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“Such an adorable little manipulator.” She gave me a teasing scowl as she finally pried herself off Silas’s lap.

“I have to possess some skills in this ocean of very bossy, overbearing men.”

I frowned at both Silas and Trevan.

Silas chuckled. “I didn’t say a word, Lena.”

“Oh, but you’ve said plenty of them over the years. And this girl is in rare form. New form. Prepare yourselves for the new and improved Elena Mercer.”

Did I slur that?

Trevan grunted, though I could see a smile twitch his sexy mouth.

What I wouldn’t give to have that mouth on me.

Anywhere.

Everywhere.

When I realized I almost said it out loud, I smacked my free hand over my mouth.

Swiveling on my heel, I was quick to haul Brinley out onto the dance floor and into the writhing fray.

“Does that hand over your mouth mean you’re trying not to puke or that you’re trying not to spew your secrets?” Brinley razzed it as I spun back in her direction once we were in the middle of the dance floor.

I groaned. “I almost said it right in front of my brother.”

“What?” she asked on a laugh, both of us starting to move to the seductive rhythm of the music that thrummed through the bar.

I leaned her way, my eyes wide as I whispered through my teeth. “That I want Trevan’s mouth.”

I poured all the implication into it that I could.

“And where do you want his mouth?”

I knew it was fully a tease, and still I was hissing, “You know, right there.”

I ticked my chin downward.

She cracked up and threw her arms around me, sending us off beat as she rocked us back and forth. “I think it’s definitely time you had that mouth right where you want it. Or maybe the mouth of one of these cuties circling around you like you’re the Holy Grail, but they don’t quite know how to touch it.”

I peeked around. Into the flashing strobes that intermittently lit the faces of the throbbing mob crushed around us.

Bodies packed and roiling.

The contorted movements amplified by the lightheadedness that kept sloshing through my brain.

There were a couple cute guys eyeing me from the side as they danced and drank their beers. Neither of them sported the actual Crimson Crows patch but rather had Prospect across their left breast.

My heart rate increased. Warmth caressing my flesh at the attention.

It was always the prospects who dared to give it to me. The actual Crows knew what would befall them if any were dumb enough to go after me, but the prospects didn’t have the full inside of what really went down behind Church’s doors.

The true commitment that the Crows pledged themselves to.

There was little chance Silas would forgive them for their ignorance, and I wasn’t sure I could be selfish enough to put anyone in that position.

Or maybe it was just that I only wanted to beg one man to take that chance. Beg one man to fight for me.