His hand dropped, and his gaze locked with mine.

“Clara, honey, come here,” he said softly.

“No, I’m packing and I’m leaving,” I replied.

“Toots, baby, come here,” he repeated.

“No. I’d like you to leave. I’d like to be gone before the kids wake up.”

That wasn’t true.

I wanted to see Tatie was all right and the same with Gear.

But I thought, for them…clean break.

They had their dad; they didn’t need me.

“You got a step to take, I’m tellin’ you to take it before I take it,” he told me.

I leaned forward and snapped, “I said no!”

Before I knew what he was about, he took that step and my head was between his big hands, tipped up to look at him.

He bent so his face was in mine. “They hurt my girl.”

Yes, they did.

And I hated that for all of them.

Then he hurt me.

I tried to yank my head from his hands, his fingers tightened, so I stopped trying, but my hands came up and my fingers curled around his wrists.

“I understand that and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for you and Locke and Tatiana. That doesn’t forgive what you did.”

“I wasn’t thinkin’ straight.”

“No, I agree. You probably weren’t. That doesn’t forgive what you did.”

“No one hurts my girl.”

“Unfortunately, last night, that wasn’t true. And, again, I’m sorry. Truly, truly I am. For you. For Locke. And especially for Tatie.” I tried again to pull at his hands, though I failed, I kept trying. “But you marked me, and I wasn’t the one who hurt her.”

“You were standin’ in my way.”

“Take your hands off me.”

His face got closer. “Baby, I woke up when I heard she got home, felt you get out of bed, decided to let you have a shot with her before I got in there because I was still angry at the way she took off. Heard you two in the bathroom, and you weren’t leaving it. So I had to take a beat because I thought she’d come home drunk again, but this time she’d been driving drunk and I needed that beat because I was getting angrier. Then I got a look at my little girl, and I was beyond pissed. And you were standin’ in my way.”

“West. Take…your hands…off me.”

“When I get like that, which, I promise you, darlin’, isn’t often, but it happens, you cannot stand in my way.”

“Thanks for the advice, but I won’t be around the next time you get like that. Now, I asked you to take your hands off me.”

He didn’t take his hands off me.

In fact, he put them on me more.

He did this by stepping fully into my space, one of his arms locking around my upper back, the other hand sliding in my hair, fisting and tugging gently. The whole time, his face stayed a breath away from mine.

“This is not better,” I informed him.

“You aren’t leaving,” he informed me.

“Sorry, but I am.”

His arm around my back got tighter, his hand in my hair tilted my head, and he bent his head so his face was in my neck.

Against my skin, he murmured, “I’m sorry I hurt you, baby.”

And he sounded sorry.

So, so sorry.

I closed my eyes as my heart squeezed, that despair in my belly shifted, cutting through me, reminding me how much I loved it when he was sweet and gentle, just as much as I hated it right in this moment. I forced my hands into the minimal space between us to push against his abs, but he didn’t budge.

“I wasn’t thinkin’, I was just feelin’,” he went on.

“West, let me go,” I whispered.

“I’m not lettin’ you go.”

“West, let me go.” I finished my words with a shove on his abs.

His middle rocked back then surged right where it was before.

He lifted his head and looked down at me. “Clara, baby, I’m not lettin’ you go. We’ll get past this. You just gotta learn not to stand in my way.”

Against my will, I felt my eyes get wet.

“Why?” I whispered. “Why won’t you just let me go?”

“You stake a claim, you stake it because you want what you’re claimin’. Then you keep hold, no matter what you gotta do to keep it. I claimed you and I’m keeping hold.”

“I’m not a piece of land, West,” I told him, lifting a hand to swipe angrily at the weak, stupid tears sliding down my face. “I’m a person. You can’t do that with a person.”

“Babe, you stood in that room out there and made a decision. You gave me you when you did. I accepted. I staked my claim. You can’t take that away.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No, you can’t.”

Okay, so maybe I was wrong about the whole “what your man says goes” rule in the Biker Babe Rulebook.

A book that seemed to have a lot more written in it than the biker one did.

“I’m mine to give or take as I please.”

“Maybe somewhere, in some other place, a place you’ve never lived, and you know it. A place where I don’t want to live.” His face got closer. “Not in here, not where we live.”

“I don’t want to live here anymore.”

And he was not wrong.

Neither was I.

I didn’t want to live where I was shunted from place to place, person to person, man to man with no will of my own.

“Like I said yesterday, Toots, you made that decision. You. No one forced you. And once you make the decision, with me, there’s no going back.”

“That’s crazy,” I whispered.

“That’s the choice you made.”

“I didn’t have all the information!” My voice was rising, and unfortunately, it was rising somewhat hysterically.

“Too late,” he replied.

“That’s crazy too!”

“Baby, keep your voice down. Tatie’s sleepin’,” he said softly.

“That’s crazy too,” I repeated on a whisper.

He grinned. “Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s fuckin’ nuts to a lotta people out there. But you, you get it. You get it was bad. And you get how you found good.”

Yes, I did get that.

But like he said, I also got the bad.

And in that moment, that was my focus.

So I shook my head. “Oh no, I don’t.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t think you did either. I thought it’d take you a while before we broke you in. But, darlin’, I heard what you said to Conley. I saw you open the door and position yourself in it, protecting your territory and puttin’ yourself between him and your people. I heard every fuckin’ word you said. And I knew when I listened, you got it. So now I know, you’re hurt and pissed I marked you. What you don’t know is, I’m pissed at myself for doin’ it. If I could take it back, I would. Bust my balls, break my back to erase those marks from you, but more, how you got ’em. It sucks, and huge, that I can’t. It also sucks, and huge, that someone touched my girl with the intent to do her even worse harm. And Clara, baby, you know that in my world, that means payback, instant, swift, painful. And you were standin’ in my way. Next time, you’ll know not to stand in my way.”