by Amy Brent
There was nothing like Tyler, and there would never be anyone like Tyler.
I ran my fingertips through his hair before I pulled him into a kiss. His lips were soft and light. Like an eclipsed moon shining its beauty even though it was blocked by the sun. I saw how my brother eclipsed him, how Luke thought he was better than him at times because of their drastically different backgrounds.
But I saw him.
Him and his beauty.
“You’re intoxicating, Amber,” he said.
“Say it again,” I whispered.
“You’re intoxicating,” he said.
“Again.”
“You’re intoxicating.”
He punctuated every single word with a thrust before his lips descended onto my neck. He sucked in a patch of skin, sending shivers down my spine as the water battered down onto our bodies. The streams of water rippled down every crevice of his chiseled muscles, painting his body the same shade of red his angry cock had been in my living room. I groaned when I felt his teeth, his mouth marking me as his for the world to see.
I wanted him to suck it until I was black and blue.
I wanted everyone to see exactly who had me now. Who held me and cherished me and called me the most beautiful names.
“Take me, Tyler,” I whispered. “Don’t hold back.”
“You sure?” he asked.
“Fuck, yes.”
He pulled his hips back before he snapped them into mine, and my tits bounced against his chest. He snapped them again as I jumped against the wall, then he snapped them again while my body began to tremble. With every thrust, he slid against that beautiful spot. With every pound, my legs twitched around him. His chest pressed me into the wall, our bodies drenched in water, while his hands slid to my thighs and helped to keep me upright.
I could feel him shaking with the exertion, but all I could do was claw at his back and lick his skin. I had lost all control of my body. All control of my mind and my soul. I did what instinctively came to me while his body assaulted my hips. Then, when I could no longer hold on, I laid back against the wall and droned his name.
“Tyler. Tyler. Yes, oh fuck. Tyler. Tyler. You fuck me so good. Yes.”
“Hell, Amber. You feel so fucking good. I can’t last much longer.”
I felt his hips beginning to stutter, and I knew he was almost there. I slid my fingertips between my dripping folds and flicked my swollen clit, and it only took once to throw me over the edge. I moaned as water splashed all around us, flooding the bathroom floor as Tyler finally stilled inside me.
And when I felt him twitch and spill himself into my body, I raised my head up and captured his lips in a kiss.
Our bodies were quaking as the hot water battered our sore and tender limbs. Our foreheads connected while the two of us breathed each other’s air, our hair drenched with trails of water that flowed around our faces and dripped from our noses. I could see the smile plastered on his face, showing me how good he felt after everything that had transpired between us.
But, there was only one thing that would make this perfect.
And I was going to get perfect. If only once.
“Let’s go lay down,” I said.
“Good idea. I’m exhausted,” he said.
I shut the water off, and we dried off with towels before we laid down in bed. Our reddened, naked bodies faced one another while our hair drenched the pillows. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as Tyler’s thumb traced light circles on the apples of my cheeks. I danced my fingertips down his chiseled abdomen, feeling every divot of every muscle he painstakingly toned over the years of his life.
We fell asleep in each other’s arms that afternoon, in the middle of the day without a care in the world. I didn’t know what we were going to do when we woke up, but I knew one thing was certain.
No one could spoil this moment again. I would finally get to wake up to Tyler’s face, and I had a feeling we would both be smiling.
Chapter 25
Tyler
I woke up the next morning with my arms wrapped around Amber. Her soft curves pressed into me while her body rose and fell with her breathing. She looked so peaceful in the sunlight streaming through her window, and I knew I should be happy. I was looking at the only thing that was still keeping me in LA, but the only thing I felt was sadness. I locked my arms around her and pulled her close, feeling her breasts fold against my arms. She shifted around and buried herself into my body before she pressed a sleepy kiss onto my chest.
Her body felt so warm against my skin, and yet I still had to hold back tears.
Amber deserved better than this. She deserved better than what her family was giving her. My mind was still reeling with everything she had told me yesterday. The mere fact that her family had a private investigator on tap for their every whim made me feel weird. That shit just wasn’t normal, and they had some serious issues they needed to talk over with a professional. I didn’t know what promise Amber had made them when she was younger, but it probably had something to do with her schooling and running the company.
What really got me though was Luke. Her relationship with her brother was probably shattered. I saw how close the two of them were before all this careened out of control. I saw how he stepped up and defended her when he needed to with his parents. I saw how supportive he wanted to be about her dreams, right down to her damn Christmas gift. Sure, he might’ve been protective as fuck about her, but he loved his sister.
And I felt like I’d ruined that.
Amber’s breaths fell lightly onto the crook of my neck. Her breasts fell off to the sides, spilling onto the bed while my fingertips glazed along her soft skin. My mind began to whirl about how I could fix this. Who I could talk to and what I could say that could possibly mend the relationship she had with her family. It was Christmas, for fuck’s sake. It was supposed to be a holiday you celebrated with family. I never got to celebrate Christmas with mine. My parents were too busy drinking the money for presents away before they fell asleep after vomiting in the toilet.
The only Christmas present I ever got as a child was a booze bottle my mother had washed out and decorated for me. She called it a piggy bank and told me I could start saving. Then, the first time I’d ever filled it up, she smashed it open and took the money to go buy more fucking booze.
I knew from experience what it was like to do holidays without family. I remembered ordering a pizza on Thanksgiving and getting a pitiful look from the delivery driver. I knew exactly what it felt like to never celebrate my birthday unless I went out and bought my own cake. At the end of each year, I knew what it felt like to fall asleep and never usher in a new year with a kiss or a hug from someone I loved.
And I sure as hell knew what it was like to wake up Christmas morning and have it feel like any other damn day.
I wasn’t going to allow that to happen to Amber. She was better than that. She deserved more than that from her life. I slowly pulled myself away from her body, shivering at the loss of contact. I replaced my body with a pillow so she wouldn’t wake up, and I slowly put my clothes back on. I had to go talk to someone, but I needed her to know that I hadn’t left her.
I needed her to know I was coming back to her.
I scribbled a note and left it on her bedside table before I headed out the door. This entire family was fighting because of me, and I wouldn’t let that happen anymore. If there was one Christmas gift I could give Amber, it was the gift of mending this bullshit with her family so she could have her holiday back. I didn’t care if they wanted me around for it or not. I didn’t care if she celebrated with them and then came back to me. I didn’t care if all of them wanted to run me out of town and never see me again.
All I knew was that I wanted to fix this.
For Amber.
I hopped into my rental car and headed to Luke’s house. The very first person I had to talk to was him, no matter how this panned out. I didn’t expect our business to be fixed or for us to still
be friends, but I was hoping I could talk some sense into him about how he was treating his sister. Maybe if I could repair their relationship, he could help mend her relationship with their parents.
Because I had a feeling their parents wouldn’t listen to a damn word anyone else had to say about anything.
I knocked on the door and heard shuffling behind it. Whoever it was had probably just gotten out bed, and the moment the door whipped open my suspicions were confirmed. Luke’s eyes were bloodshot, and his hair was disheveled. He was in the same clothes I’d last seen him in when he came to the new office space. He looked at me with this blank stare on his face, and I stepped through the threshold of his home without him even fighting me.
This was eating him alive.
“Luke,” I said.
“Tyler.”
“We need to talk, man,” I said.
“Sure,” he grunted. “Want to sit?”
“Nah, I’m good. Look, if you want me to stay away from Amber, I will. I didn’t think anyone around here would be crazy enough to do to her what your parents have done, and she’s going to need someone in her corner to navigate all this with,” I said.
“What my parents did?” he asked.
“You don’t know?” I asked.
“Know what?”
“They fucking cut her off, dude. She registered a business name, and apparently, your parents had a private investigator following her. They found out and cut her off from everything. No phone, no credit cards, no nothing.”
In an instant, I saw him perk up. I watched the clouded stare quickly bury itself behind the fire in his eyes I was so used to seeing. His back straightened up, and he ran his hands through his hair. The Luke I knew was coming, and he was coming to the defense of his sister just like I knew he would.
“They fucking did what?” he asked.
“If you’ve been trying to call her, that’s why she hasn’t been picking up. The only reason I knew was because I caught her at a gas station while I was filling up my car.”
“Your car?” he asked.
“Yeah. Planned on skipping out. Starting a new life after this fucking train of crazy town started raging out of control,” I said.
“Can I get in that car with you?” he asked.
“I’ll strap you to the roof,” I said, grinning.
“Is she alright?”
“Why are you assuming I know?” I asked.
“Because you just said you saw her at a gas station and you have a fucking hickey on your neck. Is she alright?” I could feel his eyes lingering on my neck as his face began to flush with anger again. I was going to tackle this head on, whether he liked it or not. I was going to say what I came here to say, and then I’d leave the rest of this fuckery up to him.
“She’s trying to distract herself, but she doesn't seem deterred from her business. Worried about where she’ll live, and she’s actually spouting off some bullshit about living in her car,” I said.
“Oh, hell no. That’s not happening. Not on my watch,” he said.
“Good. Now, I’m about to say here what I came to say. I’ll stay away from Amber if you really want me to, but you have to realize she’s an adult. With dreams and aspirations. She can make her own decisions. And if she decides to fuck your friends, then you’re going to have to grow up and deal with it. You were fucking hers, so that pretty much makes the two of you even,” I said.
“Shit, I totally forgot about Kelly,” he said.
“And that’s the difference,” I said. “I haven’t forgotten about Amber. That girl you saw me with back in New York, that shit didn’t mean anything. That was a one-and-done scenario I no longer wanted to touch because, well, your sister kept popping up.”
“What?” he asked.
“Look. She spun my head in college, and she turns my head now. Only this time, I don’t want to leave. The only reason I planned to was I thought she had ditched me. But I figured out she wasn’t taking my calls because your parents took her phone. I care about your sister, dude. A lot. But, if you keep treating her like a child and trying to keep making her decisions for her like your parents are doing, she’s going to rebel harder and cut you off altogether.”
“How the hell did this careen so far out of control?” he asked.
“Because everyone, for whatever reason, wants to control Amber. Maybe because she’s the baby of the family or maybe it is because of a stupid little promise.”
“Are you serious? That’s what my parents are holding over her head?”
“You know what the promise was?” I asked.
“That was around the time we had just started planning the business. I came to Mom and Dad for that little loan we had? Remember? The ten-thousand-dollar loan?”
“Oh shit, that was Ron and Darlene?” I asked.
“Yeah. They gave me the loan, then Dad turned to Amber and told her she would have to do something substantial with her education if she was going to have to take over the company. She said she didn’t want to, that she wanted to major in dance, and he said if she was going to major in something frivolous that she’d have to work her education off at the company for half-pay until she paid it off.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked.
“Dude, I didn’t think they’d actually hold that shit over her head. Amber was only seventeen. Did you say something about a damn PI?”
“See what happens when you treat her like a child? She’s got no intentions to come groveling to your parents? She’d rather live in a ditch her entire life than be around those two. And with the way you’ve been forcing her into a corner about me, you’re heading down that exact road.”
“I was just trying to protect her,” he said.
“And I get that. But, I’m not blowing Amber off. That woman means the world to me. She’s incredible, and sassy, and passionate about her dance studio. I want to help her with that. And I know you do, too. What you’ve seen me do to women, I’m not doing that to Amber.”
“You’ve technically already done it to her once, if you left her back at college to go to New York City with me,” he said.
“But, I’m not leaving now. Instead, I’m over here groveling on her behalf to try and fix you two’s relationship, and hopefully, mend her relationship with your parents in the process. I can’t do that shit alone, and I want to do it because.”
“Say it,” Luke said.
I sighed and took a step back before I closed my eyes. The moment I said it sober, it would be real. The moment I said it, I would be at the mercy of whatever Luke said. No one was ripping Amber away from me, that much was for certain. But, admitting something like this could be the difference between me rifting this further and me repairing this relationship.
“Because I love her, dude,” I said.
A smile crossed Luke’s face before he pulled me into an embrace. I was rooted with shock, but I mustered the strength to pat his back.
“You hurt my sister, I’ll kill you,” he said.
“Help me fix this shit between her and Ron and Darlene,” I asked.
“You had me at ‘private investigator.’ That shit’s ridiculous,” he said.
Chapter 26
Amber
I stretched my limbs that morning while the sunlight cascaded across my limbs. My body ached from the rounds we took last night, and I knew my bathroom would still be partially flooded. I smiled as my thought back to last night and all the ways Tyler had taken me, and a thought crossed my mind.
I could wake him up with a blowjob.
I rolled over to try and find his body, but instead, all I saw was an empty space. In that very moment, my heart sank. I felt my world slowly slip from between my fingers and my head began to swirl. Did I do something wrong? Was I just another glorified fuck? Did I expect too much from him? Did I read too much into what last night meant?
I felt tears crest my eyes as I pulled my comforter over my body. Tears dripped onto my pillow as I reached for my phone, and that’
s when I realized the reality of my situation. I didn’t have a phone to call Tyler with because my parents had cut me off. I didn’t have the money for gas to ride around and try to find him because my parents had disconnected my credit cards. I didn’t have the energy to expend rolling out of bed to try and walk around and look for him because what energy I didn’t spend fighting with them I spent giving myself wholly to him last night.
But, when my hand descended onto the place where my phone should’ve been, I felt the crinkle of paper underneath my fingers instead.
I grasped it and brought it to my face before I read it, and I realized it was a note Tyler had left me. He told me he had some talking he had to do with someone, and he would be back soon. He promised and told me to stay put, and he wished he could be here to watch me wake up with the light of the morning in my eyes.
But, there was a part of me that didn’t believe him.
There was a part of me that couldn’t blame him if he didn’t come back. My life had crumbled the lowest it was ever going to get. I couldn’t expect a man as wild and vivacious at Tyler Raymond to stick around with a girl who would be homeless in three weeks and had no phone. I couldn’t expect someone like Tyler Raymond, who had a business he needed to grow and connections he needed to make, to help me out of the slump I was in.