Page 133 of The Silent Note

“You can’t pay attention, can you?” Zane taunts.

“Just give me a second,” I grumble. “Uh… we were talking about the break in.”

I inhale sharply as he clamps his teeth on the shell of my ear and then soothes it with a sultry lick. The stinging pain followed by the wetness of his tongue has me gasping out loud.

“What about the break in?” Zane asks, moving his hips as he shifts my thighs a little wider and adjusts me under him. It’s like he’s not even wearing sweatpants. Like I’m not even wearing shorts. With this little fabric, the friction is about to set me on fire.

“Not… fair.” I pant. “You’re the one who wanted to talk in private. You should… say something.”

I’m reveling in his heat and I don’t really want to talk, but Zane leans up. Blazing fingers trace up my spine. His hand scoops the back of my neck and he pulls me forward, leaning down until our foreheads touch.

“I think whoever came to the house tonight was looking for you,” he says darkly.

I stiffen.

“They already tried to kill you once. There’s nothing stopping them from trying again.”

I want to fight him on that, but he has a point. This investigation isn’t child’s play and it makes sense that someone could be watching us, even now, waiting on the right time to kill me. They already killed Harris. And now Slavno. It’s a domino effect and I’m next in line.

“They’ve had plenty of opportunities to get me alone. Why haven’t they tried it again?” I ask.

Zane rubs his thumb along my hairline. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to take any chances either.” He gently sets me back until I’m flat on the bed. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Grey.”

“Death is coming for all of us. I’m not scared. I just don’t want to die before Sloane is brought to justice.”

“Death should know we’re a package deal. If you go, I’m coming to the grave with you.”

“Don’t joke like that.”

But I know he’s not joking. Zane is looking down at me with an anger in his eyes that burns me to the quick.

I’m coming to the grave with you.The promise lingers in the air, staining the silence, making me shiver. Making meburn.

“Zane…”

Fingertips grazing down to the waist of my pants and slipping inside, he whispers, “Don’t you get it yet? I exist for you, Grey. Ibreathefor you. Everything I am and everything I will be is yours.”

“I didn’t ask for that.”

“No, you didn’t. And still, I’ll give you everything.”

“Without expecting anything in return?”

“No.” He chuckles darkly, teasing the band of my panties. “No, I’ll take everything from you too. Until you no longer deny who you belong to.”

“Whom.”

His smirk is dirty. Filthy, really.

The skin of my stomach jumps as he traces a line down the center of me.

“Whom?” Zane whispers. “Why is it whom?”

White-hot electricity snaps through every nerve. “Y-you’re not referring to the subject in the sentence. It’s more like a prepositional phrase.” I gulp. “So you’d use ‘whom’.”

“English nerd.”

“Englishteacher.”