Nate quieted for a minute, then looked to me. “Are you going to hurt him?”

I wanted to end him.

“We’ll see what happens,” I said.

“Which means Mason’s going to wait and see what we can do without getting into trouble.”

I grinned back at my brother. “It’s like you know me.”

He shot back an answering grin. “Only since the day I was born.”

The cabin came into view, and Nate cut the lights, turning down the long driveway. He parked, still close to the highway.

“Just don’t do anything that could get you arrested,” he said. “Shit’s different now that we have to be mature.”

Logan got out and shut his door. “Mature? What’s that?”

I got out next to him. “I think it’s some type of STD.”

Logan barked out a laugh, then tried to quiet himself. “I suppose I’d be the one to know what it is then.”

Nate caught the end of the conversation as we met at the back end of his car. He skimmed Logan up and down. “You have an STD?”

“Only if it’s called maturity, and I’m pretty sure I have an ointment for it.”

We both started laughing.

Nate shook his head. “Mason, you need to sober up. I can’t handle it when you drink like this. You’re just like Logan, only quieter.”

“Hey.” Logan kept laughing, his shoulders shaking. “Oh, fuck. I just lost what I was going to say.”

“Thank you.” Nate’s eyes flickered upward, then back to us. He was smiling, though. “All right, guys. I asked before, but you didn’t answer. What’s the plan?”

They turned to me. The jokes were done, and slowly, everything started to come back to me. I remembered Adam. I remembered all the shit he’d done to us over the years, but I especially remembered that one time at Nate’s cabin. He’d been talking to Sam in a hallway, and I could see how he was moving in. He was grinning and flirting with her, and I remember how my blood went cold. Sam was mine, and I didn’t want to remind him of it. I wanted to show him.

I’d set him straight, going in for the kill. “What do you want here?”

I asked him that, and he had pretended to be surprised. Maybe he had been. Or maybe he was surprised that I was calling him out. If he wanted Sam, he had to man up and show me he was even a worthy opponent.

He hadn’t been. “What are you talking about?”

That had only made me more pissed. “What do you think, dickhead? What do you want? Her?”

I wanted it all out on the table. I wanted Sam to know who she was dealing with.

“What do you want? Yes, I want her. I want her, okay?”

I grinned now, remembering it like it happened yesterday. That’s what I wanted. I had wanted him out and exposed, where he couldn’t hide anymore. “How long have you wanted her?” I asked him then.

“Since seventh grade . . .”

I remembered Sam had started to become uncomfortable. She’d felt pity for him, but I wouldn’t allow it. No. I moved so she was behind me, and I did it slowly, smoothly, almost so Adam didn’t notice at first.

He tried to come back at me, saying I wanted Sam too.

Hell yes, you fucker.

Then I’d felt Sam behind me. She’d pressed her body against mine, and I felt her trembling. Her heart was beating so fast, but I knew it wasn’t because she was scared. I wasn’t going to let her claim that. She was trembling because of me, because I was staking my claim, because as I told Quinn she was going to be mine, I was letting her know too. And she was almost wet because of it.

Then Adam had started to squirm. I saw the hesitancy on his face. He was going to take it back.

“I’m not denying it,” I had told him. “But I’m not going to screw another girl wishing she were Sam. I’m not going to do that. You know why?”

I went in for the kill then and turned to Sam. I had been doing this for her too. She couldn’t deny me either. She couldn’t hide.

I had pressed into her. My knee wedged between her legs, and I felt her throbbing. She closed her eyes, feeling what I could give her. And I had moved closer, nuzzling against her cheek. She sagged into me so I was holding her up, and then . . .

Her hands had slid up my arms, over my shoulders, and began to knead the back of my neck. Even now, my heart picked up as I remembered. I felt it all over again. I could feel her in my arms as I pressed her against the wall back then.

I had cupped her ass, and she wrapped those long, toned legs around me. She pressed against me.

She was mine, then and now.

Quinn had been there, but that moment was all mine. I lifted her from the wall. I had wanted to feel all of her weight against me.

A tremor wracked through her, and I kissed her ear, her cheek, her neck. I was whispering to her about something else, but everything had been about her.

“Mason,” she had breathed out.

There. Right there, she had succumbed to me.

I turned to Quinn. “This is why I’ll never do what you have to do. I have her. I won’t have to dream about her.”

And it hadn’t stopped there. He’d still wanted Sam. He’d tried to be her friend, and he’d held her when she cried on his shoulder. That was the worst, when I heard how he’d been there for her, and I hadn’t. That one burned deep.

“He was our first, you know,” Logan said, pulling me out of my memories.

I looked over to him now. I knew what he meant.

Nate didn’t. He frowned. “Huh?”

“We had our fights and rivalries, but Adam was the first one we fought for Sam. He wanted her, and he kept trying to take her from us.”

From us.

From me.

We’d called a truce, but that had ended this past summer. We weren’t fighting Adam for Sam anymore—but I couldn’t help but wonder if we were. Did he still want her, in some deep part of himself? Had our dad’s beef been an excuse for him to make one more go at her?

I started forward. “Let’s go.”

There was no plan, but it was time to deal with Adam.

Falling silent, Nate and Logan followed me, and we found Adam outside on the patio. He lounged on a bench with a cigar in his hand. The smoke trailed up into the air as he exhaled. He was raising the cigar to his mouth again when he saw us.

He jerked up, and his eyes became panicked as he looked out into the darkness. I could see the whites rounding, and then he scrambled to his feet.

“What are you doing here?”

There was a quiver of fear in his voice.

I moved forward. “If you were to take a guess?”

His eyes narrowed, and he began to ease toward the door. “I’m not alone, you know.”

“You got some chick in there?” Logan craned his neck to see. “Because our intel says you’re here all alone.”

Nate added, “You’re hiding.”

“Yeah.” Adam growled at me. “Thanks for that press conference, by the way. It really helped my dad’s case.”

“You’re the fuckhead who broke into our house.”

I was seconds from grabbing him. I tried to remember why I shouldn’t. There was a voice in my head—was it Sam’s? She wouldn’t want me to hurt him, but he wouldn’t go away. We did the right thing at our house. We let him off. We didn’t hurt him, nothing. There might’ve been some humiliation, but he walked away from the house on two legs. And he would keep coming back.

“What am I going to do with you, Quinn?” I gave him a hard look as I stepped up on the patio.

“What are you doing?” He jumped in front of the door, still holding his cigar. He looked down at the cigar, then back to me, and put it down, laying it on the bench he’d been sitting on.

“Get out of my way.”

“Mas—”

Nate and Logan jerked into action. They grabbed him, but instead of pushing him behind us, Nate opened the door, and Logan pushed him inside. I stepped through last, circling the living room. Rap music played throughout the house, but it was low, and the smell of bourbon mixed with the cigar.

“Well, looky here.” Logan shoved Adam back one more time before going over to the liquor cabinet and reaching for the glass. An ugly smirk showed on his face as he picked up Adam’s glass. “You celebrating something, Quinn?” He lifted the glass to his nose, took a whiff, and tossed the liquid to the floor.