Page 135 of The Silent Note

For all the crap she talks about being older than me and how wrong we are because she’s my teacher, you’d think that’d mean she’d make better freaking choices.

I slide my fingers into the pocket of my sweatpants. It doesn’t hide how I’m shaking all over.

“It’s really not that bad,” Grey says.

“When?” I grit out.

“What?”

“When did you meet him?”

She winces. My voice is a little too loud. A little too harsh.

I know that.

Iknow.

I’m trying to rein it in, but I can’t rope back my fury.

Hall breaking my wrist is one thing. But I will never forget seeing him drag Grey down the stairs with the intent to force himself on her. I stained Redwood’s pavement with his blood that night. If that scum of the earth called out my wife, he crossed a line. Theodore Hall will pay for evenbreathinginGrey’s direction. I need to make sure there’s not a drop of blood left in his cold, dead body.

“After I left you. He called while I was in the taxi. But I didn’t go without backup. I told Cadence where I was?—”

“Cadence knew?” My voice is compact, a trained whisper. But like a jack-in-the-box, one spring and it’ll blow the roof off the penthouse.

Grey gulps. Her eyes dart away, a classic sign of dishonesty. “No, she didn’t know. I meant, Iintendedto tell her…”

I stomp around to my phone.

My twin doesn’t pick up. The phone goes to voicemail.

If I know Dutch, he’s probably blowing Cadence’s back out.

Too bad.

I keep calling.

“Zane, what are you doing? You’re not going to make this a big deal, are you?” Grey lifts those sultry brown eyes my way, poison-tipped lips arching into a nervous smile. “Forget I said anything about Hall.”

Voicemail again.

I slam my fingers on the numbers on screen and call Dutch again, the ringing tone matching the pounding in my head.

My wife slips her lean arms around my waist. Her tits unconsciously rub against me.

“It’s been a really long day. Lots of secrets shared. Lots of weird discoveries,” Grey says in a patient, measured voice that would work on a toddler in the middle of a temper tantrum.

And maybe that’s what she sees me as.

A toddler with a big mouth.

Maybe that’s why she didn’t call me and instead went face-to-face against a snake like Hall with a little slip of a girl like Cadey as back up.

“How about you and I go to sleep? Hm?” She tugs on my T-shirt sleeve. “I’ll even let you take half of the bed?—”

I grab her by the wrists and slam her into the wall, not hard enough to hurt but enough to make a point. Dropping my hold on her heated skin, I slam my hand on the plaster and cage her in. I’m not touching her, but my eyes on hers are a warning.

She thinks I want half the freaking bed? Every instinct in me is demanding I take her so hard and fast she cries my name over and over again. Hell, my pants are so stiff, I probably wouldn’t be able to last the few steps to the bed. I’d just rip her shorts to her ankles and give her a taste of this all-consuming craving she’s awakened in my body. There’d probably be a dent in the wall by the time I’m through with her.

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