10. Luke
Chapter 10
Luke
At the bar, the girls still haven’t shown. My foot bounces against my stool as I clutch the drink in my hand, ignoring the puck bunnies fawning over Finn, Damien, Knox, and me. They all know better than to bother with Wes. He’s only got eyes for one girl, and now, so do I.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from Sienna to Ten.
Sienna
Going out tonight! I miss you.
She follows up the text with a photo she snapped in the mirror. My mouth waters at that little black dress hugging her every curve. She knows exactly what she’s doing, trying to bait me into responding. I wish I could. Wish I could tell her how gorgeous she is, no matter what she’s wearing. But she’ll just have to settle for hearing it from me in person.
“Finally!” Wes calls, leaving my side to meet Violet.
Behind her, Juliet is dolled up in a skimpy, all-black outfit, and Sienna?—
Fuck. Sienna .
The little black dress she squeezed into leaves little to the imagination. She’s even more gorgeous now that I can see the way she moves in it. Judging by the way her gaze shifts from confident to cautious when she spots me, she didn’t pick that dress herself.
Sienna grabs her friends, dragging them to the dance floor with the few people hammered enough to dance in public. Wes follows without hesitation, happy to grind against Violet’s ass.
A small smile crawls across my lips. Sienna thinks she can avoid me tonight. She’ll learn soon enough that she’ll never escape me. That she won’t want to.
Knox grins when the girls form a circle to dance together and smacks his glass down on the bar. “That’s my cue.”
I clap a hand on his shoulder, keeping him rooted in place. “Keep your hands off my sister.”
He smirks at me. “Relax, Valentine.”
At a nearby booth, Damien whispers in the ear of the redhead on his lap, and Finn rests a casual hand on a puck bunny’s hip while she grinds against him.
On the dance floor, Sienna is magnetic. Her movements are awkward and choppy, but she’s grinning. My watchful gaze is forgotten as she loses herself in the music and laughter. A glimpse of that girl she was when we met at the hotel—confident, bold, bright. She’s good at hiding the pain underneath. So good at compartmentalizing, you’d almost think she wasn’t a girl who’d been beaten and chased out of her hometown. The kind of girl who hides her dark secrets beneath humor and smiles.
I can’t take my eyes off her. I haven’t been able to since we met. She’s more enchanting than I ever imagined.
Once she finally leaves the dance floor, fanning her flushed cheeks, she tries to ignore me. Pretends I don’t exist.
I slide over the drink I ordered for her. “Reminds me of the night we met.”
Her nose scrunches at the glass. “How do I know you didn’t spike this with something?”
My jaw clenches. She must not have heard about what happened to Chloe. “I’d never do anything like that. To you or anybody.”
She blanches at the sharp edge to my tone, grabbing up the glass but still refusing to take a sip. “Okay. Good.”
“Relax. It’s water. Figured you could use some after all that dancing.”
Finally, Sienna takes a hesitant sip. Relief washes over her when she discovers I’m not lying, and she downs half the glass. She takes a seat, leaving a few empty stools between us. “Please tell me you didn’t watch me dance.”
I move to sit right beside her, her intoxicating jasmine scent drifting up my nose, and she stiffens. Her bare thigh is prominently on display, begging to be squeezed, kissed, sucked. “How could I not watch you dance in that dress?”
She rolls her eyes, even as my words make her throat bob.
Now that she’s inches away, I rake my gaze over every inch. Where the neckline plunges to reveal her cleavage, where the hem stops just below her ass, where the fabric cinches in at the waist and hugs over her hips. She’s beautiful in that dress. In everything. In nothing.
Sienna takes another gulp of her water, keeping her gaze fixed on the alcohol behind the bartender. “You should find a girl who isn’t your stepsister to hook up with tonight. Some other girl who can help you sleep through the night.” She gestures around the bar. “There are plenty of options.”
If only she knew she’s not just my stepsister or some girl. She’s everything. Everything I didn’t know I’ve been waiting for.
At the booth, the redhead who’d been in Damien’s lap now has her hand on his chest and some other guy’s. Probably a boyfriend or a jealous ex. Damien is ready to rip the guy’s head off for her. He’ll do just about anything for a night with new puck-bunny pussy.
Sienna would never grind against some other guy while her boyfriend was ten feet away.
I shake my head. “There are no other options. There’s only you.”
For a second, she preens at the praise before she buries the joy back down. She loves my flattery, even if she doesn’t want to admit it. “You shouldn’t say things like that to me.”
If it was Ten saying that to her, she’d love it.
Damien and the jealous boyfriend stomp toward the exit, taking the fight outside. The redhead protests at their backs, even as she grins, loving that two guys are about to fight over her.
I grit my teeth. I don’t want to leave Sienna at the bar alone, but right now, Damien needs me more than she does.
“Don’t drink anything anyone gives you,” I warn her before I follow the group outside.
In the cold, the redhead shivers in her tiny skirt and top while the guys swing fists and land punches with sickening thuds on each other’s arms and jaws. Damien’s buzzed enough to be pissed but not stumbling drunk like his opponent. He doesn’t need my help, and I’m not jumping in to catch an elbow to the gut or a fist to the face if I don’t have to. Hockey fights are hard enough on the body—I don’t need to get into fights off the ice too.
Once the dude is laid out, the redhead gloms onto Damien’s arm. He shakes her off. Already lost interest.
I clap him on the shoulder as he heads back for the door. “You good?”
“Great. Knuckles barely even hurt.”
A loud burst of laughter greets us when we head back in, carrying over the thumping music. I’d recognize that high, musical laugh anywhere.
Who the fuck is making her laugh like that?