Breezy had learned, practically from birth, to let things go. If they weren't big and didn't threaten to swallow her whole, she dismissed them from her mind. If she really needed to deal with something, she thought about it carefully, formulated a plan and then carried it out.

She was nothing. She'd thought he was her world, and all the while, he'd been plotting to take down her family's club. She'd loved him. He'd used her and then thrown her away, shattering every dream, every hope she'd ever had.

He'd been the one to end things, and it had been ugly. Really ugly. Deliberately ugly. He'd said things to drive her away--and she'd gone. She'd managed to take pieces of him with her. She'd stolen those pieces from him, and he'd known when she'd left, he wasn't going to get them back.

He'd been angry. He'd been afraid for her. He'd been shocked that just by being with her, he'd become everything he most despised in the world-- a predator.

It won't work that way. You know me, Bree. You 'know' me. I might have misled things at the club. But I gave you the real man. I don't back away from a fight and I win.

Steele knew Breezy wasn't going to be won over easily, but as far as he was concerned, there was no other choice. He 'had' to win her over for his own self-preservation.

She knew every scar, every tattoo. She had traced every one of those scars and tattoos with her tongue. With her fingertips. She'd memorized them until they were etched so deeply in her brain, she could have drawn them and gotten every detail perfect.

Steele could be so completely still, it felt like he could disappear. His energy would get so low that you could forget he was in your space. He never missed anything when he was like that. He took in the smallest detail.