Page 46 of Under His Embrace

He growled, kissing up my neck and rubbing his erection against me. The full-body grind turned me on more. I didn’t care if he was sweaty and filthy. I relished the promise of his hard muscles grinding against me, his hands gripping me so tightly.

“Everything you have to say is important to me, Chloe.Youare important to me. You always have been.”

I winced at his words. He’d stand by them with what he knew about me now. Once I told him my biggest secret, he might want to walk that statement back and pretend it wasn’t true.

“Please, just let me tell you?—”

His phone rang, cutting through the quiet. Over the panted breaths we shared in here, riled up from the potential quickie we’d embarked on having, his phone rang and rang.

“Dammit.”

He gritted his teeth, backing up from me quickly. “Stay right there.” Pointing at me, he kept me in place.

My mouth hung open. I was so startled by how quickly we were interrupted. After his hot body was pressed flush to mine, I felt the absence of his warmth the second he peeled back.

“Um.” I licked my lips and nodded. “Yeah.”

“I need to take this. We’ve had security issues,” he said, backpedaling toward the shelf he put his phone on. It seemed like he couldn’t take his eyes off me. The further he backed up, the more intense the longing in his gaze got.

“The Constella forces keeping an eye on some Giovanni guys in Brooklyn.” I nodded. “I, um, I overheard some men in the kitchen.”

“We live in a dangerous world, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have you in it too,” he said as he reached for his phone.

I furrowed my brow as his odd line sank in. He probably said that because of how I referenced the family-work balance yesterday, when I mentioned that Dante must have struggled to be both a single dad to Romeo and to run the entire Mafia family.

I shook my head. That wasn’t a worry. That never crossed my mind, that Franco wouldn’t be able to be a partner for me now that we’d reunited. Back when I found out that I was pregnant with Caleb, I stressed about it. I was gravely concerned that Franco wouldn’t have had the time to be a father to a newborn when he was just getting committed to his career. It played a big part in why I left.

“Liam,” Franco answered on speaker. He stared at me and ran his hand through his hair. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure.”

Franco furrowed his brow. “Talk to me.”

“I’m off today,” Liam said, “but I think something has come up that we need to follow up on. I know Romeo was teaming up with you on this while I focused on other things, but this is too weird of a coincidence to ignore.”

“Go on.” His tone suggested that he was impatient, both to reclaim this moment we were sharing and to get to the bottom of whatever Liam was talking about.

“I’ve got this friend, someone I used to work with. He’s into, uh, private services.”

Franco nodded. “Okay.”

“He called because he’s aware that I have connections from working with you. He reached out to me just to shoot the shit, you know, just to stay in touch, but he mentioned that he was annoyed about some asshole hanging around his place.”

Franco made a face at me and rolled his hand, as though wishing Liam would get to the point already.

“Said this guy is harassing people in his building, asking questions and being nosy. You know? That sort of thing.”

“What about it?” Franco asked.

“He mentioned his name was Morrison.”

My blood turned cold. I swore my heart skipped a beat. Franco went still, staring at me with a frigid expression of shock.

“Morrison?” he asked.

“Yeah. Morrison, same name as Chloe’s stalker, right? I guess it’s a common enough name, but I think it seems sort of odd. It’s worth checking out, wouldn’t you say?”

Franco nodded, hurrying through the gym to grab a towel to wipe off his bare chest. “Definitely.”

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