I groaned as I sat back, resting on my elbow as I brought her flask up to my lips.

Holy shit, that’d been good. Like, really, really fucking good. Like, the best damn sex I’d ever even imagined.

…Who the fuck was this girl?

What’d just happened had unquestionably been the best sex of either me or my brother’s lives. Hands down. We’d shared a girl before on occasion, back in our old lives, but it’d never felt like that. It’d never felt so real and so natural — so easy, like we all just fit together like that.

And for the first time in, well, years, I felt human again.

…Shit, maybe we had been up here in the mountains for too long.

We hadn’t always been like that, of course. We hadn’t been born as the rough mountain men we were when she found us. Before, we’d come from wealth, and privilege. Back in Texas, before it all went to shit, we’d lived a very different life — one where living in an old ranger station tower up on a mountain and traipsing around in boots and denim and flannel shirts would never be a thing. Where lying naked out on a rock next to a mountain lake, sipping whiskey from a flask with the girl who’d just blown our minds and rocked our world would never happen.

In our other life — the one we’d left — we’d be in suits and ties, and attending business functions, or charity balls, or some other shit where rich people just congratulate each other on being rich. The life had really never appealed to either of us, but that still didn’t mean it didn’t sting like hell when everything came crashing down.

Our dad had been sick for a while — that was no secret. But him going as fast as he did came as a shock to both of us. But then, that wasn’t even the hardest blow. The rough part came after, when our piece of shit Uncle used his team of crooked lawyers and his leverage over our father’s crooked board members to steal his oil empire away from us, the named heirs in his will. Our mother had died when we were young, and without any other family save a brother he never trusted, our father left everything to us.

But then Uncle Richard had stepped in and fucked everything up. And stealing the company was only the start of it….

You see, dad had died quickly — quickly enough that even the doctors were blown away. So when one of them suggested foul play, suddenly, the whole thing fell apart. Instantly, our world was torn even more apart as detectives and cops and specialists ripped our grieving hearts open even more. Looking back, I could have seen the warning signs, but we were so overcome with the loss of dad that we never saw the surprise attack until it was too late.

…Uncle Richard had set us up hard.

It was one of our father’s board members, still loyal to our old man even in death, who’d tipped us off about it. Apparently, Richard had evidence that linked us to tampering with dad’s meds and pushing him into the heart attack that killed him. And with the cops en route to take us in, we acted fast.

We grabbed what little things we could, got in the car, and took off.

…And we hadn’t looked back in years.

We’d come here, to Blackthorn Mountain, because both of us remembered a time when our parents had taken us here when were young, before mom died. Our parents may have been wealthy beyond belief, but they believed in the strength of spirit and understanding that the world was bigger than money and the privilege we’d been afforded. They’d taken us out to the woods and hiking a bunch of times, but something about this mountain had left an impression on us.

And so this is where we’d been for the last few years — hiding out on Blackthorn, becoming one with it, and forgetting the life we knew. We’d done okay, and we weren’t upset with the life we’d found up there, just pissed about the way our old one had been taken from us, and even more pissed that our father’s death was going un-avenged.

But running into her that day? Well, shit, that’d been like the first breath of fresh air either of us had had in years.

I took another sip of her whiskey as I looked at her, sitting there naked between us like some fucking angel come down from heaven. Soft pale skin, those sexy freckles, that gorgeous red hair, and those big blue eyes so full of light and spark and goodness.

Taking her the way we had — shit, that’d been incredible. Better than incredible. Like I said, Austin and I shared damn near everything, but nothing had ever come remotely close to feeling like that. Watching him take her like that first, and then making her come again on my cock?

Damn.

Better than good. Better than anything.

She looked up, and when she caught me staring right at her, she grinned bashfully. I smiled back, handing her the flask and watching as she took a quick sip.

She passed it to my brother before she sighed deeply, looking up at the late afternoon sun.

“I have to go,” she said quietly.

“No.”

I growled it before I could stop myself, and immediately frowned. She raised a brow, and so did Austin.

“I mean,” I cleared my throat. “I mean you don’t have to go.”

“I do though.”

“Why?”

Fuck, I just wanted her to stay. I think all three of us saw this as the fun, casual wild time it was when we’d all stumbled into it. But something had happened when I’d kissed her, and I’d seen it in Austin’s eyes too when he had. Something had worked its way inside of us and held onto our hearts — something we’d never expected.

…It wasn’t casual fun anymore. It wasn’t some wild fling we could joke about later. Fuck that. I didn’t want her to be a story I told. I wanted her to be the woman I held, every fucking day.

But our mystery girl just smiled at each of us in that heart-melting way that left me speechless and aching for more.

“I just have to be somewhere,” she said quietly. “This was…” She blushed, looking so fucking adorable when she did it.

“This was a lot of fun.”

“Yeah,” I growled, leaning in and running my hand up her jaw to cup her face. “Yeah, it was.”

I kissed her slowly, letting it burn into her lips, never wanting her to pull away. But she did, turning to kiss Austin in the same slow, deep way, before she pulled away from him too. And just like me, I could see the anguish on his face.

She stood and dressed quickly, with both of us sitting there stewing and scowling the more clothes she put on.

“How do we see you again?”

Austin’s words cut through the silence, stopping her as she laced up a hiking boot. She smiled shyly.

“Maybe if we’re meant to, we will?”

“That sounds like bullshit,” I growled fiercely.

Our mystery girl — the one from our dreams who’d just shaken us to our cores just looked up at us again and smiled that killer smile that almost broke me.

And that was it, just a long, knowing smile. Then she leaned up, kissed Austin, and then me, and then turned away. She scooped up her hiking pack and slung it onto her shoulders before she turned back and let those big blue eyes burn right into us.

“Bye,” she said quietly.

And then she turned, and walked right out of our lives.

I knew I should’ve chased her. I knew letting her walk away from us would kill us inside, and tear us up.

But I did. I sat there, furious and fuming as the best thing I’d known in years walked right out of our grasp.

“Fuck,” I hissed under my breath after she’d gone.

“Yeah,” Austin muttered, his look echoing the one on my face and the pain in my heart.

“We can’t just let her walk away, man,” I spat.

“What are we going to do, fuckin’ chase her down and tackle her?” he shot back, his brow furrowing to a scowl.

“Yeah.”

He grinned, shaking his head. “You know we can’t do that. She walked away, no matter how much either of us want her to stay or want it to be more than it was.”

“You fucking felt it too.”

“Of course I did, Dallas,” my twin spat back, his eyes blazing. “But even if we’ve gone full fucking woodsman up on this mountain, you can’t just haul a girl over your shoulder and run off with her Tarzan style.”

“Fucking watch me,” I growled under my breath.

Austin grit his teeth, shaking his head as he looked away.

“We’ll find her,” he finally said, his voice edged.

“We’ll find her, and this time, we’ll show her exactly how ours she is.”