Tucker:

I feel really terrible for what I’m doing right now. Leaving her there alone, after the night we shared, after she let me inside her, let me share that gorgeous body of hers. She didn’t have to do that, and now I’m being a total dick by walking out on her.

Maybe my memory is gone, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about a woman before. There’s something about her that makes me feel like nothing in my life has ever made sense before. Before I stumbled across her, before I took her home, before I touched her all over and watched her body explode under my command. The sex was awesome. I’m hard just thinking about the faces she makes when she cums, when I make her cum, as I hike up the very hill I just drug her down a few hours ago.

Even more incredible was the way we talked, the way we laughed, everything about her is so adorable, so sexy but sweet at the same time, so everything I want in a woman. The more she told me about her goals for life, her hopes, her dreams, the more and more I realized I’m way out of my league here.

The sun is just coming up over the side of the mountain and I keep thinking I need to turn around and go back to that bus. Go back and give her an explanation of why I can’t stay there with her, but I’m sure she already knows.

Because as perfect as a woman she is, as hard as I’m falling for her, things could never work.

I’m incomplete.

And not only because I couldn’t provide for her like a traditional man could, take care of her financially and give her all the things that she wants, needs, deserves…

I’m incomplete because I have no idea where I belong in this world. I have no idea when the other shoe is going to drop and I’m going to find out that maybe in my past life I was a terrible person, a murderer or a dog strangler or something. She’s always going to want to press me to find out about my past, and well deservedly, but there are things about me I just don’t want to know.

I’m happy being a puzzle left in a box on the shelf. No need to put my pieces back together. She, on the other hand, has a need for knowledge. It’s her career. It’s her life pursuit. It’s better I just cut my losses now and set her free. She’ll probably forget about me long before I recover from her.

“Well look what the fucking cat drug in,” Mitch bellows from the campfire. “You get lost or what?”

He’s staring at me, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Whatdya got there?” he asks, chuckling as he points at the little love bite she left on the side of my neck.

“Hey, I asked if you wanted to come with me before I left yesterday,” I tease him. “This could’ve been you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time around. You’re the one with the head injury, though. For all we know you could’ve been going at it with an extra friendly raccoon.”

“Trust me, Molly is no raccoon. More like a wildcat with a perfect rack and a heart of gold.”

“Molly, huh?” He raises his eyebrows. “So when are we going to meet this broad.”

“Never,” I tell him. I sit down next to him by the fire, my legs tired from the hike, ready to go to sleep after an overexciting twenty-four hours with very little rest.

“That’s cool, too,” he says. “You want coffee?”

“Nah,” I say. “I think I’m gonna actually hit the sack. Didn’t really do much sleeping last night.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” He winks. He’s such a dirty old man, but I love the guy. Out of everyone in the crew, he’s the one who feels the most like family to me. Like a creepy uncle or something, he reminds me of something so familiar yet so far away.

“How’d the raid go?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he says, his gaze turning serious. “I’m sure fine. Haven’t seen or heard from anyone since they left yesterday, though.”

“Is that normal?”

“I guess it depends. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. If we don’t hear anything in the next couple hours, we can always head downtown. You go get some sleep,” he says, shooing me off.

I shrug, patting him on the back as I make my way down the little footpath to my hammock, stripping down to my boxer briefs. I collapse into the comfortable swinging bed under the canopy of oak trees, and can’t help but smile as I run my fingers over that spot on my neck where Molly left her mark.

Before I can even close my eyes, the ground rumbles below me, the sound of four-wheelers pulling into camp.

Good, I think, knowing that my brothers are back safe.

“You’re fucking kidding me!” I hear Mitch yell. “Luna, put some fucking clothes on. We gotta go downtown.”