Prologue

Porter

Eighteen years old

One way or another,Bishop Sullivan is gonna be the death of me.

I lean against the wood fencing around the paddock, watching him try to break Midnight, the new stock horse his dad had just brought back.

The wild boy completely ignores him, while I fight to bite back my smile. Bishop is the only one who can make me smile like this, which is going to get me into trouble one day, hence the whole he's-gonna-be-the-death-of-me.

At least I know how to play the part no matter what goes on in secret between us. I can touch him, kiss him, make him come so hard, his eyes roll back, but he doesn't realize it's more to me than fucking and friendship because I don't want him to know.

"You need some help, Bishop?" I yell at him, wishing I could call him Sully, the nickname I use when it's just us. He's never been as good with the horses as I am, and it's something I never fail to tease him about.

"Fuck off," he replies, and I chuckle quietly.

There's just something about him that gets to me. There has been since the first time I set foot on Sullivan Ranch when I was thirteen years old. Being a cowboy is all I've ever wanted. It's what my dad had wanted before he passed away five years ago, but working on the Sullivan Ranch? That's not something I ever thought I'd do and I still feel guilty about it. How can I not, with the family history between us?

On day one, Sully had come up to me, all wide green eyes, with dirt smudged on his face. "My dad says I need to show you the ropes."

"I don't care what your dad says," I'd replied, Sully's mouth dropping open before I'd walked away. I'd always been a bit of a hothead.

It had taken Sully a week to convince me to let him show me how to do the things I'd always wanted to do anyway, and whether he knew it or not, he'd had me wrapped around his finger ever since.

When the Sullivan Ranch truck pulls down the long gravel driveway, kicking up dust as it leaves, Sully's gaze catches mine. His dad's truck. I still hate Sully's father, but unlike all those years ago, whenever Mr. Sullivan leaves is when I sneak away with Sully.

Sully leaves Midnight where he is, then walks over to Wade, the ranch foreman. "I'll be back to work with him later. I have something I gotta do."

"Yes, sir." Wade might be older than Sully, and he might have more experience, but he's not Bishop Sullivan Jr., which means that to everyone except me, he's sir or boss.

Sully heads in my direction. Without waiting for him, I turn and go to the stables, where we saddle the horses without a word, climb on, and get on our way. We know exactly where we're going. There are a hundred different excuses we can use—working on the fence, checking on the cattle and so on—and we pretty much exhaust them all.

The ride to our freshwater stream is a good twenty minutes. We didn't want to be alone somewhere too close to the house and risk getting caught. It's not the only place we've found, but it's our favorite—gives us a spot to rinse off the sweat a little, and sometimes, when Sully catches me on a good day, I even play around in the water with him, pretending I hate it.

We don't talk most of the ride out. I'm not sure why. Maybe because we both know this will have to come to an end soon. There aren't a whole lotta queer cowboys around, and even if there were, even if it's okay, I still wouldn't be good enough for Sully, the man set to inherit such a well-known Colorado ranch.

Our stream is tucked back into the mountain, a wall of trees and brush helping hide it from prying eyes.

The second we dismount and tie up the horses, Sully starts working my shirt open. "You hungry for it?" I ask him.

"Fuck yes." Sully is always hungry for it. I think my cock is one of his favorite things.

He kisses my neck while unbuttoning my shirt, licking my sweat. My skin pebbles with desire, my hairs standing on end and blood rushing to my groin.

I can't wait to bury my dick inside him, show him how much I want him. You're betraying your dad…your family…by doing this with him.

When Dad died and Mom came to work here as a cook, I thought I would never forgive her. How could we be so close to people Dad hated? How could she work for them, when she knew and believed the rumor about our family, and when I asked, she always said it was because she had to put food on the table. As for me, no matter how much I fought it, how much I tried to keep my distance because of the same reason I'd get upset with her about, things have morphed over the years, grown and changed, where there's nothing I like more than losing myself in Sully's body.

It's easier to forget everything else when I'm inside him.

I grab his face, pulling his mouth to mine, trying to kiss him so hard, it'll silence the voices in my head.

My tongue pushes into his mouth, leading the kiss, amping up the urgency. We rip at each other's clothes faster now, until we're both naked, Sully's hard, thick cock pointing at me.

My mouth waters for him. It doesn't matter that he's sweaty from the sun. I drop to my knees and lick a strip from his balls to the tip, sucking the precum there.

"Fuck…Porter. So good." He tangles his hand in my hair. "I love when you give me your mouth."

"Well, I hate it, hate you," I tell him, but he knows I don't. I think he knows, at least. He's not any more foolish than me. He sees there's no future between us. I'm not sure he would want one, and I don't either. Can't let myself. If his family has anything to say about it, Sully will end up with Aimee Daniels. Their families are close. When a Sullivan or a Daniels speaks, people listen—unlike my family. It would be a perfect match, one I'm sure will happen one day. I think Sully knows it too.

"Do you?" he asks, and I can't tell if he's being serious. Instead of replying, I suck him to the back of my throat.

I blow him, listening to Sully whisper my name, to the breathy sounds he makes, loving the feel of his hand in my hair. When his thighs begin to tremble, I know he's close, know he'll blow at any second, so I pull off.

"Asshole," Sully chuckles, a small smile tilting up the right corner of his mouth.

"You say that like we both don't know I'm an asshole."

"Race you to the stream."

"I'm not playin' those silly games with you."

He rolls his eyes and takes off running. I can't keep my gaze off his tight ass when he goes, and damned if I don't end up chasing after him. We're careful of the rocks beneath our feet, or the jagged ones will easily slice you or turn your ankle.

Fucking Bishop Sullivan Jr.

We rinse off, which Sully uses as an excuse to play around with me, trying to dunk me and splash me, while I grumble and tell him to stop messin' around and get his ass out of the water so I can fuck him and get back to work.

Eventually, he listens, and it's me chasing him out of the water again, before I take the packet of lube out of my jeans pocket and take him hard and fast by a tree.

The second we're done, he gives me a dopey smile, looking orgasm-drunk, and I turn away. This is always where I hate myself the most for wanting him. I don't give a shit that I'm gay. Screw anyone who has a problem with it. But of all people, I'm fucking Bishop Sullivan?

My family doesn't have shit, has never had shit because of his. Because his great-grandfather cheated my great-grandfather out of the land for this ranch.

Because of that, Bishop is set for life, and my dad drank and worked himself into an early grave with nothing to his name, and now my mom is employed by the Sullivans, and I'm…

I shove to my feet.

"Porter," he says, but when I whip my head in his direction, he sighs and doesn't say anything else. I tug my clothes on, frustrated with myself, with him, with the whole fucking world because I'm always angry at the world and nothing ever gets better.

"It's different with us," he says. "Different now. My great-grandpa didn't?—"

"I'm out of here," I cut him off. I already know what he's gonna say: that it's not what I think, that my great-grandpa was a hothead who bet his half of the money for the ranch, lost it, and got arrested, so his family had no choice but to move on without him. That's not true, though—not according to my dad. They took his money and his ranch and left us with nothing.

Without another word, I climb on Ranger's back and ride off.

Sully shows up back at the ranch about twenty minutes after I do. I finish my workday, get into my old truck, and drive away.

That same night, my mom has a heart attack, dies just like my dad did, older than her age, and with hardly anything to her name.

It's the first time I've cried since my dad passed, the stupid fucking tears that don't help a damn thing and only make me feel weak.

I spent the night at the hospital, unable to leave her. When I get back home the next morning, our house is too small, too empty, but I have nowhere else to be. No one else who gives a fuck about me. I sit there all day, knowing I should do something, but I don't know what to do. I'm alone now, and while I've always felt alone and liked it that way, the weight of it presses too heavily on me today.

I don't want to be alone.

I don't want her to be dead.

When I climb back into my truck Saturday evening, I tell myself I just need to tell Sully what happened, that Mom is gone and won't be at work on Monday, but deep down, in the place I try to ignore, I know that's not the truth. I just want to talk to him, to be close to someone who makes me feel things I'm not supposed to feel.

We found a spot where I can park my truck so it stays hidden from the road. You have to pull down this old, abandoned driveway to find it, but if I follow a trail through the property, I can sneak in around the back of the Sullivan Ranch, toward Sully's private entrance to the house he shares with his folks.

Just as I'm about to break through the trees, I hear a laugh—a female laugh. I let myself get as close as I can without being seen, hide behind a tree and look toward Sully's place, to where he sits, the sun setting and a bonfire in front of him, in front of them.

In the chair beside him is Aimee.

She reaches over and sets a hand on his arm, the expression in her eyes too close to how I try not to make mine appear when I'm watching him.

My gut clenches, breathing speeds up, head feeling fuzzy. It shouldn't matter. Sully and I are nothing. We like to fuck. Hell, I don't even let him know I like him, but seeing him with her, in this moment, feels like a betrayal.

Logically, I know it's not, but it's the wake-up call I need. If it bothers me now, what's going to happen if I keep this going? If I keep fucking him and laughing with him, then hating myself for it afterward.

Sully will always come out on top, and just like everyone else in my family, I'll always be alone.

I might as well cut my losses before it's too late.

Sunday morning I call Sully's dad, tell him about my mom and quit my job. Sully tries to call me, but I don't answer, and when he comes to my house, I don't open the door.

Mom is being cremated. It's cheaper, and it's what she wanted anyway. I spend the time between that and when I get her ashes, packing up the rental we've lived in for years, keeping what I want and getting rid of the rest. As soon as everything is done, I'm in my truck and leaving Laurel Springs for good, knowing I'll never see this place again, and pretending I don't feel the weight in my gut as I go.