My hand trembles on the door leading from my room into his. I heard the shower shut off a moment ago, so I know he’s back. Whether or not I’m brave enough to act on the desire thrumming inside my veins remains to be seen.

Stop thinking.

Stop debating.

Just… do it.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I test the handle. My breath catches when I find he’s left it unlocked.

An open invitation.

Without another thought, I push the door open, tapping my knuckles lightly against the wood as it swings inward.

“Ryder?” I call, stepping over the threshold. “Are you h— Oh my god.”

My feet freeze on the spot.

My face drains of blood.

My barely-mended heart cracks all over again.

There’s a girl sitting on his bed, stark naked. She smiles at me, her eyes glazed with liquor and lust, annoyingly beautiful with her long raven hair and sky blue stare. I tell myself to move, to flee, but I’m rooted to the spot, overcome with absolute horror as I watch Ryder walk out of the bathroom, still dripping wet, wearing nothing but a towel around his hips.

He freezes when he sees the girl. Then, two-tone eyes wide with shock, his head swings in my direction and he spots me.

I swear, he looks like he’s been sucker-punched.

“Felicity…” he breathes, taking a step toward me. “No. This isn’t…”

I’m beyond listening.

Finally locating my executive functioning, I turn and race for the adjoining door, desperate to escape him, her, this whole damned mess. I curse myself with every step for coming here. For thinking, even for a second, that things between us were fixable. That tonight, when we sang, he felt the same sparks in the air between us, bright as shooting stars.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

My eyes are smarting with tears as I fly back into my suite. I’ve barely cleared the threshold when I whip around to slam the door shut. It doesn’t close, caught on something. Gritting my teeth, I glance down and see a familiar bare foot blocking the frame.

“Ryder,” I hiss, pushing hard enough that he winces, but not hard enough to make him move. “Go away.”

“No.”

I push again, using my full body weight this time, but it makes no difference. With apparent ease, his hand curls around the frame and he forces the door wider, inch by inch, until my only option is to yield. A heartbeat later, he strides into the room, looking like the devil himself in his knotted bath towel, his eyes darker than sin as he advances on me.

I backpedal away as fast as humanly possible. “Leave me alone.”

“No,” he repeats, voice dropping to a growl as the door clicks closed at his back.

Where on earth is Carly?

My back hits the wall, officially out of room to run. I can hardly breathe as I watch him approach. He comes closer, closer, closer, not stopping until he’s less than a foot away. So near I can see the aqua mote in his brown eye with startling clarity.

His jaw locks with barely-leashed violence. “Tell me why you came to my room.”

“It doesn’t matter. You had company.” My chin jerks up. “In fact, speaking of your company, you should probably get back. She’ll be missing you.”

He laughs but it’s humorless. Laced with bitterness. “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”

“I am not jealous.”

“You are!” he snaps, dangerously close to yelling. “You can take all your platonic, just friends bullshit and shove it, Felicity. You’re fucking jealous. And instead of talking to me about what you think you just witnessed, instead of admitting that seeing me with someone else is enough to drive you insane, you decide to do what you do best — run for the hills. Throw up your walls. Shut me out like a child having a tantrum.”

“Oh, I’m a child?” I scoff. “That naked girl in your bed looks about seventeen, I’d check her ID before you screw her.”

His eyes flash. “Tell me again how you aren’t jealous?”

My voice drops to an intent whisper. “I’m. Not. Mother. Fudging. Jealous.”

“Well, you’re a fucking liar.” He runs his hands through his hair, exasperated. “Christ, even if I was going to screw her, it wouldn’t be your fucking business, right? Because we’re over, right? Because, as you keep insisting, we’re nothing to each other. RIGHT, FELICITY?”

“Don’t yell at me!”

“Don’t do shit to piss me off and I won’t yell!” He roars at top volume, striding closer, face full of rage.

I can’t help it — I flinch back, a long-ingrained instinct. Memories of black eyes and bruised ribs, shattered lamps and punched walls flood through me in a tidal wave. No matter how many years pass, a part of me will always be that little girl ducking for cover somewhere out of reach, seeking reprieve from that black, all-encompassing rage that used to stalk the halls of my childhood home.

A monster in the shape of the man who was supposed to protect me from them.

Ryder recognizes the fear on my face and goes totally still. The room is so silent, I can hear my own heartbeat racing inside my veins. When my eyes lift to his face, I see he’s pale with shock and hurt.

“You’re…” He swallows. “You’re scared of me?” He looks down at his hands, curled into angry fists, like they belong to a stranger. The horrified look intensifies. “You think I’d ever hurt you? Hit you?”

The sudden agony in his voice is more than I can take. Before I can stop myself, I reach out and lay a hand on his bare arm. The feeling — skin on skin — sends a jolt through us both.

“No, Ryder.” My flight response has dissipated, reason returning on wings of regret. “I know you’d never hurt me. Not like that.”

The fresh flare of pain in his eyes is unmistakable. He yanks his arm out from beneath my grip. “Not like that. Meaning you don’t trust me not to hurt you other ways.”

I look pointedly at the door over his shoulder.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Felicity. I’ve never seen that girl before in my life! I came out of the shower and she was sitting there. If I had to guess, she wandered into my room looking for Linc or Aiden.”

“Oh…” My cheeks flame with mortification as I realize I’ve been a wee bit presumptuous. I want to look away from his eyes, but I can’t escape them. They’re holding me captive.

“Yeah. Oh. Maybe if you ever gave me the benefit of the doubt before bolting, we could’ve asked her what she was doing in my room. But, as usual, you ran.” He shakes his head. “Tonight, two years ago… You run every damn time you get scared, Felicity.”

“Last time—”

“Enough about last time. Enough about the past. Enough.” He’s breathing hard, his voice vibrating with intensity. “What do you feel, Felicity? When you’re with me, when we’re together on stage and the world boils down to just you and me and the music… what do you feel?”

Everything.

Past, present, future.

Empty, full, complete.

Pain, anger, love.

I look at him and I feel everything.

He leans in, his chiseled features beautiful despite his simmering fury. “You might not be able to admit it, but I see it in your eyes. I’m getting better at looking beyond that wall you’ve got up, baby. And I know the truth. You still care. Despite all your indifference, despite the brave face you put on… this dance we’re doing here is burning you just as much as it’s burning me.”

I don’t deny it. There’s no use. My mouth gapes to form words that never make it past my lips.

“Felicity.” He takes a step closer, moving so cautiously it breaks my heart. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this. I don’t know how much longer I can withstand this hell before we’re both reduced to ash and bone.”

He looks run-down, ragged with need. Physical, emotional. As though the craving is immolating him from the inside out.

I know exactly how he feels.

My eyes flicker down to his chest and finally, up close, I can see his new tattoo properly. It’s tiny — just five simple letters — but they knock the wind out of me.

Wilde.

Right there in script, over his heart. Etched like an eternal vow against his skin.

Shaking with nerves, I lean back against the wall to support my suddenly weak knees. It takes more effort than I want to admit to force the next words past my lips.

“What do you want from me, Ryder?”

“I don’t want anything from you, Felicity.” He sucks in a sharp breath. “I just want you.”

“Just me.” My laugh is lightning, splitting the air. “You act like this is simple. Like there’s some obvious fix I’ve been overlooking, that’ll make everything right between us. Like I can just hand over my soul to you and trust you not to break it.” I shake my head. “It’s not simple.”

“It’s never been simple between us. It never will be. It’s fucking impossible to love someone and not get hurt. God, you think this has been easy for me? Being with you, inches away, and not being able to touch you? Acting like I’m just another one of the guys — your bandmate, your fucking friend, when all I want to do is—”

His jaw clamps shut to contain the rest of his words, but I can see them blazing bright in his eyes. All the sins he’d like to inflict on me, with roaming lips and grazing teeth and nicotine-stained fingers. He trembles on the edge, a man at his breaking point.

I just want you.

Ryder holds himself utterly still as I push off the wall. I lean forward, a fraction of an inch, careful not to touch him as my face cranes up. The space dwindles from inches to centimeters to units so small I don’t have names left for them. I feel his breath on my lips, ragged pants of passion. I see his eyes dilating in the mellow light from my bedside table as I hover there, on the precipice of something far scarier than singing in front of a sold-out crowd, infinitely more terrifying than going head-to-head with my parents in court.

Him.

Us.

Now.

“When all you want to do is… what, Ryder?” I murmur against his mouth, an undeniable challenge.

He meets it with a growl, his lips crushing mine in the most savage, brutal, breath-stealing kiss of my entire life. His mouth is hard, angry. Devouring me. Devastating me. I return the kiss with every ounce of fire I possess, two years of pent up longing and hurt and lust, a bottomless torrent of pain and loneliness and need, pouring out from me to him.

His hands slam me back against the wall so hard the painting over the headboard rattles. He’s rough with impatience and passion and yes, even rage, as his tongue sweeps into my mouth, laying claim to something he never fully relinquished.

“You’re mine,” he growls against my neck, biting the delicate flesh so hard I’m sure his teeth will leave a mark. “You hear me? Mine. Body and soul, baby.”

I don’t respond except to drag him closer, my fingernails scoring paths down the bare skin of his back. I’m vaguely aware that his towel has fallen away, that he’s fully naked against me, throbbing with need, impossibly hard as he pins my hips to the wall with his own. It only makes me feel more reckless, more violent.

Take me so hard, I forget our past.

Break me into fragments of desire.

Pull me apart, piece by piece.

My neck cranes as he claims my mouth again, his tongue driving me to the edge of passion as his hands snake their way down my body. When he slips one up under my dress, into my underwear, I feel my whole world stutter to a halt.

God.

Yes.

This.

“Felicity.” His forehead hits mine as his fingers move like magic. “I need to hear you say it.”

A gasp of pleasure is my only response.

“Say it,” Ryder commands, grabbing my chin with his other hand and forcing my eyes to his. “No more running. Whatever happens after the tour, we deal with it together. Face it together.”

A flicker of unease shoots through my lust-clouded brain.

After the tour?

“Who cares about the future? Kiss me,” I demand, breathless. But he doesn’t. His face goes dark as he removes his fingers from between my legs. I cry out at the sudden loss, thighs clenching as passion courses through me unchecked.

“I care.”

His voice is low with restraint. I can still feel the evidence of his passion pressed against me like iron, and I know what it costs him to pull back.

“Ryder…”

“Tell me you’re mine, Felicity.”

Some of the haze clears as I stare up at him, head foggy from his touch, lips swollen from his kisses. “I…”

“Promise me, if we do this, you aren’t going to run again.” I’ve never heard him sound so serious. He’s almost somber, his eyes grave and guarded. “Promise me you’ll stay.”

My throat tightens. My fingers grasp him closer even as I say the words I know will drive him away.

“I can’t promise you that.”

His face shutters, a stoic expression not quite masking the pain I see in his eyes. His hands drop to his sides, so he’s no longer holding me. His tone, when he gets himself under control enough to speak, is almost guttural, brimming over with longing and hurt.

“You love me. I know you do. You can’t kiss me like that and act like it’s nothing.”

“I never said it was nothing. It’s not nothing,” I insist, trying to pull him back to me. He doesn’t budge — he’s an uncompromising statue beneath my hands. I stop tugging at him, feeling my words falter at the look in his eyes. “This… you and me… It’s the opposite of nothing. It’s everything.”

He stares at me warily as I reach up and trace my name in ink across his skin. I can feel his heart thundering beneath my fingertip. His eyes press closed, as though he’s trying to hold himself in check. I fight back tears, trying to do the same.

Head, shaking.

Heart, breaking.

“You asked me what I feel when I look at you?” My whisper sounds like a wail. “That’s the problem. Everything I feel is tangled up in memories and musical notes, in pill bottles and painful goodbyes. In secrets and lies and broken promises. I can’t sort it out in my head. Not yet. There’s so much still left unresolved between us, Ryder.” A tear rolls down my cheek, but I force myself to say the rest, knowing full well I’m condemning us both to more misery. “And even if we can find a way to move forward, pick out a path through the wreckage of our past… Our fundamental problems haven’t changed. You and I want different things. Different lives. We always have.”

“All I want is you.” His voice breaks. “Fuck the rest, Felicity. Tell me you’re mine and we’ll figure it out as we go. Tell me you’re in this, and I promise, we’ll make it work.” His eyes soften, just for a moment, and I see the love shining bright beneath the anger. “For once in your life, baby… don’t run. Stand and fight with me.”

My heart is thundering. In that moment, I want to do as he says. I want, so very much, to lean forward and crush my lips to his. To declare the allegiance of my heart from this moment until our last. To tell him nothing matters — not who we are, not where we’re headed.

Only us. Only this.

Him and me.

No past, no future.

I watched my mother live that life, tying her existence to a man who destroyed her, telling herself nothing else mattered, so long as she had him. I watched that choice ruin her, day by day. Watched her put herself in the crosshairs of despair and willingly take every bullet, so long as she could keep him.

I’m not that girl.

I can’t be.

Not now.

Not ever.

Ryder sees the answer on my face before the words find their way out of my mouth. His face closes down, hope vanishing in an instant.

“I can’t make that promise, Ryder. Not now. Not completely. Not before I know this is real, that it’s right — that it’s not just a residual hope we’re both harboring for a life we almost lived, or a fantasy that’s going to lead us both to more pain, when it falls apart again.”

“Bullshit.” The word flies from of his lips with vehemence. “You’ve had two years to sort out that emotional tangle. Two years of space and time to figure out what you want.” He laughs without a trace of humor, eyes flashing with pain. “You know exactly how you feel about me, Felicity. And it fucking terrifies you.”

“Ryder—”

“The truth is, you don’t want this to be real. Because if it’s real, you won’t have an excuse to keep pushing me away. You won’t be safe behind those walls you build a little higher every day.” His eyes are stormier than a winter sea. “You know what? I’ll save you the effort of figuring it out. I’m done. Done being friends. Done apologizing. Done trying to make you see that what we have, even if it’s broken and damaged, filled with mistakes and imperfect choices, is more real, more right, than what most people call love in their entire lifetimes.”

He takes a step back, and I feel it like a physical blow.

“I’ll deal with you on stage. I’ll put on a show. But other that than, I don’t want to keep pretending. Acting like…” His head shakes with disgust. “Like this is just some leftover lust boiling over between exes… It dishonors everything we have.” He pauses brutally. “Everything we had.”

Who would’ve thought something as simple as a change of verb tense could shatter my heart into pieces?

“Ryder, wait—” I call, taking three steps after him, watching the broad planes of his naked back disappear through the frame. The door shuts firmly, closing the path between our suites, and a heartbeat later I hear the sound of the dead-bolt being thrown shut.

Barring me from his room. Barring me from his life.

I sink to the floor in my pretty night-sky dress.

I don’t get up again.

Not when Carly finally comes back to the room at five in the morning and finds me lying there, eyes unblinking. Not when she curls up beside me on the carpet and strokes my hair. Not even when the sun starts to rise, announcing the arrival of a new day.

I blink against the pale shafts of light streaming through our windows.

Never in my life has a dawn felt so dark.