Amber to Ashes

by Gail McHugh

  Before I can conjure up words that make sense, he runs his tongue across his teeth, winks at me, and dips his mouth to the curve of my jaw.

  Lightly pressing his lips to my heated flesh, he continues, his voice a low, sexual taunt. “My timing wasn’t perfect. I can tell when a girl’s been fucked, and fucked very well. Earlier, you weren’t what I consider completely off-limits. Sure, you were halfway there, but you were still on equal playing ground.”

  A moan slips from my throat as he drags his hand along my ribs, stopping on my waist, his grip nothing short of dominant.

  “The game’s changed since I last saw you. You’ve sealed the deal with my friend. Now I have no choice but to play by the rules. You’re legitimately Brock’s girl, and because of that, I’m no longer allowed to fuck with ya. And I won’t. Ever. Again. Though it may be impossible to believe, no matter how . . . hard it is for me, I do have certain barriers I won’t crash through. You’re now one of them.” Smile replaced with a look akin to loss and hands held up in surrender, Ryder slowly backs out of the kitchen, his stare burning a hollow ache into my chest. “It was fun while it lasted, momma. Make sure you take good care of my friend.”

  Without another breath, he vanishes into the living room. On shaky legs, I move to the center island and set down the bottle of water, my mind racing in a million different directions as I try to talk myself away from the dangerous cliff Ryder makes me want to jump from.

  CHAPTER 8

  Brock

  STARE LOCKED ON Amber, I watch as she fidgets with the hem of her skirt, her nervous attention honed in on the airport doors as she gnaws on her bottom lip. A grin ticks the corner of my mouth, my finger lazily drawing our names on her thigh as we await the arrival of her foster parents. There’s something different about her today, a light effervescence exuding from her pores.

  Christ. No doubt I’m in deep, this girl the owner of every filthy, twisted beat of my heart.

  I can’t remember ever using the word “effervescence” to describe a goddamn thing, but hell if this moment doesn’t merit it. This beautiful creature—one who has fallen victim to the darkest cruelties of life—is excited to see the only two people who’ve ever shown her a speck of humanity, a slice of what it feels like to be loved.

  Body heating, I take in the undeniable beauty encompassing Amber. The girl who bolted into my life like lightning and has, over the last several weeks, infiltrated every devious desire and jacked-up breath I’ve breathed. Sitting in my Hummer, her inky black hair’s trailing over her shoulders, her fingers clenched in anticipation as she continues to focus on the arrival terminal at BWI. This woman, this mysterious soul, has managed to do what no other has before her.

  She’s penetrated my hardened shell, wrangled me to her will, and stripped my mind of all control.

  When Amber told me Mark and Cathy were coming to see her, I suggested we take them to dinner. I’ve never met a girlfriend’s parents before. Never felt the need to. None of them mattered enough. Not in the pure way Amber does to me, at least. But with Amber I want more, crave more. Meeting her folks seemed like the next step in our relationship. And to be honest, I want to crawl into every crevice of this girl’s life, burrow myself so deeply beneath her skin, she can’t ever let me go. I’ve grown to need her in the same way my “clientele” chases after the coke I supply them.

  Amber Moretti is my blow, my need for her the best and worst kind of addiction.

  When I brought up doing the dinner thing with her parents, Amber immediately asked if we could include mine.

  My first thought: Hell fucking no. Not happening. Ever.

  I can’t stomach the thought of her being in the same room as them. I tried to sweet-talk my way out of it, insisting they would never show. That they had prior commitments scheduled weeks in advance. I fed her every line of bullshit my pathetic mind could conjure up in an effort to delay her coming in contact with the people who created my worthless being. The truth is: my parents hate me, loathe the fact that they mated and bore what they—and most of their elite circle of friends—consider the devil’s spawn. Why would they want to have dinner with a son who destroyed their family and a girlfriend they would never approve of? In their eyes, I don’t deserve happiness, don’t deserve to be loved.

  Fuck, to them and their minions, I don’t deserve my next breath. It’s a gift, something that should’ve been stripped from me the day Brandon, possibly, took his last.

  But Amber . . . Christ, Amber’s stubborn, relentless when she wants something done her way. She didn’t want to hear a word of what I had to say. The girl flat out doesn’t subscribe to the Brock Cunningham world of bullshit. Call me crazy, but in a realm of its own, it’s one of the many reasons I’ve fallen on my pussy-whipped ass at her feet. She gets me. But even when she gets me, every so often, she gives me more crap than I can handle.

  Yet all it takes is the disgusting memory of the look of abandonment in her eyes the night I admitted to lying about who I really was—what I really did to maintain the lifestyle I hold—to snap me right back into my undeserving-dick mode. The dick who needs to be who he is in an effort of feeling faultless, his pores wiped clean of the guilt riddling his past, a terminal cancer hell-bent on murdering his future.

  The second I fessed up to dealing, I cracked Amber’s already-splintered spirit, deepening the bloodied scars of untrusting cells marring her skin. It was in that moment I knew I had to make up for the harm I’d caused her in whatever way I could, in whatever way possible to keep her by my side.

  Still, no matter what, I’ll never be worthy of the girl who flew into my life like an avenging angel, consuming me hard, stealing my heart faster. At first sight my feelings for Amber were nothing but lust, a carnal desire to control her, to sexually conquer her inner demons. But over time they’ve grown into absolute need, something I’m sure I can’t live without. But knowing me, I’ll lose her to my main weakness. Though she’s aware I’m a package of fucked-up goods, and I swore I’d never hide anything from her again, Amber doesn’t know all my truths, my deepest inconsistency. Telling her I sold drugs was hard enough. Introducing her to the real me—the serpent harboring some of the deepest, darkest secrets imaginable—can sink us. One lie left untold, one obsessive desire that’s been awakened, is a truth I’m unsure I’ll ever be able to reveal to her.

  Nonetheless, after her relentlessly pressing the parents-meeting-parents issue, and batting those damn puppy dog eyes at me, I caved. Just like that, she chipped away my resolve, crumbling me in her hands like a weakened rock. When it comes down to it, all I wanna do is please her, rip away the pain that haunts her days and terrorizes her nights. That pain, the one that burns like acid behind her eyes, kills me. I need to make this jewel happy, even if it comes at the expense of me being miserable.

  Still, I know the second she meets my parents it’ll screw with her. And, damn, I can’t stand the thought of tainting her with any more of my darkness. I don’t want her to experience the painful backlash from the people who despise me. I don’t want her to taste the fiery pain that’ll rip open every remaining scar I bear, every organ holding a ton’s worth of guilt inside its lining when she witnesses the way we handle each other while in the same breathing space. There’s a fuckload of crazy shit I don’t want Amber doing, meeting my family number one on the long list. It will only blacken her to my world more than I’m positive it already is.

  With all of this, I still couldn’t bring myself to deny her request. I’m a grade-A fucking son-of-a-bitch, but bitch or not, putting a smile on her face compelled me, urged me to set my family issues aside.

  I move my hand to her knee, lightly squeezing her warm flesh. “You seem excited.”

  “I am.” She turns those whiskey eyes on mine.

  I melt.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve seen them.” A hesitant pause, a smile flirting with her lips as she wraps her hand a
round mine. “Are you nervous at all?”

  “Who, me?” A smirk whips across my face. “Have you ever known me to be nervous?”

  “I think you’re a little off your game today, so yeah.”

  “You think so?” I trail my hand up her plum skirt, tickling my fingers along the seam of her silk panties. “Maybe I need to show ya how on my game I am.”

  “Brock.” My name rolls off her tongue in a husky warning. “We can’t.”

  “Mm. All I just heard was a challenge.”

  She laughs, a purr slipping from her mouth. “You’re nervous. Just admit it, tough guy.”

  “Nope.” My gaze travels over the flush whispering across her cheeks. So beautiful. “Not a chance.”

  “At some point I’ll get you to confess the truth.” She sighs, a reluctant pout weighing down her face. “But right now I need you to remove your hand from in between my legs. It’s . . . distracting.”

  I guess trying to finger-fuck my girl right before meeting her foster parents isn’t the greatest way to make an impression. I never, nor will I ever, claim to be perfect. That shit’ll never happen. It can’t. I’m too warped, the person I’ve morphed into blocking any chance of that being possible.

  I wet my lips, my smirk, along with my cock, growing as I obey her request. “But it’s distracting in a good way, right? A way you’ll never get enough of?”

  “Always,” she whispers through a little moan. A moan that has me wanting to cancel this whole dinner thing so I can give her what we both really need right now.

  The best kind of therapy available to the human race: mental cleansing through angry, physical release . . .

  When Amber and I fuck, we go at it like we’re running away from something, like our sanity depends on it. While she tries to flee from the ghosts continuing to pull at the last remaining threads of her miscolored past, I resurrect mine, taking out every tormented second of it on her body every time we come within an inch of each other. Tortured, we’re both irrevocably broken, a pair of souls attempting to heal the other through sex. The day I was born, whoever’s running shit up there knew they were going to put us together, make sure our filthy paths crossed somewhere along the way.

  But no matter who’s the dick controlling the show, that’s how relationships work. You fight to make up. Initiate war to make love. Fall to rise. Wound to heal. Create to destroy. Casting a never-ending landslide of dirty emotions poisoned by life and the cruel games it plays with our psyches in our paths, I just hope Amber and I can beat the maker at his match. Show the motherfucker who’s really in charge of their destiny.

  Still, I can’t deny one thing. Amber’s right. I’m bent about the entire evening, sweat drenching my palms as Amber’s eyes flash wide open.

  “They’re here!” she blurts, hastily fixing her skirt.

  She jumps from the Hummer, her long locks swinging in tandem with her excited trot toward her foster parents as I smooth a jittery hand through my hair.

  I step out of the Hummer and follow behind her, readying myself to meet the couple who’ve cared for the only woman who’s ever held a part of my heart. I take in Cathy, whose arms are wrapped tightly around Amber in a loving embrace as they geek out about reuniting. Her vibrant red hair stands out starkly against crisp green eyes and olive skin. There’s a gentleness to her as she murmurs something in Amber’s ear. Amber gives me a sweet smile and moves to hug the guy to Cathy’s left. Mark looks to be in his early fifties with salt-and-pepper-dappled hair, his tall stature causing Amber to perch up on her tiptoes to hug him. Warmth floods my chest as I stand back and allow them all a minute, loving every second of finally seeing Amber truly happy.

  As I watch Amber, I notice a different side to her, one that intrigues the hell out of me. My girl’s a fighter. She’s had to be in order to survive. At times, it’s felt as though I’ve had to smash through her cement walls just to get a glimpse of what’s churning inside her head. However, right here, right now, there’s a tenderness to her, something she’s kept hidden from the world in an effort to protect herself from its ugliness.

  Amber rears back and glances between me and her foster parents, an unusual shyness sprinkling the arches of her cheeks. “Guys, this is my boyfriend, Brock.”

  Cathy and Mark offer me a gracious smile as I step forward, shaking their hands. “It’s great to finally meet you both. How was the flight?”

  “You as well, Brock,” Cathy says, her easy voice filtering through the air as I pluck her bag from her hand. “Thank you. And it went well. Quicker than I thought it was going to be.”

  “That’s great.” Amber moves toward the Hummer. “Any screaming kids this time?”

  I open the trunk and set Cathy’s luggage inside as Mark does the same with his. “No, we lucked out.” He chuckles, turning toward Cathy. “It was actually relaxing, wasn’t it?”

  “It was. I even caught a nap.” Cathy winks, a small grin tipping her lips.

  Once in the car, I head to the hotel so they can drop off their stuff and check in. After putting on her seat belt, Amber twists her body toward her foster parents, who are sitting in the back. “Are you guys hungry? Brock made reservations at a killer restaurant down in the harbor.”

  “I am,” Mark declares. “We haven’t eaten since this morning.”

  Cathy nods in agreement.

  As Amber and her foster parents go over this week’s plans, my gut begins to churn. It suddenly feels as though everything is spinning, what little sanity I do possess flying right out the window. I’m gonna see my mother, the queen of making anyone who comes in contact with her uncomfortable, myself included. When that happens, my girlfriend and the people she cares for are gonna endure the same torture. The whole night is a storm brewing, a hurricane waiting to step foot on land. I can’t control what my mother says or does, can’t control the way my parents treat Amber and her family. I can’t control the viciousness that—as sure as my next fucking breath—will spew from their mouths.

  As we pull into the hotel valet, I realize I haven’t uttered a word since leaving the airport. Guilt hits, pummeling me to the ground. I don’t want to be the reason this evening goes to shit. I want everyone to enjoy themselves. However, I’m pretty damn sure that’s not gonna happen.

  While Mark and Cathy greet the bellboy, Amber turns to me, concern marring her brows. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I feign a reassuring smile. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Don’t hide from me, Brock. I know you better than that.” There’s a twinge of hurt in her tone that stings like a rubber band snapping at my chest.

  Such a dick . . .

  “Hey,” I whisper, capturing her face between my palms. I don’t want my issues to pelt her with the same anxiety I feel. “I’m fine. I’m just nervous, that’s all.”

  The corner of her luscious mouth twitches in victory. “I knew it! You can never lie to me, Cunningham.” Understanding flits over her face, a twinkle of optimism dancing in her eyes. “You know what I think?”

  “What do ya think, baby girl?” I ask, pressing my nose to hers.

  “I think tonight might surprise you.”

  Positive Amber . . . now, that’s different.

  A chuckle dips from my throat as I graze my mouth over hers. “Let’s get a drink inside.”

  “Okay, but before we go in, I want you to know something.” I nod as she gently nips my bottom lip. Heat floods my veins, my cock responding to her touch like the addict it is. “No matter what happens tonight, I’ll take care of you. Make it all better when we get back to your place.”

  “Damn.” My pulse jumps, firing from her promise. “And I’m supposed to get out after you said that? I’m about to take you in the backseat. Give ya a little . . . appetizer before the main meal.”

  “Tuck it in your pants, big boy.” Gaze hooded, her voice drops a few octaves.
“But in the meantime, instead of mulling over the ‘what ifs’, the things you can’t control regarding me meeting your family, think of how good it’ll feel being buried deep”—she licks my nose, those green eyes sparkling with mirth as she gives my cock a squeeze—“so, so deep inside my pussy later tonight.”

  Sweet Jesus . . .

  A groan rips from my throat and she hops from the vehicle, a triumphant, naughty laugh trailing through the wind behind her as she enters the lobby.

  I adjust my now-throbbing dick and move inside the hotel, everything in me knowing what I said to Amber when we first met is correct: this girl is sure to be the ride of my life.

  With Amber by their side, Mark and Cathy are in the midst of checking in. I head to the bar, deciding a drink will serve me right as I wait for Amber to join me.

  Gaze scouring the low-lit hotel, I find a seat and place an order for a shot of scotch. A football game, consisting of the Ravens killing the Steelers, catches my attention on a corner screen, temporarily distracting me from the army of nerves attacking my blood.

  Two shots in, and with a third on its way, warm hands sweep around my abs, cashmere-soft lips teasing my ear as Amber’s raspberry scent crashes through my senses. I shift and snake my arms around her waist, pulling her down onto my lap. A soft hum escapes her, the sweet sound igniting my desire for her. I’ve been with a lot of girls, too many to count, but with Amber it’s different. She somehow fills the crater inside my heart, giving me a reason to wake up every morning, a reason to push on.

  “They’re getting cleaned up and changed for dinner,” Amber says, her eyes a caress as she loops her arms around my neck. “It shouldn’t be too long.”

  I nod and lean in, sweeping my tongue across the seam of her lips. I don’t wanna talk—I can’t. I need to feel a part of her inside me. Something to dull the numbness taking up residence in the center of my chest. Amber’s sugary-sweet tongue delves over mine, a light moan escaping her as she tightens her grip around my neck. I deepen the kiss, my hands slipping up the graceful slope of her back. My pulse accelerates, my need to fuck her senseless increasing as I glide my fingers across her delicate shoulders.