Amber to Ashes

by Gail McHugh

  “Hey, pretty girl,” Brock says, backing out of the parking space. His deep baritone curls through my stomach, every tendon a live wire as he rests his hand on my thigh. The subtle act causes my blood to thrash though my veins, my breath caught in my throat as his fingers flirt along the edge of my skirt.

  “Hey,” I reply with a fake smile, attempting to hide the anxiety cording my spine. Heated, confused, and beyond pissed off, I try to concentrate on the lick of air-conditioning tickling my skin instead of the hypnotizing warmth of Brock’s touch.

  He pitches me a salacious grin, his gaze bouncing between me and the road as he makes a right out of the university parking lot. “You clean up well, Miss Moretti.”

  I pretend to find something of interest in the passing neighborhood. “Is that your version of a killer pickup line?”

  “You’re already sitting next to me.” He chuckles, his fingers trailing a path down my knee, then back up my thigh again. “I could be wrong, and forgive me if I am, but I’d say we’re past killer pickup lines, no?”

  “True,” I say flatly, “but we’re not past the part where you forgot to tell me you’re self-employed. You know? The whole coke-selling business you own.”

  He pulls to the side of the road, shock shadowing his features. “Amber—”

  “How could you keep something like that from me?” I hold back my need to punch him by looking out the window.

  “Please listen to me,” he whispers. Cupping my chin, he brings my gaze back to his. “What was I supposed to say? ‘Hi, my name’s Brock Cunningham. I’m nothing like my friend, but I sell coke for a living’?”

  “Yeah.” Tears prick my eyes, but I fight them back. I may not have shared my body with him, and I’m not in love with him, but I’ve allowed him to glimpse into the dark window of my past. I’ve given that to very few people. I’m not about to hand him my tears. “Yeah, Brock, you could’ve.”

  “And you would’ve walked away,” he remarks, his voice barely audible.

  “You don’t know that for sure.” And neither do I. The only thing I do know is this hurts more than it should.

  “You’re right,” he concedes with a sigh as he leans over the center console and glides his thumb across my lips. “But I wasn’t about to risk that happening. I wouldn’t have been able to let you walk away, Amber. I just . . . I just wouldn’t have let it happen. The second I laid eyes on you, I knew you were broken, knew I could . . . fix you. Let me show you who I am under all of this. I’m sorry I lied. It’ll never fucking happen again. Never. But I need you to give me a chance.”

  The gentle caress in his plea makes me want to console him, hold him in my arms until it hurts. He keeps saying he wants to fix me, but I’m starting to realize we both have scars we’re hiding from the world. I’m just not sure how deep his run or who delivered the wounds. Still, I have questions I need answered.

  “Would you have told me?” I ask, my nerves settling some.

  He nods and slides his hand to my nape. “I knew I had to. I also knew Madeline would eventually say something, but I just didn’t know how or when to bring it up.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it’s not exactly something you mention over a cup of coffee.” Fingers playing into my hair; a small grin trips the corner of his mouth. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes, but that’s not what I mean,” I say through a sigh. “Why do you sell it?”

  A brick wall slips over his face as he sits back in his seat, staring straight ahead. “I’m sorry, Ber, but I can’t go there with you.” He scrubs a palm over his jaw, his gaze dimming as he shakes his head. “We all have a dark corner in our mind that we refuse to revisit. One that—if for whatever reasons we do—will mentally kill us all over again, bringing us right back into that moment of loneliness and pain, the entire fucking thing eating at our very existence.” He swings his attention to me, his expression eerily devoid of emotion as he cups my cheeks. “This is my dark corner, my . . . suicide cliff. Again, I can’t do it. I won’t do it.”

  “I don’t understand,” I whisper, hurt sidling up my throat. “You sell cocaine, Brock. You have to go there with me.”

  “I can’t,” he reiterates, resolve tightening his tone.

  “Oh my God, this is bullshit.” My pulse jerks, betrayal knifing my heart as I curl my fingers around his wrists, praying my words will release the demons he’s harboring. “I’ve opened up to you, Brock. You might not think it’s much, but it is. I’ve been dumped into a recycling bin of nothing but mistrust, born into this world unloved by most around me, my parents included. You have no idea how much I’ve let you in on, believe me. I’m not asking you for something major. I just need an explanation, a damn shadow of hope that’ll let me know I can trust you.”

  Though his guard falters a bit, he keeps up his front, the moment fleeting as his brows pinch in confusion. “Why?” he asks, his voice hard, unyielding. “Why is it so fucking important to you? I’m a dealer, Amber. There’s nothing more to it. Just leave it at that.”

  “No. I will not just leave it at that,” I toss back, my tone mirroring that of a bratty child as I tighten my grip around his wrists. “And if you wanna know why it’s so important to me, it’s because you’re starting to become important to me. Consider yourself lucky, asshole, because that’s a rarity on my end.” Air crackling with tension, we glare at each other, our inner demons surfacing as an edge of mortification jumps through my chest. Unable to believe I spilled my feelings to him, I shake my head, my words falling from my lips in the form of a whisper. “I’m going to ask you one more time, and if you don’t answer, I’m getting out of this car and you’ll never see me again. Why do you sell it?”

  I watch a swallow tumble through his throat but a disturbing placidity takes over as he leans back, rushing a hand through his hair. “I’m the reason my kid brother went missing.”

  “What?” I breathe, shocked, completely confused. “You said you had an older sister. Jesus, Brock, you told me you never had anyone close to you die.”

  “She’s the only sibling I have left, Amber, and we don’t know if he’s . . .” He pauses, a muscle working in his jaw as he stares straight ahead.

  Silent, I wait for him to continue, my heart pounding.

  “They never found his body, so we’re trying to hold on to that.” He pauses again, almost as if summoning up the courage to keep talking. “His name was Brandon, and he was ten years old when he was taken from our front porch while he waited for me to get there to let him in.” He clutches the steering wheel and looks at me, pain and anger melting across his face. “Even though my mother had reminded me all goddamn week, I forgot. While the kid was going through who knows what, the piece of shit I was—that I still fucking am—was getting my cock sucked in the back of my car behind the high school.”

  He lets out a scornful laugh, the air electrocuting with the sound of his fist hitting the dashboard. I jump, my body shaking as much as his. My heart’s bleeding out for him. I bring my hand to his cheek, hoping my touch can calm him.

  Brock grabs my wrist, holding my quivering hand against his face. “I was a seventeen-year-old asshole who was blowing a nut in some chick’s mouth while my brother was probably wondering if he was going to die.” He releases my wrist and lifts his hands to my face, cupping my cheeks. “After that, my family lost control over everything. If my father isn’t fucking his newest secretary, my mother hasn’t consumed a fifth of gin before breakfast, or anyone’s said a word to each other all month, something’s off.

  “But Debby and John Cunningham are monster lawyers, so we all have to look and act perfect. What the world sees is nothing but a mirage, one huge fucking lie. They see a family whose younger son was kidnapped but stayed strong despite it. They don’t see the breakdown. It doesn’t exist to them.”

  Still holding my face, Brock continues, his voice a low hum of anguish
. “They see a daughter who followed in their parents’ footsteps, becoming a Harvard-bred prosecutor. They don’t see that she’s addicted to trying to fix everyone around her. That when she can’t, she slips into a depression that lasts for weeks, sometimes months. They see the remaining son, the one responsible for the whole fucking thing, who went to college on a football scholarship most would kill for. They see him as the university’s captain. They don’t see that his parents forced him to play football since he was a kid or that he sells drugs because it’s the only thing he’s been able to control since the day his brother was taken.

  “It’s my control, Ber,” he whispers, lightly touching his lips to mine. “I have to do it. It keeps my world in check. It makes me feel normal, successful. I feel needed, like there’s more to me than my fuckups.” He tilts my head and moves his mouth to my jaw. “People want what I supply them. It gives me a sense of control and a purpose. It might be fucked up, but my need for control is a part of me. A huge part.”

  I slowly pull back and stare at Brock’s pained face, my thoughts whiplashed as I try to process everything. I feel as if I’ve been hit with a sledgehammer, and to be honest, I’m not sure how to handle it. I’ve always been at the receiving end of help, never the one giving it. Though I’m in school to assist others with their problems, here and now, I’m not mentally equipped to aid Brock through this nightmare, nor do I think I’ll be any time soon.

  Yet, as I gaze into the mossy eyes of this beautiful black-winged angel, I can’t ignore a pull so overbearingly strong within my soul telling me otherwise. It’s screaming out to me that the emptiness in my heart can only be filled by him and vice versa. That we need each other to complete some kind of turbulent cycle of coming together broken, ultimately ending it by becoming whole as one.

  I know these disjointed thoughts go against my better judgment, against everything I’ve known to be messed up in my life, but I think I’m about to blindly jump into the depths of hell. I just hope the flames surrounding Brock Cunningham don’t burn me.

  “Do I scare you, Ber?” Brock moves a piece of hair away from my shoulder. “If I do, that wasn’t my intention.”

  “No,” I whisper, realizing I’m not experiencing fear. I know fear. Touched its poisonous thorns, heard its wicked screams, seen its malicious face. “You don’t scare me. You . . . intrigue me.”

  “Intrigue?” He gives a weak chuckle, resting his lips against my forehead. “That’s a new one.”

  I nod, my breathing spiking as Brock slides his lips to my temple, down the curve of my face, and to the corner of my mouth. “You know I’m not gonna hurt you, right? Nothing I’m involved in will ever hurt you.”

  “But you can get hurt, and if I wind up . . .” I trail off, getting way ahead of myself. Other than my parents, I’ve never loved anyone. Love is the mighty evil fall, and I refuse to willingly jump off its ledge of destruction into a cesspool of nothing but hurt and pain. For in that cesspool are vultures lying in wait to eat me alive.

  “If you what?” Brock probes, his hands finding the back of my neck.

  “Nothing.”

  “Say it. If you wind up falling in love with me.” A grin softens his face as he dusts his lips against mine. “Let me correct that. When you fall in love with me.”

  “ ‘When’?” My question comes out breathlessly, my eyes nearly fluttering closed as he continues, brushing his lips along my jaw.

  “Yeah, when,” he murmurs, curling his fingers into my hair. “Because even though you think you won’t, you will. I’ll make it impossible for you not to, but I have a feeling you’re gonna do the same fucking thing to me. So we’ll be even. Good?”

  “Good,” I say, my heart rioting, wondering if he’ll be the first to crack it open.

  With a slow smile, Brock captures my bottom lip between his teeth, gently sucking as he continues. “Nothing’s gonna happen to me. I’ve been playing this game for a few years. Besides playing it very well, I know the ins and outs of it. Everyone working under me does too. No one in my circle’s a fool.”

  Ryder hijacks my thoughts, pushing through every crevice of my skull. I hadn’t expected him to say anything about being a part of this setup, but considering how much we spilled today, a small part of me can’t help but feel the same slice of betrayal it’s feeling for Brock.

  Either way, I got schooled by two guys.

  Big-time.

  One fit the drug-dealer stereotype in every sense of the word. Tattoos, a proper piercing, and an I don’t give a fuck bad-boy persona.

  The other?

  A true enigma. The all-American boy gone bad. Really bad.

  I’m aware both illusionists could be toxic to my mental state and heart. Doing what I do best, I disconnect, shoving Ryder out of my head. “I watch television. Dealers and their crews get taken down all the time.”

  Brock chuckles again, this one full-bodied. “I’m not going down, and if I do, it’s gonna make national news.”

  “Is that an attempt at making me feel better?” I cock a brow, still in awe that I’m having this conversation. I’d be lying if I said my mind’s not warring with the fact that I’m on a date with a dealer. “If it is, it’s not working.”

  He kisses my forehead, a smirk plastered to his lips as he leans back and checks the side-view mirror. “Don’t worry your pretty little self, all right?”

  “Uh, okay?”

  “And I need you to promise me something,” he says, his voice serious as he eases onto the road.

  I stare at him, waiting for him to go on.

  “I want you. I think I’ve made that very clear.” He brings his hand to my cheek, sliding his thumb under my chin. “But if you’re going to be with me, you can’t ask questions about anything I do. You’ll be a part of my life, but you’ll never be a part of that life.”

  I blink and face him. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s obvious you’re setting boundaries. I’m not stupid. But for the simple fact that I don’t take orders well from others—even though I’m disturbingly turned on by your dominance—I need you to elaborate some.”

  “You’re turned on by this?” he asks with a lazy grin, his playfulness making a resurgence.

  I sigh, unwilling to admit just how much I’m turned on. “Get to the point.”

  “You have no clue how disturbingly kinky I can get.” He smoothes his palm up my leg, his fingers toying with the hem of my skirt. “Just preparing you.”

  I sigh again, but I really want to moan. “Point, Cunningham. Make. It. Now.”

  “Right.” He shoves a hand through his hair, his grin disappearing. “I pick up once a month from my guy. Sometimes I’m gone for a few hours, sometimes I’m gone a few days. You can’t come with me.”

  “Why?” I cross my arms, feeling like a child.

  He glances at me. “Do you really need to ask why?”

  “You’re the one who made it sound like it’s not dangerous.”

  “I never said it wasn’t dangerous, Ber. There’s nothing about it that’s not dangerous. What I said was that I know how to maneuver around the assholes I deal with.” Flicking on his blinker, he squeezes my thigh. “And the assholes I deal with are assholes you’ll never be anywhere around. Ever. It’s not gonna happen.”

  A few silent minutes go by before the need to test him strikes me. “Is it dangerous enough that you have to . . . carry a gun?”

  He kicks me another glance, this one sharp. “No questions, baby. Remember what I said. None.”

  I swallow hard, the effort twisting my throat. He’s said all I need to know. All I’m sure he’s ever going to let me in on.

  “You good?” he asks, his voice soft.

  I nod. Despite everything dumped in my lap in the last fifteen minutes, I think I am.

  “Cool.” He lifts his hand and twirls my hair between his fingers. “So are you curious where I
’m taking you?”

  “A little.” Through several texts during the week, he’s dropped hints here and there—some shit about visiting a time warp—but I’m still not sure where we’re going.

  “A little?”

  “Yeah, a little.”

  The corner of his mouth lifts in a grin. “I thought I told you, nothing about me is little.”

  “Ah, that’s right.” I giggle, tension disappearing from my shoulders. “Forgive me.”

  “All’s forgiven.”

  The second the words fall from his mouth, we pull into the parking lot of a top-notch condominium complex in downtown Annapolis. Reserved for those who possess enough cash for such accommodations as living on the bay, it’s an area I’ll never be able to afford. At least not until I’m finished with school.

  “Your place?” I ask.

  “Yup,” Brock answers.

  I had no clue this was our destination for the evening, and for this, I’m feeling overdressed. Considering the topics covered in the last twenty minutes, it’s only now I realize Brock’s wearing low-hung jeans and a graphic T-shirt. Brock plays a gentleman, stepping from the vehicle and opening my door. With my hand in his, my heels hit the asphalt, my eyes taking in the painted purple sky and setting sun. A warm breeze hugs my skin, the smell of fresh seafood invading my nose as Brock leads me toward an elevator. My heart pounds over the laughter from drunken partygoers flocking the downtown area.

  “You look nervous,” Brock says, his face cool and collected. He pushes the button for the fifteenth floor. “Do I scare you?”

  “You asked me that already. And I told you no.”

  He brings his knuckles to my cheek. “I think you’re lying.”

  “And, as usual, I think you’re a wiseass,” I retort, relishing in the caress of his knuckles stroking down my collarbone. “A wiseass who has no right talking about lying.”

  My stomach twists with guilt. I almost raped his best friend today. Who’s the bigger liar?

  Brock leans into my ear, his lips flirting with it. “You got me there. I did lie. And I apologized for it. If I have to pay penance to you for my shitty lie every single day, I will. Never put anything past me. Besides, I’m sure I could conjure up quite a few . . . intriguing ways to make you enjoy my apology.” With a smirk, he grips my waist, his words a soft whisper. “Do you have any secrets, my mysterious, beautiful Ber?”