering,” Bunny accepted the bourbon he offered, the amber liquid catching the lamplight, “Very you.”
The first sip burned, but the heat spread through her chest, grounding her after the night’s chaos. She wandered to his windows, which faced a small courtyard where someone had strung lights between the trees.
“Do you do this often?” She asked, “The unauthorized investigation thing?”
“More than I should. Less than you’d think.”
He joined her at the window.
“Tonight was different though.”
“How?”
“Usually I work alone.” He responded, voice low and tempered with the inexplicable.
Bunny turned to face him. His eyes dropped to her mouth for just a moment before returning to meet her gaze.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” She said, “Any of it. The investigating, the breaking and entering.”
She took another sip of bourbon, feeling it kindle something wild in her chest.
“I spent my whole career being the responsible one. The one who followed rules and– and never made waves.”
“And how does it feel?” His voice was even quieter now, intimate in the way that only happened in small spaces after midnight.
“Terrifying,” She set her glass on the windowsill, “And incredible. Like I’ve been holding my breath for years and finally remembered how to exhale.”
She’d built her entire identity around competence and reliability. But standing here in Dash’s apartment, her clothes still smelling like night air and grass, she felt like someone entirely different.
“There are probably seven different ethics violations happening right now.”
“Probably eight or nine.” He agreed, but he didn’t step back.
“I should go home. Get some sleep. Process what we found tonight like a rational adult.”
“You should.” He stepped closer, his knee brushing hers.
“I don’t want to.”
The admission surprised her with its frankness. She’d spent so many years doing what she should do, what was expected, what was appropriate. But the woman who’d climbed through windows tonight felt done with shoulds.
“What do you want?” Dash asked, and his hand came up to trace the line of her jaw.
The touch sent electricity straight through her, a need that felt urgent and necessary. His thumb brushed across her lower lip, pupils dilating. The bourbon still burned in her throat, but it was nothing compared to the heat building low in her belly. She answered him simply by pressing closer, eliminating the last inches between them. His mouth found hers with the same focus he brought to everything else, and Bunny discovered that competent Bunny, responsible Bunny, had been holding back more than she’d realized. Her hands fisted against his shirt and he responded by pushing her gently against the window, her palms flat against his chest. He breathed against her mouth, and she could feel the smile on his lips, on his teeth. She could taste the bourbon on his tongue.
She kissed him harder, months of careful professionalism dissolving into desperate need. Her fingers found the buttons of his shirt, working them open with the determination she’d used to climb that tree. When her hands met the warm skin of his chest, he made a sound low in his throat that went straight to her core. He pressed her back flush against the cool glass of the window. The contrast between the cold surface and the heat of his body made her gasp, arching into him. She could feel him grow rigid against her.
“Bedroom.” She managed, though she made no move to stop kissing him.
They made it three steps before he pressed her against the wall, his mouth on her neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive spot just below the ear. His kisses came languidly, his breath heavy against her neck, against the curve of her ear. Bunny reached down to feel him through his jeans, her careful control finally, completely shattered as gooseflesh prickled her skin.
His hands found the hem of her sweater, fingers warm against her stomach, pulling it over her head and letting it fall to the floor. She’d worn her plainest bra tonight— black cotton, practical rather than seductive— but the way Dash looked at her made her feel like she was wearing the finest lingerie. His gaze traveled over her exposed skin. His hands followed the path of his eyes, tracing the curve of her collarbone, the line of her ribs, the soft skin above her waistband.
They stumbled down the hallway together, shedding clothes and inhibitions with equal enthusiasm. His shirt joined her sweater on the floor, and Bunny’s stomach tightened as she watched where the lusty cut of tattooed muscles met the waistband of his pants. Her leggings quickly followed, kicked aside with breathless laughter when they tangled around her ankles. Then his. Bunny didn’t realize that she’d been biting her lip as she reached down to take him in her hand until his mouth caught hers in another urgent kiss. She stroked him slowly, moaning softly into his mouth. His voice broke, still rough and low, but tinged with the vulnerability of a man undone.
By the time they reached his bedroom, Bunny felt drunk on possibility and the taste of his skin and the way he said her name. The responsible development director who never mixed business with pleasure had been left somewhere in the wisteria, buried beneath bark and adrenaline and the intoxicating realization that she was capable of so much more than she’d ever allowed herself to imagine.
When Dash’s hands mapped the curves of her body with careful attention— calloused fingertips tracing the valley between her breasts, palms spanning her waist, thumbs brushing the sensitive skin of her inner thighs– she discovered muscles she’d forgotten she had, every nerve ending alive and singing under his touch. His mouth followed where his hands had been, lips pressing kisses to the curve of her shoulder, the hollow of her throat, the soft underside of her breast. Devilishly, he pushed the cups of her bra down and underneath her breasts, gathering them in his hands to kiss them gently. His hands, warm and large, the same hands she’d noticed during their first meeting alone, worked around the front clasp. With quick expertise, the bra was on the floor. When his tongue found her nipple, circling and teasing until it peaked against his mouth, she arched deeper beneath him with a filthy mewl that she didn’t recognize as her own.
He took his time with her, as methodical in pleasure as he was in investigation, learning what made her gasp, what made her hips rise to meet his touch, what made her fingers grip the back of his head and moan. When his mouth traveled lower, kissing a path down her sternum, across the plane of her stomach, she felt herself trembling with anticipation and need. His beard scraped deliciously against her inner thighs as he settled between legs– between her slick wetness that could not hide her dizzying want– and when his tongue first touched her most sensitive flesh, she cried out, her back bowing off the bed.
When he worshipped her with his mouth, tongue finding the place that made her arch and gasp, teeth grazing sensitive flesh until she forgot her own name and could only moan his, she understood what it meant to be completely present in her skin, to exist only in the cascade of sensation he was building inside her. His fingers joined his mouth, sliding inside the silken heat while his tongue worked that perfect spot that made stars burst behind her closed eyelids. She was dimly aware of the sounds she was making, breathless pleas and broken syllables, but she was beyond caring about dignity. She was coming— hard—- in his mouth, on his tongue, her walls pulsing around his thick fingers.
When he finally moved up her body, settling between her thighs, she was already reaching for him, guiding him to where she needed him most– but then, he smiled at her slowly, wolfishly, dragging himself lazily. Down to where her thighs met, and back up again. Holding back.
Bastard.
She looked up into those eyes- so brown that they were almost black, containing an entire universe– and thought of how she was looking into the stars, into the galaxy, and whimpered. The first slow slide of him inside her made them both groan; her at the delicious stretch, him at the tight heat enveloping him. For a moment, they stayed perfectly still, foreheads touching, breathing hard, adjusting to the feel of sinking in deep. Then he began to move, and Bunny discovered that everything before this had been prelude. He moved inside her with a rhythm that matched the frantic beating of her heart, her blushing emptiness wantonly spreading to accommodate him. Impossible heat and desperate friction. He gripped the backs of her thighs, positioning himself deeper. And then she could feel everything. Every inch. Their bodies found a perfect synchronization, building toward something that felt inevitable and earth-shattering all at once.
His mouth found hers again, swallowing her moans as the tension coiled tighter and tighter inside her. She could taste herself on his lips, could feel the strain in his muscles as he held himself in check, waiting for her. Somehow, the restraint made him even more beautiful. She could feel how silken she was around him, hear the sounds of herself with each movement. It was too good, too much, too fucking perfect. Golden heat behind her eyes. Pants and gasps and the slick sweat of him dripping onto her body. Nothing but him filling her, her mind, her body. Nothing else but him.
She came apart completely, twitching around him, pleasure crashing through her in rolling waves. White-hot pleasure that left her gasping his name into the hollow of his throat, But he didn’t stop, didn’t give her time to recover, pistoning in and out of her until she was sobbing with oversensitivity and desperation. His own release followed with a growl that vibrated through his chest into hers, body shuddering as he spilled himself inside her. She felt herself clutch against him, quaking with the aftershocks that radiated through her.
It was only then that she finally understood.
Some boundaries were meant to be crossed.
Some rules were meant to be broken, especially if they changed everything.
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Afterwards, as they lay tangled in his sheets, her head on his chest and his fingers tracing lazy patterns on her shoulder, Bunny felt the adrenaline finally begin to ebb. Their legs brushed against each other softly. She noticed that he kept a tin can of yellow marigolds in the window sill– something that she hadn’t noticed previously. An emergency vehicle drove past the duplex, its wailing siren haunting against the silence of the night.
“We should probably talk about what we found tonight.” Dash said, his voice drowsy but still alert.
“We should.” She agreed, pressing a kiss to his collarbone.
“Tomorrow,” He murmured, tightening his arms around her, “We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
Bunny closed her eyes and let herself sink into the unfamiliar luxury of not having a plan, not knowing what came next, not being the responsible one for once in her carefully constructed life. Tomorrow she’d have to face Lancaster and Fenelope and the consequences of every rule she’d broken tonight. But for now, she let herself be exactly who she’d discovered she could be. A woman who took risks, who followed instincts, who wasn’t afraid to want something, someone.
A woman she thought she might like being.
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Morning arrived not with gentle sunlight but with the jarring shriek of Bunny’s phone vibrating against Dash’s nightstand like an angry wasp. She surfaced from sleep slowly, consciousness returning in disorienting waves. The unfamiliar ceiling. The weight of an arm across her waist. The scent of cedar and skin that wasn’t her own.
Dash.
The memories crashed back all at once: the break-in, the blood beneath the paint, the urgent press of his mouth against hers. Her body bore the tender evidence of their night together– a delicious soreness between her thighs. She stretched languidly, a smile tugging at her lips as she registered the solid warmth of him spooned behind her.
“Your phone,” Dash mumbled against her shoulder, his voice thick with sleep, “It’s been going off for five minutes.”
Bunny reached across him to grab the device, her bare breast brushing against his chest. The contact sent a fresh wave of heat through her, and she felt him respond even in his half-awake state, his hand finding the curve of her hip.
“Probably Carol,” She said, squinting at the bright screen, “She always gets to the office before–”
The time display made her stomach drop.
9:47 AM.
“Shit.” She bolted upright, the sheet falling away from her, “Shit, shit, shit!”
Dash pushed himself up on his elbow, instantly alert the way only someone with military training could manage.
“I’m supposed to be at work. I’m never late. Never.” Her voice climbed toward panic as she scrambled for her clothes, scattered across the bedroom floor like evidence of their abandon.
“Fenelope is going to murder me. Actually murder me. With her bare hands.”
Dash watched her frantic movements with a look between amusement and concern, the sheet riding low on his hips in a way that might have been distracting under any other circumstances.
“Bunny, breathe. It’s not even ten–”
Her phone erupted into its full ringtone, Carol’s name flashing on the screen. Bunny jabbed the answer button while simultaneously trying to pull on her underwear.
“Carol, I know, I know, I’m so sorry–”
“Thank God you’re alive,” Carol’s voice crackled through the speaker, sharp with worry, “I’ve been calling you for an hour. Where are you?”
“I’m… I was…” Bunny glanced at Dash, who had propped himself against the headboard. The sight of him sent an unwelcome flutter through her stomach, “I overslept. My alarm didn’t go off.”
“Your alarm didn’t–” Carol’s voice rose in disbelief, “Bunny, you told me yourself that you sent like seventeen alarms. You said your phone sounds like a fire station every morning.”
“I know, I know, it’s completely unlike me–”
“Are you okay? You sound weird. Kind of breathless.”
Bunny caught Dash’s grin and shot him a warning look as she hopped on one foot, trying to work her legs into her leggings.
“I’m fine. Just rushing. Is Fenelope looking for me?”
There was a pause that lasted several heartbeats too long.
“Bunny…” Carol’s voice shifted, taking on that tone she used when delivering bad news, “We need to talk. In person. How fast can you get here?”
“Twenty minutes. Fifteen if I break several traffic laws.”
She finally managed to get her leggings up, though the sweater proved more challenging with her hands shaking from anxiety.
“Carol, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”
“Just… get here. And Bunny? Maybe come through the back entrance. The main lobby is kind of active this morning.”
The line went dead, leaving Bunny staring at her phone with growing dread.
“That didn’t sound good.” Dash observed, sliding out of bed with unselfconscious grace. The morning light streaming through his windows highlighted the lines of his body, the intricate tattoos that wound around his arms, the evidence of their night together marked in faint scratches across his shoulders.
“No, it didn’t,” Bunny forced herself to look away from him and focus on finding her other shoe, “Active lobby. That’s never good. Active usually means reporters or angry board members or–”
“Or police.” Dash finished quietly.
They stared at each other across the rumpled bed, the pleasant afterglow of their night together rapidly dissolving into cold reality.
“You don’t think anyone saw us last night?” Bunny asked, though even as the words left her mouth, she knew how naive they sounded.
“I don’t know,” Dash had found his boxers and was pulling them on with efficient movements, “But if someone did, if there’s any connection drawn between us and Glen’s house…”
“Lancaster will know I was there. She’ll know I lied to her,” Bunny sank onto the edge of the bed, the full weight of her situation finally hitting her, “She’ll arrest me. She’ll end my arrangement with the police. She’ll probably tell Fenelope everything.”
Dash moved to sit beside her, his hand finding hers.
“Hey. Look at me,” When she did, his eyes were steady, determined, “Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out. You’re not in this alone.”
“I have a career, Dash. A reputation. The Fox is everything to me,” Her voice cracked slightly, “I can’t lose it because I wanted to be some superhero.”
“You won’t lose it,” His thumb traced across her knuckles, “I promise you, whatever fallout there is from last night, I’ll take it. All of it.”
“You can’t promise that. I can’t make you do that.”
“Let me try,” He leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to her temple, “Please.”
Bunny closed her eyes for a moment, letting herself absorb the warmth of his touch, the steadiness of his presence. When she opened them again, she felt marginally more capable of facing whatever waited for her at the Fox.
“I should go.” She said, though she made no immediate move to stand.
“Yeah.” He agreed, but his hand remained firmly clasped around hers.’
She turned to face him fully, taking in the stubble that had left its mark on her skin, the concerned furrow between his brows.
“Last night,” She began, then stopped, unsure how to finish the thought.
“Was incredible,” He said simply, “And complicated.”
“Very complicated,” She smiled despite everything, “I don’t usually do complicated.”
“I don’t usually do partners,” He replied, “But I'm finding I like it.”
Before she could lose her nerve or overthink the impulse, Bunny leaned forward and kissed him. It was meant to be quick, a simple goodbye, but the moment their lips met, she remembered exactly why she’d lost track of time and alarm clocks. When his hand came up to cup the back of her neck, she forgot for a moment about Carol’s worried voice and active lobbies and the career that was probably imploding as they sat there.
When they finally broke apart, both were breathing harder.
“I really have to go.” She whispered against his lips.
“I know,” His forehead rested against her, “Call me when you know what’s happening. Whatever it is, we’ll handle it.”
“Together?”
“Together.”
She forced herself to stand, to gather her purse, to walk toward his front door despite every instinct telling her to crawl back into his bed and pretend the outside world didn’t exist.
“Bunny.” He called when she reached the doorway.
She turned back to find him standing in the middle of his bedroom, still gloriously underdressed, watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite read.
“For what it’s worth,” He said, “I think you’re better at this investigative thing than you give yourself credit for. Don’t let them convince you otherwise.”