“I love you too, Brock.” Amber looks into my eyes, confusion cascading across hers as I stop moving. She pulls her legs from my shoulders and cups my cheeks, worry crashing over her face. “What’s wrong?”
I cradle her head, praying to God my twisted desire doesn’t cause me to lose her. “I just want to give you everything you want. I know this whole thing’s fucked up, believe me, I do, but I trust Ryder with my life, and I’m okay with you wanting him. I can tell you’re uncomfortable that I know how you feel about him, but I don’t want you feeling that way. You have enough shit plaguing your thoughts. I don’t need guilt fucking with you.”
I kiss her lips, unsure if anything I’ve said has eased some of her guilt, her confusion. “Everything about doing this with him would fulfill both our needs. Your pleasure would become mine in ways you can’t imagine, baby. Hopefully mine would do the same for you. Just think about the two of us taking you, worshipping you like the princess you are.”
She stares at me, her heart thumping wildly against mine. I swallow, everything in me screaming that I’ve gone too far this time. Master of douchery, I’ve ruined the only good thing I have. The one person who makes me feel alive after years of feeling dead.
Amber drapes her arms around my neck, guiding my face within inches of hers. Her sweet breath brushes my cheeks. I inhale, burning her scent into my skull, scared to fucking death that this is the last time I’ll hold her. I close my eyes, shivering like a full-blown pussy. Pussy or not, I deserve whatever’s coming.
“Do you really love me, Brock?” she whispers shakily.
My heart skips a goddamn beat as my eyes burst open. “Christ, baby, more than you’ll ever know.” I slide my thumbs over the seam of her lips, sure the devil himself is gonna walk me through the gates of hell. “I love you more than anything. Need you more than the air in my lungs.”
I kiss her forehead, ashamed that I’ve allowed my temptation to override what she truly needs. A real man. A man who would never toss this shit at his lady. A man who, no matter how much he desired something, would never put his wants before the goddess in his life.
“You’re everything that completes me,” I say. “Everything that was missing from my fucked-up universe. I’d lose it if you ever left me. Done deal. I wouldn’t make it one day without you in my life.”
“Then fuck me, Brock.” She wraps her legs around my waist, her fingers sinking into my hair as she touches her lips to mine. “Make me forget who I am. What I’ve been through. That’s all I want. I don’t want to think about anything else. Not my parents, not Ryder, not tomorrow, not next year. I just want to think about you and me.” She sweeps her tongue over mine, urgency thickening her tone. “I can’t make a decision about anything right now. I can’t. I just . . . need you to heal me, okay, baby? Just heal me right now. Please.”
Soul hers until the day I die, I do as she asks, layering my mouth over hers as I try to take away her pain.
I only hope to God I didn’t add to it.
CHAPTER 14
Ryder
IT’S A LITTLE past two in the afternoon when I pull up to my mom’s house nestled in the less-than-thrilling neighborhood of Glen Burnie. Supposedly it used to be a great area before it went to shit in the late eighties. Either way, my mother refuses to move because it’s the home she grew up in. She, along with half the world, hates change. I’m sure she gets that from my grandmother, who also lives here.
I have just enough time to catch my mom before her five o’clock bartending shift, where she’ll work until the early morning. It makes me sick. Did I mention she does this after she’s cleaned a few rich bastards’ homes along the bay?
Yeah. It sickens me.
“Hey, baby!” my mother squeaks. She tightens her brown hair into a ponytail, a smile beaming on her tired face as she strolls across the lawn. “Long time no see.”
I kill the engine, flip open the glove compartment, and pluck out a small bottle of Visine, squeezing a few drops into my eyes before she approaches. I get out and give her a smile, hoping she can’t tell I’m baked. “Yeah. Been working a lot.” I pull her into a hug, realizing how much I’ve missed her. “Sorry, Denise.”
Bad habit. I started calling her by her first name when I was fifteen. It began as a joke. My mother—when pissed off—refers to herself in the third person. She really didn’t care too much for my ribbing on her, but she eventually softened up to it. Now it’s the norm.
She pulls back and swipes a motherly hand through my hair, her smile melting into a frown. “Mac’s working you boys to the bone, huh?”
“Yeah, but it’s been a pretty busy season, so I’m stoked.” I try to sound genuinely happy I’m getting work.
Though my boss is a cool cat, I use his construction company as a front. At the ripe, young age of twenty-four, I’m killing close to a hundred and fifty thousand a year between hanging drywall for Mac part-time, running grades for moronic students, and pushing coke for Brock. But unlike Brock and his bling-dripping apartment, clothes, and vehicles, I cover my tracks by making it look like I’m poor as snot.
I’m far from it. Retirement—somewhere along the Caribbean—is looking pretty fucking sweet.
“True,” my mother points out. “A lot of people are out of work right now, so it’s good you have something coming in.”
I nod. “Wait. I thought your shift doesn’t start until five.” I look at my watch. “It’s not even four.”