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Cali looks down at his hand around her wrist, then slowly back up at him. “Do you?”

Scar’s expression changes.

“Oh, fuck,” Sentinel mutters from the armchair.

Cali moves. I don’t even catch exactly what she does, but Scar’s grip breaks, and somehow, she ends up behind him with his arm twisted up his back.

The room erupts.

Echo nearly spills her beer laughing. “I fucking love her!”

Cali releases Scar and pats him sweetly between the shoulder blades. “Good session, babe.”

Scar turns and stares at her before she blows him a kiss and walks toward the kitchen.

“You let her do that?” Raze calls from the bar.

Scar smirks with a shrug.

Echo is still laughing beside me, the sound warm and fucking infectious, and my hellhound pushes closer beneath my skin like he wants in on whatever put that smile on her face.

Her laughter trails off as she turns toward me.

One eyebrow rises. What? I give her my most innocent look.

“You’re doing that thing again.”

I lift both eyebrows as if to say, ‘What thing?’

“You know exactly what thing.”

My mouth twitches.

Echo leans closer, dropping her voice. “You’re thinking about last night, aren’t you?”

My hellhound surges beneath my skin, hellfire warming my chest before I can rein either of them in, and the grin that spreads across her face tells me she felt exactly what she just did to me.

I reach for my beer.

“Thought so.”

Wood cracks against wood across the room as Ruckus finally takes his shot. The cue ball rockets off the rail, clips one ball, sends another spinning across the felt, and somehow drops the eight straight into the corner pocket.

Wreck stares at the table.

Ruckus slowly straightens. A smug grin spreads across his face. “See… luck.”

Wreck points at the table. “That was a fucking accident.”

“Sounds like something an unlucky person would say.”

Laughter rolls through the clubhouse, then the front doors creak, and nobody pays much attention at first.

The doors keep opening.

Slowly.

But nobody comes through them, and my hellhound reacts before I can. Hellfire flares beneath my skin before I can rein it in, and the frown that spreads across her face tells me she felt every fucking bit of it. Fear. I’m off the sofa before my beer reaches the table, putting myself between her and the entrance while the mood around us begins to change.