Page 89 of Ridin' Free

‘Respect I’ve got for you goes deep.’

He was going to give me the space I demanded.

He was going to give me the time to sort my shit.

He just didn’t know that by the time he was done waiting…I’d be gone.

His plan wastogive her the night. He didn’t want to, but he knew his woman. It never served him well to force his hand with her. Not right away. The distance softened her enough to make her if not pliable than malleable.

He couldn’t pinpoint when it happened—when he became the kind of man willing to do whatever it took to keep her—but he was that man, and she was his. In spite of the things he didn’t know about her, he understood her. He saw her. Craved her.

More than that, he respected the hell out of her, and he admired her.

So much so that when she asked him for space, he gave it with little argument.

A week. A day. A night.

Until Ali-Mae, he didn’t know his own patience.

But after falling asleep with her in his arms for more than a week, one restless night was all he had to give this time. He got out of bed the following morning, and he couldn’t get it out of his head—the look he saw on her face outside of Mustang’s bar. He’d seen glimpses of it before.

Her vulnerability.

Her fear.

He didn’t like it the first time any more than he liked it the last. What made him feel uneasy were the dots he couldn’t quite connect between his woman, her frightened state, and Scorpion.

She was worried the night of Scorpion’s return.

But she’d been disarmed by the man in the parking lot.

In all the years he’d been around her, Twister had never seen her cower the way she did at Scorpion’s touch. He didn’t know what it meant, and a small part of him didn’t want to know—but one look at the coffee machine on his kitchen counter, and he was certain whatever secrets she was hiding, whatever demons she was running from, heneededto know.

Whatever scared her, he would chase it.

He would kill it.

Not as a Stallion, but as her man.

Twister was dressed and on the back of his hog before nine A.M. On a normal morning, he knew he’d find Ali asleep upon his arrival—but it wasn’t a normal morning. When he pulled into her driveway and killed the engine of his Hydra-Glide Revival, he dismounted and headed for her front door.

He rang the bell, waited a solid twenty seconds, then rang again.

When he heard not a sound inside, he pounded his fist against the sturdy barrier keeping him out, resisting the urge to call her name.

Thirty seconds.

Sixty more.

He rang one more time, and then he decided to try another door.

The gate in her fence on the opposite side of the house was unlocked, and he stomped his way along the path she laid amidst the grass, leading to her gorgeous yard. He hurried up onto her patio, headed straight for the sliding glass door, and met resistance. He wasn’t surprised—but he was beginning to feel ill at ease.

This time, when he knocked—rattling the glass—he called her name. He was met with more silence. Peering through the door, he found nothing amiss inside, but this didn’t calm him down in the slightest.

Twister pulled out his phone, brought up her contact info, and initiated a call.

It went straight to voicemail.