She steps closer to him, her top still not on, and reaches out to touch him.

I don’t even think. I move to stand in front of him, my wedges almost tripping me up in my haste to get between them, and I cross my arms over my chest with a growl low in my throat.

I feel Nate bend, his mouth going to my ear as one strong hand curls around my hips and pulls me flush to his body. “Did you just growl like a dog?” he mockingly breathes so low I only hear him before nipping the sensitive flesh behind my ear.

“Back up now,” I fume when she has the nerve to look at me as if I’m the one intruding.

“Who the hell are you?” the woman—Julie—snaps at me.

“His.”

“Mine.”

We both speak at the same time, and her eyes dart back and forth between the two of us before narrowing and she addresses Nate. “That’s not what you told me last night.” One very thin blond brow attempts to go up, but judging by the way it just kind of twitches, she’s got a little too much Botox going on. Her red lips tip up and what could have been a smothery look just makes her look like a devil.

A she-devil.

“Nice try, but you’re going to have to work a little harder if you’re going to try that kind of garbage with me because he never left my side last night.”

I see my words hit her when some of that malevolent spitefulness dims. She doesn’t know I’m lying, but I know she is.

“That was a nice try, babe,” I tell her before reaching over and picking one of her blond hairs off her breast, my finger grazing her hard nipple and I curl my lip up in disgust. “Honey,” I call over my shoulder, not giving her the satisfaction of looking away first.

“Hmm?”

“Do you think bleach would ruin your couch?” I ask, my brow arching high.

His laughter bellows from his chest, the richness fills the room instantly. The hand still holding my hip flexes and he pulls me closer, the other arm going around my chest to hold me to his body. Whether he’s doing that to keep me closer or to keep me from her, I don’t really care. The second every hard inch of him presses against me from top to toe, the woman before us might as well have been invisible.

He is finally able to calm down his hilarity to just a few bursts of air that I feel tickle the top of my head a few moments later. The woman is still topless and still fuming in front of us.

“You’re fired. If I see you back inside or near Dirty, I’ll make sure you’re in the back of a cop car in seconds, got me?” His deadly calm tone causes a shiver of arousal to stream down my spine. He’s doing it to intimidate her, show her he’s serious and in control, I’m sure … but hearing him take a tone full of domination flips a switch inside me that makes me shift uncomfortably when I feel the wetness between my legs.

“What?!” she screeches and throws her hands in the air. “A few weeks ago, you were on the bar dancing for me, and now, you’re throwing me out when we both know this is what you want.”

Instead of allowing her words to cut me, I reach back and push my hand between our bodies until my palm rests against the bulge in his pants. He’s not hard, thankfully, but he’s obviously a sizable man if the heavy weight of his cock beneath my palm is anything to go by. He hisses out a breath when I squeeze my hand. I want him to know that her words aren’t affecting me in the least and the only way I can think of is to remind him that I meant what I said yesterday. I still want him even with this clusterfuck in front of us. The old Ember, the one that let her past rule her, would have run the second I stepped into his office, but not the new me. I intend to live up to the nickname he gave me a long time ago.