- PROLOGUE -

We make promises to the people we love because we want them to feel our loyalty, or maybe it’s a way to hold ourselves responsible. We want them to know how much they mean to us and even if it seems impossible, we make these sometimes preposterous vows because maybe... just maybe... we actually believe it’s possible to keep them.

Regardless of my promise that I would always love you no matter what or my absolute need to make it known I would always protect you, I made those promises with no intention of breaking them. I could never fathom a time in my life that I wouldn’t love you. The moment I first laid eyes on you, my soul knew you and smiled as if he had been waiting for you all this time.

And God, had I been waiting. You were the most beautiful person I had ever laid eyes on. In that moment, I knew without a shadow of a doubt I would lay my life down for yours and you would always come first. I couldn’t see any other possibility. How could life go on if there were no you?

You made me the luckiest man in the world… that is, until you were ripped from my hands so brutally. Those promises I had sworn by were taken from me, and I was never even able to tell you I’m sorry. I never meant for it to be this way. I never wanted to break my promises. They forced me to.

And sadly, life does go on without you. It’s as if I’m drowning and every time I’m about to finally fade into the blackness, I’m pulled back up to the shore so I can be reminded of all the happy smiling faces around me, only to be submerged into oblivion again. Sometimes I think it would be easier to just let myself go. Let the depression win out. But then I think of you and your beautiful face. How I hope so damn much that you are out there, just waiting for me to find you. Waiting for me to right those promises again.

So, I don’t give up and I won’t let them win. I will find you and I will make sure that you know you’re my everything…

- ONE -

LANE -

Our heavy breaths were loud in the quiet of the sleeping house. Her fingers continued to tug and pull at my shirt until she had it fully removed from my waistband. As soon as it was allowed, she frantically slipped buttons from their holes and, in her frenzy, shoved the shirt from my shoulders, letting it flutter leisurely to the stairs. All I could feel were wild, desperate hands and our hot mouths colliding.

My liquor-filled brain didn’t function quite as fast as hers did, but I managed to pin her to the wall with one of my legs on a higher stair, stopping her from moving any closer to the top. From what I could tell through my double vision, she was pretty. Long, blonde hair. Nice rack. Tight skirt that was about to be on the floor. Shit, that worked for me.

I returned to the arduous task of unbuttoning her shirt. My fumbling fingers weren’t cooperating though so her blouse ended up being a ripped mess, causing buttons to fly every which way. My mouth had instant access to her bare chest. No bra. But let’s be honest, that was one of the reasons she was here right now. Everyone in that bar knew she hadn’t been wearing much under her barely-there clothes.

“Ethan...” she gasped, as my lips touched her breasts. I suppressed the chuckle as best as I could, because I had forgotten she thought that was my name. Ethan and I were being jackasses and decided to trade for the hell of it. Shit, maybe some girl was calling out my name at Ethan’s place tonight.

When my fingers slid up the inside of her thigh, she moaned forcefully. My hand instantly clamped down over her lips to stop the loud noise erupting from between them.

“Shh...we need to get to my room before you wake everyone up.”

“Who else is here?” she asked, panting breathlessly. I ignored her question and pulled her up the rest of the stairs. Her hands continued to paw and bat at me as we staggered down the hall. She walked backward, clinging to my burning skin until I finally found the right door.

She strutted around topless inside the room while checking out her surroundings and running her fingertips across the edge of the bedspread.

“Huh... it’s kind of small. I thought with a house this size...”

“It’s a guest room,” I replied. I stalked toward her and attempted to remove my shoes and unbutton my pants in the same beat.

“Do you always take girls to your guest room? Show me your master, gorgeous,” she tried to whisper seductively.

Towering over her, I placed my hands on her h*ps and moved her back onto the bed. My fingers grazed across her flat stomach and I found the clasp that held her scrap of a skirt together. The fabric released, drifted down her fake-tanned legs, and she kicked it aside.

“I want to...” My hand was over her mouth before she could even finish that maddening request.

“You’re talking way too damn much, baby girl.” I flipped on my back and scooted until I met the headboard. With my pants unbuttoned, I extended my hands out on each side of me in a welcoming gesture. “This is where you get me. Your call.”

She smirked and turned fully toward me. Her fingers pulled each of my socks off and she tossed them to the floor. She grabbed the hem of my pants and worked them down my legs. Those quickly joined the socks on the hardwood. Her eyes were immediately fixated between my legs and I knew what her decision would be. With a grin, I put my hands behind my head and rested against the headboard, watching as she crawled up my body.

“You’re just going to lay back and let me do all the work?” she asked with a perfectly arched eyebrow.

“Sweetheart, you’re the one that went home with a guy who drank half the bar.” I could feel my lids beginning to droop, the alcohol swimming wildly through my veins. She shrugged her shoulder casually and bent forward.

Her hot mouth began to go to town and it felt f**king great. In my experience, only the girls who wore see-through clothes or skirts that barely covered their asses could do that kind of work with their mouths.

When I felt more than a hot mouth wrap around my dick, my eyes shot open and I looked up to find her smiling face above me. In a panic, I sat up ramrod straight and thankfully saw she had put a condom on for me. Close call.

What the hell just happened? Two seconds ago she was sucking me off and now she was riding me?

“You were enjoying that,” she whispered into my ear.

“Yeah...” Although I was pretty sure I had just fallen asleep. Hey, point for me that I kept it up while I took a little nap. At least she didn’t catch me.

“You feel so good,” she called out excitedly. I didn’t like the sound of her voice anymore. It was too loud…too nasally. Had it been like that at the bar? Surely Ethan would have told me if it was. Then again, he was probably more concerned with whether she was about to have a wardrobe malfunction—we all were. “Ethan!”

My hands grabbed a hold of her ass and I flipped her over onto her stomach, entering back in from behind. Much better.

As I pumped into her, I started questioning why guys felt the need to have sex all the time. It felt good, that was obvious. It was fun and it shook up an otherwise boring day. But in that moment, I wondered why I bothered with this girl. It would feel good and then she would go home. Thank God. There wouldn't be any lingering feelings for her, and no need to do it again. There would just be... nothing.

Shit, I needed to tell Ethan no more whiskey. It made me a f**king sap.

I heard her cry out into the pillow and I assumed she had reached her release, so I let myself finish as well. With one last shuddering pulse, I fell to the side and closed my eyes while catching my breath.

The feeling that always came after every time I finished began to creep up on me. I didn’t know why I always seemed to forget how it felt—the feeling that I shouldn’t have been with yet another random chick. The sex definitely hadn't been worth it, but when I saw a pretty face and whiskey joined the party, I couldn’t seem to talk myself out of it.

My phone startled me with a resounding ring. With a foggy brain, I tried to decipher what the hell was going on. The blonde chick was lightly snoring next to me. Seriously, whiskey was not allowed on my bar menu anymore—it f**ked with my head. I thought that I needed something harder tonight, something to help the memories fade, but all it had done was make my brain muddled and confused. The beep of my phone reminded me that I had a message awaiting my attention.

“Hey, wake up,” I tried to whisper nicely. She stirred and swatted away my hand that was trying to gently rouse her. “Sugar, it’s time to go.”

“Stop, I’m trying to sleep, Ethan,” her voice grumbled.

I pulled the covers off of her na**d body and tapped her ass. “Nope, it’s time to move it along. I have things to do.”

She glared up at me from her pillow and slowly pushed up onto her elbow. “You have things to do at...” She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and checked the illuminated screen. “At three-thirty in the morning? No...wake me when it’s at least eight.”

She searched for the covers again and I kicked them off the bed. I knew my phone was still in my pants, but I had to rack my brain to remember where those could be. Standing, I spotted them across the room, close to the bathroom door. I could see the alert light blinking through the dark fabric.

“Quit playing around!” she screeched.

Once my phone was in my hand, I noticed it was from Charlie and immediately put it up to my ear so I could hear his message. He rarely called in the middle of the night, and I shouldn’t have f**king let it go to voicemail. I could hear my late-night visitor huffing and puffing behind me, but her concerns meant nothing to me in that moment.

Charlie’s gruff voice whispered in my ear, causing my whole body to lock up with each word spoken. “Tijuana. Tonight at seven. I got you a spot. Meet up with Mateo. Call me back tomorrow.”

I had been listening to Charlie’s cryptic messages for the past four years, yet I was never prepared for them. I couldn’t predict what kind of news he was going to deliver, and every day I felt as if I were waiting for the one that would knock me in the gut so hard I would never recover. However, this one gave me hope because another day had gone by that he wasn’t calling to tell she was gone…forever.

When I knew I had a job to do, it got my blood pumping. The adrenaline shot through my veins, and I could already feel my feet bouncing. This time, however, insecurities began to float in and out of my head. I should have been training harder since moving to Texas. I should have been perfecting my right hook or strengthening my footwork.

But then I remembered that winning didn’t matter. My presence did. If Charlie got me a spot tonight, that meant he would be there. And if he was there, then maybe it could lead me to her.

“What’s your name again?” I pointed at the girl, who was trying hard to look sexy sprawled out na**d on my bed. Any other night, I would have gone another round because obviously I was a glutton for punishment, but it was time I hit the road.

“You’re joking, right?” she yelled, way too damn loud for three in the morning.

“Hush, will you? I don’t need you waking everyone up,” I hissed while throwing on my pants.

“Who the hell are these other people, Ethan?” Her voice was getting extremely loud. “Am I really just another notch on your headboard?” I shrugged my shoulders, because what the hell did she think? She went home with a drunken idiot in the middle of the night and I hadn’t even asked her name. “FUCKING BASTARD!” she screeched.

Almost immediately, I heard the loud wail of a baby cry blast down the hallway. Shit... Her face froze and she gave me a glare that could melt all of Antarctica.

“Please, don’t tell me you have a family,” she growled.

“It’s time to go, sweetheart...” I started to say when my door slammed open, the hinges barely containing the forceful blow. There stood a drowsy-eyed and extremely pissed-off Jace in my doorway. He was only wearing boxers and his chest was heaving as if ready for a fight.

I f**ked up. “Dude, I’m so—“

He quickly interrupted my apology. “Do you know how long Audrey and I spent getting Jocelyn down? No, of course you don’t, because you don’t give a fuck!”

“Of course I care, don’t say that. How was I supposed to know she would start screaming like a damn five-year-old?” I pointed to the guilty party still sitting on my bed.

Jace glanced over as if he hadn’t known there was someone else in the room. I knew the instant he realized she was lounging seductively in her birthday suit because he immediately looked away.

“Seriously! You have about ten seconds before Audrey comes down here and kicks your ass. Get dressed and get her out of here,” he growled.

“I think I need to talk to Ethan in private,” my obnoxious visitor addressed Jace, even though he wouldn’t even look in her direction.

Jace threw his head back and laughed, “Oh boy! You have been an as**ole tonight. His name is Lane, by the way,” he added, right before he stepped out into the hallway.

I heard her gasp of breath as she scurried off the bed and scooped up her skirt. In a huff, she pulled it up her legs and secured it around her waist.

“Look...” I paused, realizing I still didn’t know the girl’s name. Shit!

“Gemma. My name is Gemma and it seems that yours is Lane. I’m glad we finally introduced ourselves.” She rolled her eyes in annoyance.

“Look Gemma, it was a good time,” I tried to backtrack. I’d been even more of an as**ole than usual.

“You’re a riot,” she laughed incredulously and searched for her shirt.

I cleared my throat and hesitantly said, “I think it’s on the stairs.” Where I had ripped it off of her. “Here, just take my shirt,” I tried to say before she walked out the door but she waved me off and strutted out of my room—topless. Fucking great.