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Van gives a subtle shake of his head, so faint I nearly miss it. “Not a dream.”

All amusement fades from her face. It’s replaced with doubt and desire. A tangled web of yearning so deep it echoes in her voice.

“I’m scared you’re wrong and I’ll wake up alone.” She sucks in a breath. I feel the hitch of it in her chest. “I hate waking up without you. I hate seeing you in the morning and wanting you like I did in my dreams and getting so wet I can hardly stand straight but knowing I can’t have you.”

Fuck me.

What am I supposed to say to that? I can’t exactly confess just how often I’ve jerked off in the shower to thoughts of her. Even though I trust Van to never judge me, that’s not something you blurt.

Across from me, pressed into our sliver of damnation, Van is breathing hard. His jaw is a razor’s edge. His eyes cut down into Everly’s upturned face with a raw, desperate hunger I can’t blame him for.

“We need to take you home,” he grinds out through gritted teeth, “before you get yourself in trouble.”

Tears well up in her eyes. They cling to her lashes as she stares up at him with gut wrenching heartbreak. “You think I’m disgusting.”

One hand unfurls from around her and closes onto her delicate jaw. He forces her face up to his. “Never. But if you don’t stop talking, we’re all going to have bigger problems.”

Still, her bottom lip quivers. “Are you taking me back to him?”

“Does Bron even know you’re here?” I ask.

Everly shakes her head. “Please don’t tell him.” Despite the hand still cradling her face, she tips it up to mine. “Please, Mr. Shaw? He’ll be so angry with me.”

I wish I could say I don’t know what she’s talking about. I wish I could play ignorant to her fears. I’ve seen how disgustingly Bron treats her. How careless he is with her. I know she deserves better, but I am not the one to make that call. They are both grown adults. Their relationship is their business. Still...

“Why are you here, Everly?” I ask even while I dread the answer.

Pain glistens in the velvet depths of her gaze as she searches my face through her drunken haze. A single tear cuts down her face and catches on the pad of Van’s thumb.

The sight of it punches me in the gut. It fans a surge of rage and alarm I have to battle back while I wait for her answer.Wait for her to give me an excuse to track Bron down and strangle him.

“He hurt me,” she whispers so quietly I nearly don’t hear her.

CHAPTER TWO

LACHLAN

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“What do you mean he hurt you?” Each word is shredded through gritted teeth as I fight to control the pulse of red distorting my vision.

“Please don’t be mad,” she chokes out. “I know it’s boys’ night and I shouldn’t be here, but I ... I needed you. I just ... I didn’t want to be alone.” She turns frantic eyes to Van whose face is a thundercloud of barely suppressed fury. “I won’t do it again.”

I stop thinking of everything but the tremors coursing through her. The short little pants of air she’s barely controlling. While the need to push her, to demand answers burns at the back of my throat, I force it all down.

“Hey,” I skim her damp cheek with my knuckles, “no one’s mad, sweetheart. You are always welcome anywhere we are.”

She sniffles. The sound devastating. “Really?”

“Always,” Van promises. “Just not here. Understand? You can’t come here alone.”

She licks soft, pink lips and peers up at him. “I won’t.”

He grazes the hill of her cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. “Good girl.” The digit brushes down to dust the curve of her bottom lip. “Now, tell me what he did to you.”

It doesn’t elude me that I should probably intervene. Bron is still my kid and as his dad it’s my job to protect him from whatever punishment Van may be formulating. But Van isn’t the problem here. He’s not the one Bron will have to worry about if he hurt Everly. My tolerance for abusing women is nonexistent. Son or not, Everly or not, I will never stand by and allow a grown man to abuse a woman no matter who she is. The fact that it’s Everly only increases the brewing storm building in my chest.

But Everly has her lips sucked inward, sealed shut tight as she peers up at Van. She gives a slight shake of her head.