Amber to Ashes

by Gail McHugh

  “Mm, yes. Yes. It’s jealousy.” He closes his eyes, thick, dark lashes and all, and lets out a deep, slow, tantalizing groan.

  I come close to swallowing my tongue as I envision that groan snarled against my ear while he thoroughly fucks me from behind.

  He opens his eyes, pinning them to my lips. “And such a sweet, sweet sound it is, coming from that pretty mouth of yours.”

  “It’s not jealousy,” I insist. And it’s not. It’s . . . it’s . . . Shit, I don’t know what the hell it is, but I know it’s not jealousy. My fingers go stark white as I clutch the leather strap of my satchel. “You wish it were jealousy.”

  He snags his bottom lip between his teeth and shakes his head as he slowly walks backward into the throng. “It’s jealousy,” he calls out. “But I’m okay with you not wanting to admit it. It only adds to your cuteness, so it’s all good.”

  I roll my eyes, a mental ugh! shooting through my head.

  “And you never answered my question,” he adds.

  “What question?” With my hand poised over the doorknob, I pull my brows together. I know the last five minutes spent with him has me feeling like I just stumbled out of a psychiatric ward, but I don’t remember him asking me anything that I haven’t answered.

  “What’s the name that belongs to the gorgeous face?”

  I dig a hand into my hip. “You didn’t ask me that.”

  “But . . . I just did.” He sends me a panty-dropping smile, continuing his backward pursuit down the hall. “Did I not?” He scratches at his jaw, mock confusion pinching his forehead. “I mean, I could very well be wrong about my assumption, it’s been a long day, but I swear to the good Lord above that I asked ya.”

  This dude honestly finds himself entertaining. I guess some perverse part of me does too.

  “Brock didn’t tell you my name?” I find that hard to believe. Guys talk, and considering they’re best buds, I have no doubt I was mentioned. “I’m sure you asked him what it was.”

  “Ah, very, very true. And had I seen or spoken with him since the other day, I would’ve, but I haven’t. Hence the motivation behind me asking you.”

  I blow out a breath, knowing this is a losing battle. “Amber.”

  He halts, a slow smile curling his mouth. “Mm, it all makes perfect sense now.”

  “What does?”

  “The reason your parents named you Amber.”

  I stare at him, having no clue what he means.

  “The color of your eyes, beautiful girl.” He pitches me a wink, a genuine smile hinting at his lips. “And try not to take some of the shit I say too personally. It’s just . . . who I am.” His smile falls away, a sinfully delicious smirk replacing it as a group of students brush past him. “But have no fear, sweets, you’ll eventually get used to, and quite possibly fall in love with, all of my fucked-up personalities. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. If I have to annoy you every goddamn day, which, if I were you, I wouldn’t doubt my ability in doing just that, I will. Believe me, I will. By the time I’m done with you, I guarantee I’m gonna be the first thing that pops into that pretty head of yours when ya wake up in the morning, and the last image floating through it before you close those hypnotizing eyes at night.” A shrug, this one following the reappearance of his smile. “Just giving ya the appropriate fair warning you deserve.”

  He turns around and, with a wave from over his shoulder, vanishes around a corner.

  As I walk into the classroom, my breath hijacked by his statement, it occurs to me that Ryder Ashcroft—with all the annoying, sexually frustrating traits he doesn’t want me to take too personally—just may be correct about one thing. Maybe my parents did name me Amber because of my eyes.

  Still, how can you ask your dead loved ones questions?

  That’s right . . . you can’t.

  CHAPTER 3

  Amber

  I TRY NOT TO choke on the balmy August air as I step out of my car. It’s the kind of heat that’s dense, a thick, wet towel suffocating my body. In less than a second, I’m soaked in sweat, drenched from head to toe. Over the past week, though I’ve secured a waitressing job, and classes are going relatively well, with each passing day, I’ve nourished my growing hatred for Maryland by feeding on my ache for Washington. I miss living there. Even if that’s where my crippling past began, it was never humid, and the air wasn’t rife with the smell of crabs.

  I swipe a palm across my sticky neck, and with memories of a stolen childhood corroding my irreparable mind, I slam my car door shut and make my way across the student parking lot. Eager to get into the air-conditioned building, I haul ass and take the stairs two at a time, knocking into exhausted shoulders and lazy arms carrying books. Though I hand out the appropriate apologies, I’m shot evil glares by gangs of students who seem to be just as pissed off at the rising mercury as I am.

  I swing open the doors and my skin jumps awake, frosty air coating every inch of my body like a lover’s kiss, as I head toward the library. By the time I walk into the quiet, two-story space, I’ve cooled down and am ready to get some much-needed studying done.

  After setting my belongings on a table, I head for an aisle and trail my fingers along wrinkled leather spines lining old-world-style mahogany shelves. My eyes devour rows of books, my nose pulling in their familiar scent which, no matter where my barbed-wire thoughts are, has always managed calm my spirit, bringing it some sense of normalcy amid the ghost playing hopscotch with my past. Even if just a little bit.

  I locate a revised edition of John Milton’s Paradise Lost and flip through the pages. Landing on the battle between the faithful angels and Satan’s forces, I read over the words, instantly taken and somewhat disturbed by what’s unfolding on the pages. Engrossed, I feel a hand brush my hair away from my neck, and I jump, my breath leaving me in a hard rush.

  “Shh,” Brock says, holding a finger over his lips. “You’re in a library, Miss Moretti.” He pauses, seduction rolling off him in electrifying currents as he rests a hand on the shelf just above my shoulder. “Though I love the way you sounded when you . . . gasped.”

  “I didn’t gasp,” I answer quietly with an abashed smile.

  “You gasped, but I’m not complaining.”

  I swallow, unable to ignore the air instantly charged with chemistry. “What are you doing here? I didn’t think jocks frequented libraries.”

  “Ah, you’re incorrect. We frequent them when we know beautiful girls who’d pick Twizzlers over any survival tool while stuck on a deserted island are here.” With a lazy smile, he fishes a pack of Twizzlers from his back pocket. His emerald eyes go dark, almost hunter, as he grazes the pack against my lips. “You look pretty today.”

  “So do you,” I breathe, sexually restless. My palms, pressed to the books, go damp, my heart thwacking as he continues to brush the pack in soft, slow strokes along my lips.

  He brings his face within inches of mine. “I’ve never been called pretty, but since it’s coming from you, maybe I should take it as a compliment.”

  “You should.” Emboldened, I wrap my fingers around his wrist to aid in his seduction. The heat from his skin billows up my arms, down my back, and between my legs. “Compliments from me are a good thing.”

  “I like good,” he says, his eyes locked on my lips.

  The plangent clearing of a library monitor’s throat distracts us from each other. Hands digging into her thick hips, she shoots us a classic stink-eye, her scowl twisting her usually pleasant features.

  Brock takes an easy step back, his face impassive as he nods in her direction. “Mrs. Anderson. I was just helping Amber find”—he smoothly glances at John Milton’s creation in my hand—“Paradise Lost.”

  “Mr. Cunningham . . .” She sighs with annoyance, moving a rod of curly hair away from her forehead. “The library is for research and studying. Nothing more.”

 
“We were about to do some serious research,” he mutters, ducking his head to conceal a smile.

  I don’t conceal shit. I burst out laughing—the deep, can-barely-catch-a-breath kind. God, it feels good. It’s been forever since I laughed like this.

  My unacceptable reaction garners me another stink-eye from Mrs. Anderson but also rewards me with a shocked yet impressed look from Brock.

  I grab Brock’s hand, dragging him toward my table as I bat apologetic lashes at the less-than-thrilled librarian. “Pardonnez-nous. Brock est une influence mauvaise, peut-être, mais j’ai l’intention de le briser de cette. Nous allons aller avant, et faire un peut de recherche véritable. Merci.”

  Now she just looks all-out confused. I’d be lying if I said Brock looks any different.

  “Did you just speak . . . French?” Brock probes as we claim a seat at my table. “And what the hell did you say?”

  “Yes, I did.” I smile and pluck a notebook from my satchel. “I said something about you being a bad influence and how I plan on straightening you out. How’d you guess it was French?”

  Chuckling, he shakes his head. “I’m familiar with the word merci, but that’s where my jock brain ends in its understanding of the language.”

  I laugh, enjoying his sense of humor.

  “But I’ll be honest, my need to see your French-speaking mouth consume Twizzlers has magnified.” He grins one of those killer grins, leans back, and crosses his arms. “It’s definitely sexy.”

  “Sexy? I never thought of it like that. I always thought it added to my hidden geek factor.”

  “Well, start thinking it, because it is, and nothing about you screams geek. Even if it did, you’d be one fucking sexy geek.” He swipes the Twizzlers from the table, opens the pack, and hands me one. “Get eating. This jock’s dying over here.”

  I smile, convinced we’ve officially established an ongoing joke. Taking a small bite, I watch him watching me, carnal satisfaction blooming in his eyes.

  “Where’d you learn to speak French?” he asks.

  From one of the crazy foster homes I landed in. If I messed up a lesson, dinner was withheld from me that night. “I took it in high school,” I say, not ready to open that casket. “How’d you know I was here?”

  “I saw you in the parking lot, and I followed you.”

  “So you’re stalking me?”

  “If you wanna get technical, yes.” He cracks a sinful smile. “Are you cool with my dementedness?”

  “Can’t say that I am,” I lie, unwilling to admit that part of me is.

  “Can’t say that I’m willing to stop,” he clips, his mouth curved wryly. “And keep chewing, Amber-Ber. I’m thoroughly enjoying the show.”

  Unsure of how to react to him, I smile like an idiot, my deft wit vanishing with every slick comeback he tosses my way. I want to kick him in his teeth for beating me at my own game, making me work harder at what usually comes naturally to my warped ego . . . manipulating a conversation. But, God, I can’t kick him. Aside from his teeth being perfectly white, their ghostly shimmer as straight as a stick figure’s dick, he’s too adorable, too inwardly twisted to inflict physical pain upon. Jock or not, and wiseass or not, this good boy’s as bad as they come. I can see it, smell its deliciously dirty presence. My intuition tells me he’s aware of it, and that I’ll soon be introduced to the inner workings of what makes him hard.

  Continuing to smile like a virginal imp, I obey and take another bite from my Twizzler, all the while wondering how long it’ll take him to show me where his inner demons really lie.

  “So do you have any exciting plans this afternoon?” he asks, entertained curiosity on his face.

  “Maybe,” I lie again. Well, if you consider studying until your eyes are about to bleed exciting, then maybe it’s not a lie.

  “Wait, did I just hear you say that you’re stopping by the field to watch me practice?”

  “Uh, nope.” I laugh. “That must’ve been the little schizophrenic man in your head.”

  “Nothing on my body is little. Let’s get that out of the way right now.” His eyes sparkle with mirth as I sigh. “But, no. I definitely heard you say it. Besides, I know you wanna see me in my uniform. You’re curious. I can tell.”

  “Oh, can you?” I ask dryly.

  “Yes, ma’am. Sweat. Raging hormones. Me coming close to murdering someone. There’s a certain amount of appeal to it. Don’t lie.”

  There is a small amount of appeal to it. Though I’d gladly choose a double root canal over an afternoon spent watching any kind of agonizingly boring action on a football field, I can’t deny that I wonder—just a little—what Brock’s already-fine ass looks like in those tight pants. However, considering it’s close to a billion degrees outside, the idea loses its attraction real fast.

  “I have to study,” I say, snatching a second Twizzler from the pack.

  He pitches his head to the side, his green, seawater eyes intense. “I guess I need to tempt ya a little more, then.”

  “You think you’ve tempted me at all?” I balk, amused by his confidence.

  He shrugs, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Well, I hope my gift of Twizzlers has.”

  His gaze, pinned to my lips, and the boyish grin lifting his cracks my resistance, unlacing me with a sweet yet petrifying anxiety. The inescapable truth is . . . I think I like it.

  I rest my elbows on the table, my hands folded beneath my chin. “And how do you plan on tempting me more than you think you already have?”

  Brock stands, and I have to crank my head back to look up at him. “That’s easy.” He touches his knuckles to my cheek, my breath kidnapped by the shadow of promise in his eyes. “I’ll watch every episode of Happy Days with you, and I’ll always be the guy who brings you Twizzlers.”

  As Brock walks away, yet again without saying another word, my empty heart teeters between curiosity and absolute fear over something I’ve rarely experienced.

  Human warmth.

  Though I’ve craved it, I’ve been dehydrated of it, a desert thirsty for even the smallest trickle of water from a passing storm. Sure, I’ve received warmth in small doses, but it usually came from someone who had thwarted reasons behind showing it to me at all, including my parents.

  The people who were supposed to put me before anything.

  The people who were supposed to give up their breaths so I could take an easy one.

  The people who were supposed to choose my smiles over a dirty needle.

  After they died, I shot through a series of homes where warmth, love, and being recognized as an actual person was dangled in front of me like a meaty bone to a hungry dog.

  A scrap of day-old food to a soul seeking nourishment.

  Inside those homes, I was physically beaten, mentally raped, and inwardly stripped down to nothing but stagnant memories of a life that I’d sought to escape. Still, no matter how stagnant my memories of my parents were, they became the only place my mind desperately clung to in the middle of the chaos that had replaced what I had thought was evil.

  What I had eventually wanted back.

  It’s funny how our minds execute many purposes, the two main contenders of our psyches conflicting beyond confliction. One side teaches us that it’s our grand escape, while the other preps us to play the role it never wanted: our worst enemy.

  It wasn’t until I was placed in the caring arms of my most recent foster parents, Cathy and Mark, that I experienced any sense of feeling wanted or loved. Any sense of feeling . . . human.

  But their safety net came too late, unable to save me from my ancient habits. I continue to disconnect, self-destructing one man at a time, using sex as a brain detox. Sex is and will always be where I find control, a hidden shelter keeping me benign from the cancer that will forever disease the dark, frayed edges of my thoughts. Starting at the age of fo
urteen, I’ve abused, loved, craved, and hated sex in ways most people can’t fathom. It’d rock their skulls. I’ve given it away without feeling a morsel of anything for the person on the receiving end and, many times, accepted it from those I knew couldn’t stomach me.

  With the fear of possibly experiencing something real, true, and healthy eating through my bones, I head out of the library, fully aware that the only world I’ve ever known may become disrupted by the beautiful chaos of a boy who promised me more in two seconds than anyone ever has.

  Such a bittersweet, twisted paradox . . .

  CHAPTER 4

  Amber

  WITH MY FINGERS curled around the fence surrounding the football field, the sounds of helmets crushing against helmets, deep guttural grunts, and what could honestly pass as bones snapping in two cut through my ears. Feeling bad for the guy at the bottom of the pile, I squint my eyes and watch a herd of sweaty athletes peel off each other.

  To my surprise, the guy on the bottom of the pile is the one and only Twizzler-giving captain: Brock Cunningham.

  As if unaffected by the elephant’s worth of weight that just crawled off him, and with the football secured between his thick forearm and broad chest, Brock stands. Pulling off his helmet and wearing a proper fuck you smirk aimed in the direction of the herd, he tosses the ball to the quarterback and drags a hand through his hair. Dripping with sweat, its usual dirty-blond color is now grizzly bear brown.

  I bite my lip, my fingers aching to touch, grip, and tug on it. Preferably during wild sex.

  “Fuck off, Cunningham,” a beefy-looking lineman growls. “I’m coming for you, pussy.”

  “That’s if your fat ass can catch me,” Brock notes, shoving his helmet back onto his head.

  Beefman snarls some shit, flips Brock off, and—in true caveman style—beats on his chest. I roll my eyes, praying to Buddha, Allah, Jehovah, hell, every God in existence, that Brock makes the dude look like a dick.

  “Come at me, fucker,” Brock taunts as they get back into position. “Hey, I have an idea. Imagine your mother’s lips are wrapped around my cock while you’re trying to catch up to me. Maybe that’ll help ya some.”