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Dice finally backed away, hands held up in surrender and that grin plastered to his face.
“Meant no harm, man. Just calling it like it is.”
Lena fucking giggled. Giggled as she leaned into my side.
Okay, sagged against it.
Obviously, the liquor she’d ingested had gone to her head.
“Total guard dog, isn’t he?” Elena patted me on the chest. “Thinking he has to be right there to protect me at every turn. But I told you this girl was spreading her wings. I’m in a brand-new form, and there is nothing you can do about it.”
From the side, she swiveled her shoulders to cant her attention in my direction. The motion threw her off balance.
Her upper body tossed too far outside the stability of her feet.
I thought it was my heart that moved before my instinct even kicked in, and my arm shot out to lock around her waist.
I dragged her upright and against me.
Her tight little body hot.
Skin slicked with sweat and radiating with the scent of apples and cinnamon.
“You’re drunk, Elena,” I gritted through the blaze of need that punched me in the face.
Ire puffed from her nose, and she attempted to pull out of my hold. “So freaking what! Am I not allowed to be? Am I not allowed to have a little fun? To have a couple drinks and freaking dance with a nice guy because he wants to dance with me?”
My stomach twisted.
She was pissed.
Hurt.
And I didn’t know how to stop hurting her time and time again.
“I didn’t—”
Her brow curled and she shook her head, her frustrated words cutting me off. “Just don’t, Trevan.”
She whipped around and began to push through the crush.
Fleeing because of me.
I raked a flustered hand through my hair.
Fuck.
Brinley sent me a glare. “She’s not a little kid, you oaf, and it’s high time both you and my husband stop treating her like one.”
Didn’t she get it? That I couldn’t? That I couldn’t look at Elena as anything else but a girl who I’d been charged with her care?
As my best friend’s little sister.
The club’s princess.
I’d be just as dead as this prick Dice was asking to be if I allowed myself to look at her any other way.
Hell, the times I already did were enough to warrant that penalty.
