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TREVAN

I stirred in my fucking chair, so fucking wound up it was a shock I didn’t go spinning like a top.

Having to sit there in the shadows watching Elena out on the dance floor. That motherfucker Dice sidling closer and closer with each beat of music that thrummed through the dark, smoky air.

Was this little thundercunt testing me?

Swore I’d caught him a bunch of times looking at her longer than he should whenever she’d come in to hang out with Brinley in the autobody shop’s office.

Watched his stare linger for too long, no question imagining things I wanted to gouge his goddamn eyes out for even having the audacity to think.

I liked the kid, but right then, he was asking to get eviscerated.

The literal kind since the blade of my knife was itching to find his gut.

I sipped at my beer like it might douse the rising rage.

“Makes me fuckin’ nuts with her out there like that,” Silas rumbled, matching my thoughts, though his were for entirely different reasons.

“Yeah.” It was the best I could give without completely cracking.

“Wanted to keep her from it,” he muttered with a boatload of regret. “Keep her from this fucking mess that comes with our lives. Didn’t do such a bang-up job of it, did I?”

“I have to stop myself from covering her goddamn eyes every time she steps through the club’s door.” I meant for it to come out easy. A joke. It was nothing but grit.

He chuckled a roughened sound. “Yeah. None of this shit is normal, and around here, it’s everyday life. Have to wonder if I’ve skewed her perception.”

My head shook, cutting off the direction he was going. “She’s fucking smart. Intuitive. She knows who she wants to be, and I don’t believe she’ll let any of this cloud her judgement.”

I had no issue sticking up for that. Didn’t mean I liked it any more than Silas did.

Dice creeping closer.

The air that whirled through the murky, thrumming bar. Indulgence and gluttony the only thing you could breathe.

White lights strobed against her stunning face. Illuminating the soft edges and sharpened angles. Hair released from its hold, black locks whipping around her as she moved to the erotic beat.

I watched as Brinley danced up to her side. There were no words to their exchange, but I could tell that Brinley was offering her something, a conversation passing in the glance of her eyes.

I could read it in the way Elena shifted, lifted her pretty chin, her movements a little off kilter from the alcohol that was clearly saturating her veins, though there was still something about every roll of her hips that smacked of sex.

Seduction seeded in her movements.

Like she was looking for something.

Needing something.

Dice suddenly wrapped his arm around her waist and leaned down to say something in her ear.

I nearly came out of my skin.

“Dude had better watch himself.” Silas’s words were razors. “He knows not to get too close.”

But he got far too fucking close when his punk mouth suddenly grazed over her neck, and her head draped to the side like she was granting better access.

I flew to my feet.

A firestorm I couldn’t contain. Bunched muscles and a possessive fury I had no right to feel coursing through my body.