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“Callum.”
Her brow rose.
“My name is Callum.”
“Okay. Um, thank you, Callum.”
I nearly growled. I wanted her to say my name the same way again. Soft and breathless. Like it was a secret.
But instead, Lainie muttered, “Just to be clear, that’s two of my close friends now claimed by the club. I really should start charging a matchmaking fee.”
Gemma blinked, blushing furiously, but I didn’t miss the way she peeked up at me from under her lashes. “What?”
“Never mind,” Lainie huffed as she slid out of the booth first, tugging Gemma along with her.
Gemma looked over her shoulder as they headed for the door. There was confusion lurking in those brown pools. She didn’t understand her reaction to me.
I forced myself to keep my feet planted where they were. There was plenty of time to educate her later. After this shit was handled.
When the door shut behind them, I finally let myself breathe.
“She’s gonna wreck you,” Fox said from behind me, sounding amused as hell.
Deviant made a low whistling sound as he dropped into a chair and kicked his boots up on the table. “Heard your balls hit the floor the second she walked in.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I growled.
“Big, bad Hawk. All that brooding and cold silence,” Deviant chuckled. “And now you’re walking around with a hard-on and puppy eyes.”
I clenched my hands into fists so I wouldn’t strangle him. “You must really want to bleed today.”
Ignoring my warning, he grinned and quipped, “I give it a week before he’s moved her into his room and turned into one of those ‘can’t function without her’ types.”
My voice was threaded with steel, and my stare was deadly. “Keep testing me, Deviant. See how that ends.”
Fox smirked. “Two days. Tops.”
“Fuck both of you.”
That just made them laugh harder.
Maverick snorted. “Guess it’s your turn to go soft. Don’t worry, happens to the best of us.”
“Not me,” I muttered.
Liar.
“Right,” he deadpanned, calling me on my bullshit. “You’re just vibrating with bloodlust because youcare so much about justice.”
I flipped them all off and stalked toward the back hall, already counting the minutes until I could see her again.
Planning how I was gonna make her mine.
And when I found the bastard who’d dared to touch her work, steal her photo, and make her live in fear…he was going to learn exactly what it felt like to be hunted by a man with nothing to lose when it came to the woman he’d just claimed.
5
GEMMA