Page 65 of Bound

Instead, I’m aware and on edge and…

I duck when he throws the punch.

“She’s like our little sister,” he growls. “How dare you take advantage of her?”

One second, I’m half amused, half annoyed at the pushy asshole routine that Smitty’s displaying. The next, the words process, my temper snaps, and I’m on my feet, my hand around his throat.

Squeezing.

Squeezingveryhard.

Squeezing until his face starts turning red.

“I would never take advantage of her,” I hiss, leaning up so that our faces are mere inches apart, so that he can see exactly how deadly serious I am. “I barely got my own head out of my ass enough to accept taking her on a date, let alone that I can have something more. It’s her,” I say. “It’s her and me, and you’re not going to doanythingto fuck that up.”

If I was in my right mind, I might have noticed that all of a sudden, Smitty is smirking.

Even though my hand is still around his throat.

Even though I’m still squeezing the life out of him like I’m trying to get that last fucking drop of juice out of a crushed slice of lemon.

But Idon’tnotice.

Because I’m too fucking pissed.

“I don’t owe you a fucking explanation,” I growl. “But I know you care about her, so I’ll give you this. I like her—maybe toomuch and for far too fucking long. I just didn’t think I was good enough for her. Lucky for me, she disagrees and has decided to give my dumb ass a chance.” I bend, holding his gaze. “So, I’m not going to fuck it up. Not now. Not?—”

A hand on my shoulder nearly has me whipping around and punching out whoever in the fuck thinks that they’re allowed to touch me right now.

“I get the urge to strangle Smitty,” Aiden says quietly, “but kill him and we’ll be down a defenseman tonight.” His mouth quirks. “I’d really prefer this big asshole block the shots instead of me.”

That’s just absurd enough to have laughter bubbling up in my chest…

And my hand releasing.

Smitty—who’s big enough that he likely could have easily broken my hold—coughs loudly (because he does everything loudly). “You’re not ready, dickwad,” he says. “You barely function with the rest of the team, barely let us in. How are you going to begin to take care of our Claire properly?”

My biggest fucking fear on display, but instead of making me retreat, I’m ready to dig in and push forward.

She’s too important to give up just because I’m scared.

I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m fucking ready.”

“No,” he growls. “You’re not.”

I open my mouth to tell him to fuck off but he, in typical Smitty fashion, can’t shut the fuck up.

“You’ll hurt her and thenI’llhurt you and?—”

“Asshole,” I begin, stepping close. “You’d better watch your fucking mouth.”

“Smitty,” Aiden says on a sigh, moving between us, shoving us back so I’m out of choking reach. Assholes. Both of them. “Enough,” he says. “Claire can take care of herself, and Jackson isn’t going to hurt her—not on purpose, anyway. Because we’reall inherently dumbasses and are going to fuck up, but—” He looks at Smitty when the other man growls. “But,” he says again, “Jackson and Claire have us, have you and each other, and they’ll be good, yeah?”

Silence falls—a fucking shock, especially with Smitty around.

“And you,” Aiden goes on, turning back to me, eyes colder and expression more serious than I’ve ever see it. “We haven’t missed that you’ve been a dick to her more than once over the last months. I’m glad you’ve made your peace and seem to have gotten on board with how great she is, and I hope to fuck you got on your fucking knees and groveled for forgiveness?—”

Groveling for forgiveness isn’t the worst idea.

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