Page 71 of Framed

Xavier

An uncomfortable silence filled the car. I could still taste her—that sweet, floral flavor, mingled with heat and sweat. I could still feel her, too, the way that perfect fucking pussy of hers had clenched around my cock, like she wanted to drain every last drop from my body.

I would’ve let her, too, if we’d had more time.

My palms felt slick against the wheel, but I knew it was only the phantom memory of her skin against mine.

Fuck. All this time, all this willpower I’d spent resisting her. All for it to collapse in a single ill-advised night.

But that night changed everything.

Everything… andnothing. We still had all the same problems as before. Probably magnified now.

I choked the wheel between both hands, teeth gritted. I needed to focus. I couldn’t get distracted by the way the air between us still crackled with leftover heat. She was sitting next to me in the passenger seat, worrying her lip between her teeth in a way that made me want to take over and bite it for her.

My mind drifted to thoughts of her spread-eagled in my backseat. I wanted to taste that pussy, coat my tongue in her juices. Suck at her clit, slide my tongue between her lips until she was screaming my name.

Instead, I muttered, “When we get there, you stay in the car.” No sense in both of us walking right into our stalker’s most obvious trap yet.

As predicted, however, Scarlett immediately bristled. “Like hell.”

“This isn’t up for debate.”

Her eyes drifted to the glove compartment. As soon as we’d climbed into my car, the note in our fists, the address from it plugged into my phone, I’d stashed my gun in there. From the way she kept glancing at it, I could tell it made her uncomfortable.

Well, too bad. I’d rather she be uncomfortable and alive than—

I shut my eyes for a blink. Don’t even think it. This wouldn’t be like last time. This wouldn’t turn out like it did with Naomi.

For all we knew, the blackmailer just wanted to lead us to some other affair, like when whoever wrote these notes made Scarlett nearly walk in on my dad and his mistress. That was probably it. Just another cryptic message for us to decipher. Nothing earth-shattering, nothing deadly.

I growled and tapped on my phone screen to call Briggs. Again. Just like the other three times I’d tried so far, it went straight to voicemail.

“Maybe he’s asleep?” Scarlett suggested. She almost managed to hide the quiver in her voice.

Almost.

But I knew her too well. She was just as nervous as I was. “He told me he was going off-grid for a day or two, but he usually still keeps his phone on him.” I shook my head. I hadn’t heard anything from him in two days, come to think of it. That wasn’t like him.

Something was off.

Scarlett gave me another of the long, searching looks that she’d been giving me ever since we got into the car an hour ago.

“What?” I demanded. Her eyes on my skin set off waves of heat throughout my body, like I could feel the force of her attention.

That was the last kind of distraction we both needed right now.

Scarlett licked her lips. I tried not to let myself look. Focus on the road, Xavier. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded softer than it had in days. Weeks. I hadn’t heard her talk like this—to me anyway—since we were kids. “Where did you get those bruises?” she asked.

For a second, I didn’t know what she was talking about. Then I remembered her eyes on me in the living room, under the blinding glare of the overhead light. Exposing too much. Scarlett never missed a trick, unfortunately.

I grimaced. “It’s nothing.” I hated the fact that she’d seen those. That was the last thing I wanted her to think of me. That I was just some lowlife brawler now. It was why I’d told Ethel not to let Scarlett anywhere near the basement on fight nights. It was why I’d taken great pains to keep her separate from that half of the business.

“They don’t look like nothing, Xavier.”

I avoided her eye. “Tell me about your notes. Did the ones you got sound like this one?”

“Your dodges are getting obvious.” She leaned in, and that sweet scent of hers overwhelmed me again, sent a pulse of desire straight to my crotch, like a sudden jolt of electric adrenaline.Fuck. I inhaled sharply and scowled at the road. “Do you still see your father?” she asked.

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