Page 70 of Framed

So I shut my eyes, and stopped thinking. Just for a minute.

***

I didn’t know how much time passed before I came back to myself. I startled upright, blinking in confusion. My bedroom felt hot and damp, and beside me…

Xavier bolted upright too, sticky with sex and old sweat. We looked at one another, eyes wild, hearts thundering.

Panic shot through me. Did he regret this? Was it the wrong thing to do? Things were already complicated between us, how could I have let it go this far? What was I thinking?

Before I could beat myself up too badly, Xavier’s frown deepened. “Did you hear that too?” he asked.

I shook my head, confused. I’d been expecting a lecture about temptation or playing with fire. “Hear what?”

“That crash. It woke me.”

Now that he mentioned it, I did remember a crashing sound. I’d attributed it to the dream I was having, which hung at the fringes of my memory now in barely-recalled snatches. I’d been somewhere beautiful, calm. Xavier had been there, lips on mine, soft and gentle—not like last night. We’d been touching, his hands on my hips, my ass, and then…

I frowned. “Now that you mention it…”

Xavier was already rolling out of bed, grabbing his boxers. He tugged them on, though not before I caught a glimpse of his ass. Damn. I knew the man worked out, but holy shit, those muscles.

Then he was gone, padding away from me. I stared after him before glancing down at my naked body. Bruises marred my hips, and when I rolled off the bed, my muscles screamed in protest. None louder than my pussy. I swear, when I clenched it, I could still feel the ghost of his cock inside me, digging into my walls.

God, walking was going to be a struggle.

But I ignored the aches, grabbed a T-shirt to pull on. Luckily it was long enough to cover everything. I padded after Xavier into the living room, noticing the long scratches that marred his backside in the moonlight.

“Stay there,” Xavier barked from the living room, one hand extended toward me.

Like hell. I stormed into the room after him. Then I froze on the threshold, gaping, as Xavier hit the overhead light. It took me a minute to comprehend what the hell I was seeing.

Glass shards littered the floor. A rock sat in their midst. Xavier and I hit the same conclusion at once, and raced one another to the window. We peered outside, but the placid school lawns looked just like they always did at this hour—moonlight, silent, and empty. Everyone must still be at that beach party. It felt like he and I had been up here forever, but it must have only been a couple of hours, if Winter wasn’t home yet.

Either way, no sign of whoever threw this rock through our balcony window.

Frowning, I turned back around. As I did, I caught sight of Xavier properly now, not cast in the murky shadows of my bedroom. He had a deep purple bruise forming under one eye, and several more over his bare torso.

I knew I clawed him, but I sure as hell didn’t do the rest of that. I reached out to touch one of the darker bruises, and Xavier twisted away, his expression shuttering.

“What the hell was that?” He looked at the rock on the living room carpet.

As he did, I noticed the object in his hand. My eyes went wide, my pulse racing for an entirely different reason now. “Is that a gun?” I hissed.

He ignored me and shoved it into his waistband, a move that looked all too practiced.

“Since when do you carry a gun around?” I demanded, advancing on him as he knelt to pick up the rock.

He turned it over, and my breath caught. There was a piece of paper tied around it. A note, with handwriting we both recognized by now.

We exchanged looks. His was unreadable but his jaw ticked. I was sure mine was one of complete horror. Without even realizing it, I noticed that I grasped his bicep to steady myself as we both bent over it to read.

"If the enemy leaves a door open, you must rush in."

13452 Old Milton Lane, Braselton, GA

Better get there fast.

chapter twenty eight

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