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So he might not.
Steele had seen her during the week, but a few minutes here and there along with some phone calls just weren’t enough.
Steele wanted all of Effie.
He was all in.
He paused on the stairs leading up to his private area.
Did he love Effie?
That was impossible, right? He hadn’t known her long enough. But was there a length of time you had to know someone to know they were yours?
Fucked if he knew. But he wanted her in his life.
Forever.
So maybe he did know.
Shaking off his thoughts and needing to see them both, he took off up the stairs.
When he got to the top, he saw Effie snuggled into Grady on the sofa.
She studied him with wide eyes. Was she scared of him? He’d let Lex deal with the asshole. He’d held back. Which was fucking hard when he’d wanted to rip the jerk’s head off.
No one messed with his girl.
He stopped and crossed his arms over his chest. He was going to shelter her as much as he could from the more dangerous parts of his life. The areas where he was the Boss. But she still had to take him as he was.
There was no way he could change that. And part of who he was, was a man who would always lay down his life for his woman.
He held out a finger to her, then crooked it.
She stared at him.
“Come. Here. Effie.”
She got up slowly, moving toward him. And he wished he could take a moment to study how gorgeous she looked in that killer dress. But she started running, throwing herself at him. He took a tight hold of her, pressing her to him.
“New rule,” he said. “I tell you to come to me, then you do, understand me?”
“Sorry,” she whispered. “You just . . . you sounded so mad down there.”
“Wasn’t mad at you, baby girl.” He’d have thought that was obvious. But maybe to Effie, it wasn’t. “And I’d never be so angry that I would harm you. Understand?”
“I was the one talking about blow jobs,” she said. “And I wasn’t that upset by what he said. I can deal with that sort of stuff.”
“I thought we’d made this obvious, but it seems we’ve got to make it more obvious.”
“What?” she asked as he picked her up and carried her over to where Grady was sitting, watching them closely.
Steele sat and settled her on his lap so she was straddling him. “You need to get this right now, Effie. We have your back. Maybe you’ve been doing it alone for a long time, but that stopped the moment you became ours. That means that if someone comes at you, bothers you, upsets you, we take care of it. Even better, we fucking stop it before it can get that far. So no, you do not get some fucker saying shit like that to you without us doing something about it. Now. Do. You. Get. Me?”
“I get you,” she whispered.
And this time, he thought she did. About time.
Wrapping his hand around the back of her head, he brought her in for a kiss. A kiss he should have had a while ago, if he hadn’t been busy fucking throwing some asshole out.
