There isn’t a moment in time that doesn’t remind me of Ryder. When I turned sweet sixteen, as he put it, he brought me a gift. A present that, to this day, I keep with me at all times. When we spent time together, dancing, practicing moves, he used to call me Butterfly and sometimes, I felt like I was.

An awkward little girl, a teenager who didn’t belong in the crowd her parents had forced her into. I was a tomboy, but even through that, he saw me. Glancing in the mirror, I drag my gloss over both lips, making them shimmer.

My eighteenth birthday has long since passed and so has his promise, and now that I’m almost twenty-one, I know what we did that day will just be a long lost memory.

The day I asked Ryder to take my virginity flits through my mind. I was nearly sixteen and it was just before he left. He promised me that on the night of my eighteenth birthday, he’d be there and he would do it. And as much as some of my friends had already given theirs away, I knew mine was already his. I knew since the first day I saw him.

Only, he didn’t return for my birthday. He didn’t keep that promise. And now, he’s back, he’s angry, and the boy I loved is a hardened man who seems to have forgotten what he felt for me.

The baggy blue sweatpants I’m wearing hang low on my hips, and the matching sports bra holds my boobs perfectly. I’m slight built for a twenty-year-old, but I’m proud of my body. My white skater shoes adorn my feet and I’m ready to see him.

Soon, I’ll be heading to Los Angeles to dance. I’ve been counting down the days. Three long weeks to go. But before I can walk away from this place, I need to fix what’s broken between us. Even if he doesn’t want me anymore, I need to say my piece.

When I overheard Preston and Jeremiah saying they’re going clubbing, Ryder said he was going to hang out here and then head out. I know where he’ll go. It’s the one place he loved spending time. The warehouse where we practiced night and day.

My long blond hair is tied in a messy bun atop my head and the fine strands that hang down, framing my face, twirl into soft waves. Ryder told me once I looked like Goldilocks. And I retorted jokingly that him, my brother, and Jer were the three bears, looking out for me. As much of an asshole as my brother is, I know if something did ever happen to me, he’ll be there.

Grabbing my phone, I slip it into the pocket of my baggy sweatpants and head out the door. The house is quiet, barren from life. Just like this town. Even though Dad wanted a corporate career, it was my mother who won out and since he owns half the restaurants in the country, they can live off the income and never see their children. I think they planned it that way. No responsibilities. No worries.

I hop on my bike and make my way down to the large gates of our estate. The security who sits in the office all day smiles and I offer a nod. The roads are quiet at this time of the evening and I can’t help smiling at how peaceful it is. As much as I’d love to see Los Angeles, something about this place always holds me back.

A small town in the middle of the Pacific Northwest where the sun hardly shines and the gloomy gray clouds hang heavy for most of the year. There are so many things in life that seem dreary since he left—school, my family, or better yet, my parents, this house. The only things that haven’t changed for me are dancing and Ryder—the two things I’ve loved almost all my life.

Most girls my age are out partying, driving into Portland to get drunk and do drugs. I know because I’ve heard the stories. The one friend I made in school, Sienna, was the only person who understood my need to be a homebody. But she’s taken her scholarship and headed to New York. I haven’t seen her in over a year, and we’ve only ever chatted a couple of times via email. Since she’s been there, she’s changed somewhat, become more of a party animal than I ever could be.

I am the good girl. The one who spends her nights in her bedroom studying. Focusing on things that don’t include going out and getting gloriously drunk. I’ve managed to keep myself healthy and free of anything like that.

The cool breeze sends a shiver through me and I realize I should’ve gotten a ride from Preston. But I didn’t want him to know where I’m going.

When I reach the warehouse, I notice his truck parked right up against the door. Smiling, I feel my face heat up despite the cool breeze. Locking my bike against the railing of the steps that take me up to the main section of the large building. Pulling my hoodie up over my head, I hold it in my hand before entering the large space.

Before I push the door open, I hear the music booming through the space. It’s loud, the bass vibrating everything in the vicinity, and I wonder why he has it that loud.

The building is derelict. Cold. Barren.

Since the day he left, I’ve thought about this place every minute of every day. After what happened between Ryder and me in this place, I’ve never been able to come back without him here. It might sound stupid, but being here without him didn’t feel right.

There’s never been a more poignant time for him to come back and for me to find myself here with him. This was the place I had come on Ryder’s lap. He didn’t touch me, he didn’t move. It was me who’d broken our code of trust as friends and allowed my body and feelings to take over.

But it was also the place he promised to be mine, to be my first. And part of me is scared of him leaving again. Watching him walk away is something that has gripped me since I saw him at my house earlier.

When I step inside the warehouse, I hear the music vibrating through the columns of steel. It echoes through the vast room—bass, drums, and a rapper. Dirty, sexy, and so damn intoxicating. My body wants to move. It begs me, pleads to follow the beat, but I don’t. I close my eyes and revel in it for a short moment before moving closer.

I knew he’d be here. No matter how many years we spent apart, I still know him better than anyone. Better than Preston or Jeremiah. When he stepped onto the porch earlier, I knew I couldn’t avoid him. My heart thuds to the beat of the bass. It remembers the movements, the rolls, pops, and every other step I made with his hands guiding me.

The song changes and I recognize it immediately. “Cookie” by R. Kelly echoes through the speakers. His deep rumble sounds incredible coming from the two subwoofers that are plugged in behind the man moving in the slivers of light coming through the shattered windows.

The song is one we’ve danced to before. The beat races through me. I feel every second of the bass. I recall the day clearly, straddling Ryder like he was a goddamn chair. His hands on my hips gripped me so hard, I had bruises for days. It was one of the most intense, sensual moments of my young life. The lyrics are dirty, naughty and I can’t help blushing.

When I reach the open area where we used to practice, my eyes are glued to his form spinning, dropping, and locking. His hips move sensually as he gets lost in the song. Those beautiful hazel green eyes are closed, entirely one with the music.

Pop and roll. One. Two.

Flow. Three. Four.

Bounce. Five. Six.

Spin. Seven. Eight.

His body is glistening with sweat and I can’t help licking my lips. I’ve wanted to kiss him for years, and I only got one chance. He gave me two quick, stolen kisses when I was younger—just a taste of the sweetness I craved before he walked out and left with my brother. Black sweatpants hug his hips. They hang low enough for me to see his V-line muscles. He isn’t wearing a shirt and his tanned, toned torso ignites a yearning so deep inside me, I can’t catch my breath.

The tattoos that adorn his arms look like they’re alive with the beat. A large dreamcatcher sits on his ribs, and I wonder if it hurt. His body is still utter perfection. Just like it was when I first saw him without a shirt on.

He’s wearing a baseball cap. It’s low, hiding his shimmering eyes. I notice the black and silver skater shoes that adorn his feet. I know they cost a small fortune. Element x Etnies Jameson Vulc. Every kid out there who dances wants a pair of those.

I should tell him I’m here, but I don’t. Instead, I watch in awe as he moves. There’s always been something magical about the way his body flowed with the beat. Perhaps that’s why I was so enamored with him.

He’s lost in the music, in the rhythm. A small smile plays on my lips. It lifts the corner of my mouth until I’m grinning like an idiot. My heart slams against my chest at the sight of him when he comes to a stop. His body tight with tension, his legs spread high in the air, and his arms taut as he holds himself upside down. He lifts his head infinitesimally like he can feel me, and that’s when he sees me.

He pins me with a glare so fierce, so damning that I’m sure it will send me straight to hell. The music surrounds us like an entity, a force living and breathing, magnetizing us. And at that moment, I decide I need to move. My body easily picking up the steps that are ingrained in my very being as I slide toward him. I spin, drop to my knees, then roll on the floor, keeping him in view each time I do a three-sixty. He, in turn, responds by dropping onto his chest, rolling toward me.

We move in sync as I jump to my feet, spinning around him. His hands find my hips. They hold on to me, lifting me in the air as he spins with my arms and legs straight as if I’m flying. He drops me, sliding my body down his sweaty, naked torso. His scent is intoxicating, reminding me of cinnamon and spice.

The music reaches a crescendo. I’m sweating. So is he. It’s sensual. Sexual. Dangerous.

We move together like lovers.

Familiar, yet estranged.

We dance. We gasp. We combust.

Silence.

We’re both breathing hard.

My chest is flat against his. His hands still hold on to my hips. I don’t move. I can’t because he’s close, too close. Our gazes lock. My heart slams in my ears. I’m almost deafened by the vibration, but his breath—that soft, calming sound—is the only thing I can hear.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Piper?” His voice is raspy as it rolls my name on his tongue like he’s caressing me. And I wish he would. All I’ve ever wanted was to feel his lips on mine. A teenage dream of having your crush kiss you.

“I…” My voice is croaky when I respond. Clearing my throat, I try again. “I needed to see you,” I tell him. His eyes, those green and hazel orbs, glisten with a mix of emotions I can’t place because they move as fast as he does in battle. When he’s dancing against another person, he’s like a damn soldier.

“You shouldn’t be here. If he knew you were here…” He doesn’t need to finish the sentence because I know I’ll be in a world of hurt if my brother finds out I’m currently wrapped in Ryder’s arms. But I’m no longer the little girl with a crush on my older brother’s best friend.

I’m meant to be an adult now, old enough to know right from wrong. He’s twenty-three, and he should know better. We’ve been through all this before.

“Are you telling me to go?” I ask. My head tips to the side in question. Electricity sizzles between us, crackling from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. He stares at me for a moment longer before his lips quirk into a grin.

“I’m telling you it’s wrong for you to be here, Butterfly.” He smiles, the nickname he loved calling me all these years still present. I’m acutely aware that his body is still pressed against mine. My heart is still thundering in my chest.

“You walked away, Ryder. You made a promise that day.” The words are a whisper, but he hears me. He can’t not. When he leans in, my breathing hitches in my throat. His lips feather over my ear, grazing his teeth over the fleshy lobe, as he suckles it into his mouth.

“You still taste as sweet, Beautiful.” He says the word beautiful like it’s my name. A slight movement and his mouth finds my neck. The spot just behind my ear tingles when he presses a gentle kiss to it. “It’s time for you to go. You shouldn’t have come here,” he tells me once more, reminding me that he was the one who walked away, leaving me to live with a broken heart. To be stuck in this limbo of not knowing if he’d come back. Not because of his promise, but because in the two years we’d spent together, he became more than just my brother’s best friend. He became my first love.

He walked away when all I did was beg him to stay, but I was a naïve teenager. Over the years, having him gone has given me strength, but seeing him today, the agony that’s so clear in his eyes makes me curious as to what happened in the city.

“You didn’t miss me, Ryder?” I’m taking privileges. When he looks at me now, there’s no longer that boy I knew when I was fourteen. No. In his place is a man with a broken soul. But then again, I’m no longer the little girl who had her first orgasm on his lap. I’m grown up, different, changed more than he could ever imagine.

When I look at him now, I see how much he’s changed. He’s harder, colder, more rigid. He doesn’t answer for so long, I wonder if he heard me, or if he’ll give me a response. My heart aches. It physically hurts in my chest to see how much the happiness from his time with me has dissipated, and in its place is someone I no longer recognize.

“Piper, missing you is what… it’s what I’ve been doing for four years. No. It’s what I’ve been doing since I first saw you,” he informs me. Stepping back, he finally releases me from his vise-like grip. He turns away, looking at the view of the city below us instead of meeting my gaze.

“What do you mean?” I want to go to him, but there are too many things we need to talk about before things go back to normal, if they ever do. He’s been away for four years. Perhaps in that time, he’s found someone new. Another girl he loves. The thought knocks the breath from my lungs and tears sting my eyes. As much as I think I’ve grown up, deep down I know around Ryder, I’ll always be a teenage girl.

The realization stills me, and I drop my head. I never should have come here. There’s no point in begging someone to love you because it’s something that should come naturally. Surely, if he felt the same, he wouldn’t be pushing me away.

“I better go, it’s getting dark,” I tell him, turning away from his rigid form. The tension in the space is enough to choke me. Even though we’re in a warehouse triple the size of our home, it feels as if I’m in a matchbox.

“No!” He growls, stalling my escape with one word. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder, allowing hope to flurry in my chest like the wings of a butterfly.

“I can’t have you back in my life,” he tells me. His back is still toward me and his shoulders are tense, his hands fisted at his sides.

“Did you ever love me?” I ask outright.

Honesty was our promise to each other. Lies only got in the way, so Ryder and I made a pact when we started dancing together. When he became my teacher, trainer, and when he made me fall in love with him. We vowed to always tell each other the truth. And when he left for the opportunity to study with one of the best dance studios in the city, I let him go because when you love someone, you don’t hold them back. You send them on their way with the courage to do it. Not that he needed it. Ryder Kingsley has been a rock through all the years he’s struggled with depression. I’m the only one who knows how bad things actually got for him.

We found our only refuge in dancing. He taught me how to use my body to move to the beat and I taught him how to let go of the pain in his mind. Ryder drops his head for a moment. A sigh is the only sound from him.

“Yes.” One word, brutally honest. The love of my life. And the only man who broke me. When he left, I couldn’t bring myself to be with anyone else. He was mine and I wasn’t moving on. Sienna said I was stupid to hold out for a man who’d clearly moved on, but deep down, I knew Ryder wasn’t like my brother. Somehow, I knew he wouldn’t just go out and find a girl to sleep with. “You should go, Piper,” he murmurs. My name on his lips sounds foreign. I know he’s serious when he uses it.

“I don’t want to. You made a promise to me, Ryder. Are you going to keep it?”

He spins on his heel, facing me once more. Hazel eyes pin me with heat, hunger, and desire. His body glistens in the low light. The setting sun bathes us in an orange glow that makes it seem as if he’s on fire.

Ryder Kingsley.

My temptation in black sweatpants and skater shoes. Looking at him now, you’d never guess he was once a boy of fourteen wanting to end his life.

“If you stay, I’ll fuck you,” he tells me, but he doesn’t move closer. “And I don’t know if I can be gentle right now. Because all I want to do is steal your sweet virginity. That same innocence you asked me to take all those years ago, Butterfly,” he says. “You deserve better than me breaking you roughly in a warehouse.” His mouth tilts just so, causing his normally hidden dimples to appear in each cheek. The man is deadly, not only on the dance floor, but with that stomach fluttering smirk.

“You’ve always had a dirty mouth,” I retort with a smile of my own.

There’s nothing around us for miles. The forest sits to the left, and to the right is the main road that brought me here, which only takes us back to town. We’re back in the one place that gave us everything. I never understood how something so beautiful can come from something so ugly.

“You love my dirty mouth,” Ryder confirms. “Come, I’ll walk you out.” He reaches for the tank top that’s lying on the speaker, and I make my move. Stalking toward him, I stop only inches from where he’s now straightened to full height. “Butterfly,” he says, a warning in his tone. That same warning he gave me all those year ago.

“I missed you,” I tell him honestly, my eyes peeking up into his. There’s nothing more I want than his lips on mine. Just once. Even if it is only one kiss for the rest of my life, I’m sure I could survive.

His gaze falls to my chest and he steals my breath with the heat in his hazel green eyes. I know what he’s looking at the moment he reaches for it and lifts it from my body.

“You kept it.” His words are whispered in awe.

The small gold butterfly pendant I’ve worn every day for the past four years has never left my sight. I’ve held it on lonely nights, and I’ve had it hanging from my neck each day he was gone. And now that he’s here again, I wore it for him.

“It’s the best birthday present I ever got. Sweet sixteen, remember?”

He nods at my words, then turns away as if he’s angry, but the tension radiating from him tells me there’s more to his reaction than I think.

“Ryder…”

He looks at me then, the tee still in his hand when I reach for it and drop it back where it was. Finding the courage, I pull the tank top I’m wearing up. Once it’s on the floor, my black sports bra is the only thing I’m wearing, besides the sweatpants that have a matching pair of panties to my bra underneath.

“Jesus, Piper.” Ryder runs his fingers through his short-cropped hair. “I can’t do this now.” He’s at war with himself. The bulge in his sweats tell me one story, while his mouth voices another. There’s tension in his muscles, in his arms.

I take one more step and lift my hand, settling it on his bare chest, trailing my fingertips over the smooth tanned skin, along the lines of the ink that adorns his flesh. The wolf that’s inked on his neck peeks at me, howling at something, and I wonder if it’s the pain Ryder’s been through. The significance of that one piece of art is breathtaking.

“I can’t stop if you keep touching me,” he warns. His eyes burn through me. All those nights in my bed thinking about him, about how he would feel on top of me, his body between my thighs. I fantasized about him more times than I can count.

“And if I don’t want you to stop?” I question. My head tips to the side, watching him for an inkling of refusal. But he doesn’t offer it. He doesn’t move.

“We can’t do this here, I can’t… We can’t… Fuck,” he hisses. Spinning on his heel, he stalks away from me. My hand falls to my side, and my heart aches in my chest.

“We don’t have to do anything, Ryder. I just want to know what’s going on with you. You’re blowing hot and cold.”

“Listen to me, Piper.” He turns, his eyes casting a warning glare over his shoulder. “I’m not the boy who left. I’ve changed.”

“And I’m not the girl you left, Ryder. We all grow and change, but—”

“There are no buts, Butterfly!” He growls his response, causing me to step back in shock. He’s never been so adamant or so harsh with me. But this right here is something the new Ryder has become. A cold, hard man I no longer recognize, but sadly, I still love.