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"Where you off to, choir boy?"

"Video room. Got myself a babysitter, apparently."

"Aw." He presses a hand to his chest. "Be good for the nice lady."

I flip him off and leave.

Walking down the tunnel that smells like rubber and cold, I run the same lecture I always run.

She's Cade's. She's off-limits. She thinks you're a punchline. Keep it together, Hunter.

It might not be her. But if it is. Keep your hands to yourself.

The video room sits dark and empty. I drop into a chair and rehearse being easy, being normal, being a man who feels nothing, and I've almost got myself believing it when my phone lights up in my palm.

Cade

Heard she landed some big promotion. Don't let those animals give her a hard time.

It's true. It's her. She'll be in my orbit now. Always there. I mean, she’s always in my thoughts but now I'll need the self control of a defender.

The door opens behind me.

I turn around with my best friend's text still burning a hole in my heart. Protect his sister from animals.

Margot walks in, with a look on her face like she came here to bury me and brought her own shovel.

She crosses the room with purpose, and God help me, I do the thing I always do.

I imagine her in my bed. Her body is all soft curves, the kind my hands would fit against like they were measured for it. Short skirt today, showing off legs she keeps toned enough to wrap around me and never let go.

She hides the rest of her under that blazer, but that doesn't stop me. I trace every inch of her with my eyes, slow, because it's the only way I'm ever allowed to touch her. In my dreams I get the rest. In my dreams she's naked underneath me and saying my name like it isn't a mistake.

I have to shift in the chair. Have to knock it off. This is Cade's sister. My best friend's little sister. Off-limits, drawn in permanent ink.

Doesn't help. Never has.

What kind of man looks at his best friend's kid sister like this. Cade would put me into the boards, and he'd be right to do it.

I've known her since she had braces and a backpack bigger than she was. I taught her to skate. And here I am, picturing her legs around me like she's mine to have.

If she could hear the inside of my head she'd never come near me again, and that would be the decent thing, the safe thing.

But I want her anyway. And that's the part that makes me a bastard.

Still this is the best penalty I ever took, the one that lands me right here, in her office.

Chapter 3: Margot

"Jax, why is it dark in here? This is a conversation, not a hostage situation."

I turn on the lights, and the video room snaps into ugly fluorescent focus.

A long table. A wall of monitors frozen on last night's crime scene.

Jax, watches me cross the room like I'm the third period he's been waiting all game for.

"They actually did it." Delight is written all over his stupid gorgeous face. "They put you in charge of me."