Page 47 of Burn for Me

He leans in, his eyes locked on mine, and his lips brush the shell of my ear. “It doesn't mean I want to share what's mine.”

Before I can stop it, a noise crawls through my throat just to be muffled, and a blush starts to creep into my cheeks from the deep and dark chuckle vibrating against my back. This jerk knows what he's doing, and it's unfair, but I can't do anything about it.

“Go fix yourself up some breakfast, Darlin’. After your little spell last night, you'll need something on your stomach.”

I nod, and he lets me go.

“Change. Now.” Sam grabs my purse from the back seat and tosses it into my lap, raising an eyebrow in surprise. Before I can ask questions, he starts dialing through the Bluetooth radio, and Tides' voice comes through.

“Smart move encrypting the text messages so they couldn't be intercepted.”

Sam scoffs. I look down at my bag and sift through it, finding my black jeans, a long-sleeve shirt, and a black balaclava similar to his. I grin. I could change in the back seat, but it's payback time.

“Moe took care of all the side road cameras, and Jonathan rented a vehicle similar to yours,”Tide explains as I stretch my arms overhead, puffing out my chest so that my breasts strain against the red lace of my bra.

“Why?” My tone is innocent, but my intentions are far from it.

Sam curses under his breath and finally glances in my direction, his eyes greedily scanning my form.

“He will ride alongside us until we can veer off. After that, they'll head to the bar we agreed on. No surveillance is allowedwithin the club, so all they have to do is cause a scene—fight like a married couple.” Sam grumbles, jerking his focus back to the road and tightening his grip on the steering wheel.

“What's the purpose of that?” I coo.

“You'll have an alibi in place. They won't leave until you two do, and by the time you get back to the hotel, you'll continue your banter. Hopefully, if things go smoothly tonight, we'll gather the necessary information while covering our bases.”

I nod, pull my shirt over my head, and untuck my hair from the fabric. Sam lets out a breath of relief just as a car similar to ours pulls into the lane to our right.

“I'm going to bring Moe in now. You'll have to walk him through which cameras to put on a loop, but other than that, he stayed up all night memorizing the structure.”Tide says, but I focus on our movements, weaving in front of them so their car can weave back in front of ours. It's like shuffling cards and telling someone to pick up the one they saw first.

“Sounds good. Getting a good view of the layout on my phone was difficult, but I believe if we go through the back entrance, we will have a straight shot to the main office.”

As Sam speaks, we turn down a separate road, but my brain is throbbing, trying to process how fast that happened.

“Wait, where are we even going?” I finally process that, just like usual, I'm a step behind—underprepared and thrown into a fire without an extinguisher.

“Bravetti Mansion. That boy last night was too composed and collected, nothing like his friend. He acts like he has something to lose,” Sam grumbles, then raises his hand as if trying to silence me.

“Transferring you guys over.” Sam continues, but I interrupt him before he can say anything else.

“Don’t,” I say, smacking his hand from the air so it falls forward and out of my face.

“Do that,” I warn slowly.

His palm hovers over the cup holders, frozen as he studies his hand, then glances back at me, flicking his gaze across my features as if he's trying to understand where my temper is coming from. I’ve been silenced enough in my life. He won't be added to the list of people who have done that to me.

“Of course he does. It's obvious he's not the perfect citizen.” I mumble under my breath as I look out the window, trying to avoid addressing what just happened. Clearing his throat, Sam picks up our earbuds and hands me one, which I quickly push into my ear.

“He can keep his petty criminal activities to himself. We just need answers about what's coming, and he seemed to know a lot about the ball.”

“But we don’t know if anything is coming,” I reply.

Sam rubs his hand over his face and parks the car among a line of trees. “Little devil. Please use that pretty little head of yours for a moment. If something is about to happen, our chances of knowing lie in that building.”

He tilts his head toward the front windshield, and I follow the motion to the soft glow fighting through the brush. “If we don’t find anything, we’re back to square one.”

“Ah, you two will be fine. In and out.”Moe interjects.

Sam leans in my direction, his fingers brushing my cheekbone as he pushes a strand of hair behind my ear.

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