I reached for his hand and squeezed it in mine. “Rider… I love him.”

His head tipped back to the ceiling and his lips tensed under the cover of his short brown beard.

He released my hand. “And I love you, Mae,” he confided, voice hoarse. His chin lowered and he cupped my face in his large hands. “I f**kin’ love you. I can’t stop thinking about you. I drink to forget that you’re with him… in his room… fu—” He winced. “Hell, I can’t even think of it right now! I found that young bitch with Viking. I just wanted to forget you for a while. I don’t sleep. Can’t eat…”

“Rider, please. You are my best friend.”

“I don’t wanna be your f**kin’ ‘best friend’, Mae!”

“Rider…” I lowered my head as tears began dropping freely.

“No, Mae! We’d be so good together. We want the same things, believe the same things. Your future could be with me.”

“I am with Styx, Rider!”

“Fuck Styx!”

“No!” I pulled back from his embrace. “You will not speak of him in such a way! I love him, Rider. I love you too, but in a completely different way. Stop making this so difficult! I feel like I am being torn in two!”

“Difficult! DIFFICULT! You don’t know the meaning of the word! You stayed with me for weeks. Just you and me. You talked to me about everything: your faith, your worries, your hopes. You laughed with me, fell asleep with me, f**kin’ RODE ON THE BACK OF MY BIKE! You were mine first, Mae. Not his! MINE!”

“That is where you are mistaken, Rider,” I rasped out, my voice small.

His brows furrowed. “How? How am I mistaken?”

“I have been Styx’s since I was eight years old.”

His breathing calmed down. “What? How—”

“I met him years ago, only briefly, but it was enough. Our fate was sealed from that day on.”

He exhaled in shock. “He found the commune? Where? How?”

I nodded my head. “He found us by mistake, but I believe I was meant to meet him that day.”

Rider shook his head as though shielding himself from that truth. As he stepped forward, I retreated until my back hit the wall.

I had nowhere else to go.

Rider leaned in against me, still naked, eyes blazing. “I don’t care what happened years ago. I don’t care if the brother speaks to you or you think you share some childhood connection. I want you right now. Forget the past! I want to be with you, Mae.”

My palms pressed against his hard, bare chest, but he refused to move. Rider towered above me, pouring his heart out. All I could offer in return was to break it more with every pain-filled confession. His tongue snaked out and licked along his lips, and my heart began to pound. If it were not for Styx, I would be drawn to Rider, no doubt. If it were not for Styx, I would fall for Rider. But Styx was my life… he was my heart.

“I am so sorry, Rider, but I can—” I did not get the chance to finish my sentence before Rider’s lips smashed against mine. His hands held my face in a vise-like grip and I struggled to move. His beard hair brushed against my skin and, unable to break away, I resolved to let him have this. Let him have me this way only.

Just this once.

His tongue probed my lips open and I could taste liquor in his mouth. My tears dropped freely from my eyes as his touch deepened, his soft beard growing wet. I did not return the kiss, but still, he did not stop.

His hips pressed against mine, urging me to respond, his length hard against my stomach. I could not give anything in return. I just stood and let him have his way. Eventually, he pulled away and I could see clearly the guttering hurt in his expression as he stared me down.

“Mae… I feel like I can’t breathe anymore,” he confessed, his voice tight. “I watch you watch him with that look on your face. The look you have only for Prez.” He peered up at me, face sullen—a little boy lost. “Why can’t you look at me like that?”

Lord, the pain behind those words…

My chest heaved with the gut-wrenching sobs leaving my body. “I do not know, Rider. Please, I am not trying to hurt you. But I cannot see you this way, it is breaking my heart.”

He stopped dead. “You are hurting me, Mae and I can’t stand it anymore! If I have to sit in one more meeting with Prez, knowing he was in your pu**y only minutes before, I’m gonna go insane. If I have to ride out with him anymore, him chasing road just to get back into your arms, I’m fixin’ to explode! This is my goddamn home and I ain’t got nowhere else to go.”

He carefully approached and began wiping at my tears. “But I can’t be here with you and him.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. A strange expression flitted across his face. “Styx ain’t got no future, Mae. If you stay with him, only trouble will find you.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked suspiciously.

His emotional walls went up immediately. “He’s a man wanted by a lotta folks. He’s on borrowed time, Mae. He has no future. You do… I do.”

“Rider, stop it!” I yelled.

Rider stumbled away. “I can’t stay here with you and him no more. If you’ve made your choice… I’m smoke.”

I gripped his wrist and pulled his palm to my face. He sucked in a breath. “I do not want you to go.”

“Why?” he demanded as he moved in and pressed his forehead to mine. I could smell that woodsy soap on his skin… it made me feel so safe. Rider had always made me feel safe. But all we did of late was rip each other to shreds.