“I’m fine,” I said, my voice hoarse and scratchy. It hurt to speak, but it was nowhere near the pain I’d felt just minutes before. I grabbed onto the bedpost, hoisting myself into a standing position. “Do you know who he is?” I asked, looking at the man on his knees.

Bear nodded, pushing the barrel of his gun against the back of the man’s head. “His name is Tretch. He’s a nomad Chop uses on occasion to carry out his dirty work. He’s less known than the crew at Logan’s Beach and when he’s not wearing a cut he looks like a fucking pussy so he’s believable as a civilian.”

“He’s Mr. Carson to me. The guy I shot. The Sunnlandio guy.” Bear laughed wickedly and smacked the butt of his gun against the back of Tretch’s head, who winced and swayed, but didn’t fall.

“This motherfucker is going to wish you killed him,” Bear seethed.

“Bear,” I started, leaning on the bed for support.

“No, Ti. Don’t try and talk me out of it,” Bear said, fire dancing in his eyes. He paced the floor, two steps one way and then two steps the other. His eyes didn’t meet mine. “This fucker laid his hands on you, Ti. His life ends now. The last fucker got away with a broken arm.” Bear leaned down next to Tretch and spoke directly into his ear. “Unfortunately for you, I’m all out of broken arms today.”

“Bear,” I said again, trying to get his attention.

“Ti, it’s not an option, he’s—”

“Bear!” I shouted past the pain, possibly tearing something in my throat. Bear’s eyes finally snapped to mine as if I’d temporarily brought him out of his murderous trance. “I’m not trying to stop you,” I coughed out. “I just don’t want you to shoot him.” I could see the light go off in Bear’s eyes. He knew what I meant, just like he always seemed to know what I meant without me having to explain it. “Tretch wrapped his hands around my throat and tried to choke the life from me. I think you need to repay the favor.” I pulled myself onto the bed, crawling up to where I could be closer to Bear and look down at the piece of shit who almost killed me.

Tretch may have never worked for the Sunnlandio Corporation, but it didn’t matter. The man on his knees in my parents’ old bedroom might as well have worked for them, because to me represented the evil of that company, the evil of the MC who’d tried at every turn to bring death to our doorstep, to rip Bear from me and me from Bear. The idea so absurd, I tossed my head back and started to laugh.

I was manic.

I was insane.

Maybe I’d inherited some of my mother’s crazy after all.

I wasn’t laughing because I was asking the man I love to strangle someone to death, but because I honestly didn’t think that even death could separate us.

“You sure?” Bear asked me warily. I abruptly stopped laughing.

Bear was a biker who didn’t need a scared little girl, he may not have been in a club anymore but he still needed an old lady.

He needed me.

I nodded, and not just because I thought that’s what Bear wanted from me, but because I’d never been so sure of anything before.

“No! No! Let’s talk about this!” Trench shouted. He tried to stand but Bear kicked out the back of his legs and sent him back down to the floor.

“Like this, baby?” Bear asked. There was a quiet reverence in his voice. He handed me his gun and I took over the job of keeping it aimed at Tretch. Bear wrapped his big strong hands around Tretch’s throat and started to squeeze, just as Tretch had done to me.

Tretch struggled, his legs kicked out from underneath him. The muscles in Bear’s forearms flexed and strained while he held tight to the man dying between his hands. My own hands automatically went to my neck, tracing the swollen fingerprints Tretch had left behind.

Bear’s eyes found mine and didn’t leave. The whites of his eyes turned to red. He gritted his teeth.

Tretch looked to me with bulging eyes, one final plea for his life, knowing I was the only one who could grant it to him.

I didn’t want to.

With one last angry roar Bear squeezed the last of the life from Tretch, his eyes rolling back in his head. His chin fell to his chest.

Bear released his hold on Tretch, shoving his lifeless body sideways onto the floor. Bear reached into his boot and pulled something out. He flipped it open, a serrated blade sprang out. I was sure Tretch was already dead, but for whatever reason Bear had, he crouched down and gashed Tretch’s throat wide open.

As a former member of Future Farmer’s Daughters of America, we’d taken a trip to the slaughterhouse, and the way the blood poured from Tretch’s neck reminded me of watching the pigs get slaughtered one by one.

Only this animal happened to be human.

WAS human.

I shifted off the bed and stood on unsteady legs, holding on to the end table for support.

Bear’s boots crunched over shards of ceramic from a vase broken in their struggle. He made his way over to the now empty vase stand and picked up a lace doily. He wiped the dark red from his knife before shoving it back into his pocket and threw the bloodied scrap of lace at Tretch’s feet.

Tretch might have been dead, but Bear’s anger was alive and well.

So much so the room was thick with it.

Bear stood there, silently, for what felt like hours. Finally, he looked down to his hands and stepped toward me, bringing his hands up to my face. I covered his hands with mine.

“He could have killed you,” he said, his voice unsteady. His eyes unfocused. I left his hands on my face and reached up for his, rubbing my thumbs over the freckles underneath his deep blue eyes.

“He didn’t,” I said, my voice sounding more like normal, the pain in my neck subsiding to a dull ache.

“Ti, he tried—” he started again, but I wouldn’t let him go there. I couldn’t.

“But he didn’t,” I repeated. “He didn’t.” I locked my hands around his neck. I stood on my tiptoes and planted a small kiss to the corner of his mouth. His beard tickled my lips.

Bear’s eyes locked onto mine and turned darker than I’d ever seen them. He was searching my face. Searching my soul, but I had no clue what it was he was looking for. He craned his neck down and pressed a tender kiss against the swollen and injured flesh on my neck.

Suddenly the air shifted and it was no longer thick with anger, but something else entirely.

Something even more powerful.

Lust. Need.

Bear’s chest was damp with sweat. He smelled like pure man and looked like pure muscle. Every bit of him invaded my senses.

Bear forced me backwards onto the mattress. Our lips connected but only for a brief second. He lifted me up by my waist and tossed me further back onto the bed.

The thrumming of my erratically beating heart and the sounds of us coming together filled the silent space. The creak of the bed springs. The smack of our lips. His boots falling to the ground.

His zipper.

Bear grabbed onto the waistband of my shorts, yanking them down to my feet, tossing them over Tretch’s body, which laid across the open doorway. He pulled off my panties with one hand and crawled on top of me, pushing his jeans down over his ass until I could feel him. Large, hot, hard, pressed right up against my core. I closed my eyes and moaned, the contact too much and yet nowhere near enough.