Amber to Ashes (The Torn Heart #1) (4 page)

CHAPTER 4

Amber

W
ITH 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.”

The whole team, except for Brock’s target, rocks with laughter. After another growl from Beefman and a series of numbers yelled out by the quarterback, Brock’s off and running, zigzagging down the field as he dodges Beefman and his pack.

With serious NFL precision, the quarterback Hail-Marys the ball down the field. I stop breathing, watching as gravity carries the spinning bullet through the sticky air. Brock stops, whirls around, and the ball nails him in the chest. With little to no effort, he catches it. A split second before a duo of amped-up whatchamacallits reach him—neither of whom are Beefman—Brock turns and takes off again, howling his way into the end zone for an
in your face,
fucker
touchdown.

The air rips with excited squeals from cheerleaders who are also in the midst of practice. Unable to contain my own enthusiasm, I follow suit, squealing in a less gag-worthy way than the team’s little groupies. I’m behind the fence where Brock scored his
in your face, fucker
touchdown, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that my ridiculous squeal catches his attention. But it does, my heart screeching to a stop as he jogs his fine ass toward me. He pulls off his helmet, the mother ship of sexy grins landing on his lips.

“Ah, she came,” he says triumphantly. He drops his helmet and threads his fingers through the fence separating the bleachers from the field, resting them over mine. “So?”

“So?” I stare into his smiling eyes as I mentally tell my fingers to chill out despite his touch.

“So what’d ya think?”

“I think it’s hot as hell.”

“I already know you think
I’m
hot as hell,” he points out, smacking his lips together.

I shake my head, my need to kiss those lips increasing with each uneven breath I take.

Inching his face closer to the fence, his grin broadens. “Get your mind off my pecs and
try
to concentrate on the play that just took place. I know it’s difficult, but I know you got it in ya.”

“It’s actually closer to impossible, but I’ll make an
honest
-to-God attempt.” I let out a pseudo-dreamy sigh.

Brock chuckles, his face showing his amusement.

“In all seriousness, it was great,” I continue. “Between you and the quarterback, it was a kick-ass play.”

“Thank you, Twizzler girl.” He taps my nose. “Me and Ryder are good like that.”

“
Ryder
’s the quarterback?” I hear the shock in my voice as my attention shoots to the sideline.

Though he’s surrounded by a flock of
please
pay attention to me and I’ll be the next to
suck you off
cheerleaders, Ryder still manages to catch my gaze from across the field. I look away, unnerved yet enthralled by everything about him. I’m not sure why I react that way around him. Maybe it’s because he reminds me too much of myself.

We’re both broken whores.

Still, I can’t help but inwardly laugh at the way some chicks have no shame in demonstrating their whoriness to him, let alone the world. I’m a silent whore, a different breed, the shocking kind. I’m the whore a dude can safely bring home to his mother without fearing that she’ll suspect I’m swallowing her baby boy’s seed better than the best of them.

“I didn’t know he played anything but the role of an arrogant bastard.”

“I’m arrogant,” Brock says with a shrug.

“True.” I nod, tapping
his
nose. “But you’re arrogant in a different way.”

“Shit. You think I’m arrogant?” Brock asks, concern edging his eyes.

“
You
even just said you’re arrogant.” I giggle, a little confused. “Are you trying to prove to me that you indeed
do
have a little schizophrenic man living in that arrogant head of yours?”

He grins. “I’m really
not
arrogant, but I
just
may have a little man talking to me in my head.”

“I’d be shocked if you didn’t.”

“Wanna know what he’s telling me now?” he whispers.

“I can’t deny that I’m somewhat fearful about what he’s telling you, but you
both
have piqued my curiosity. Shoot.”

“He’s insisting you watch the rest of my practice, wait a few minutes while I hop in the shower, and then take a drive with me.”

“Tsk, tsk. No dates yet, Cunningham. You’re halfway up that ladder but not quite to the top.”

Several of his teammates call to him from across the field. Without tearing his eyes from mine, Brock holds up a finger, signaling them to wait. “It’s not a date. It’s just a ride, Amber.”

“A ride can turn into a date.”

“And a dance can turn into a kiss,” he counters. “A kiss can turn into relationship. A rich asshole can turn into a poor bastard. Get where I’m going with this, beautiful?”

I drop my hands to my side. “Yeah, I get where you’re going with it. But still, I told you that you’re going to have to work hard to get into my head.”

“Then give me the
chance
to work hard,” he implores, his eyes intense as his teammates kick it up a notch, chanting his name in loud unison.

I look off to the rowdy crew, my eyes landing on Ryder. With his elbows resting on his knees, he’s sitting on the bench watching me and Brock like a hungry hawk scouring his next kill. I stare at him a long moment, our gazes locked in some kind of showdown. I bring
my attention back to Brock and gnaw at my lip, my unhealthy fear of falling in love settling on the conveyer belt of distrust circling my frozen heart.

“Get your fingers back up here.” Brock flexes his on the fence, an easy smile spreading across his lips. “Come on. I promise I won’t bite.”

After a second of debate, I bring my fingers to the fence. I have to remind myself to breathe as he touches his fingers to mine, slowly intertwining them together.

“Something about you feels . . . right, natural,” he says, his voice soft and calming. “I can’t explain it. I just know that you’re different in a good way, and I like it. I
want
different in my life. You have no idea how much I fucking need it.” He shrugs and studies my face, reading me in a disturbing way. “My heart’s no less bulletproof than yours. Believe me. But if you feel like you have nothing, then you have nothing to lose, right? Give yourself a shot at being my . . . different.” He looks at the ground then back at me, his breath unsteady, somewhat nervous. “Take a ride with me after practice, Amber.”

I’ve never been confronted by so many messy emotions all at once. On top of that, I’ve never once been struck speechless. Words, feelings, memories, instinct, fear, longing, adrenaline, want, and anxiety all digging their razor-sharp claws into my brain. My wretched past has always been mine to keep hidden from the world, and whether or not he knows it, Brock’s asking me to expose the wreckage of my life to him. He’ll ask questions and expect answers. When I can’t answer them, he won’t think I’m different in a good way. He’ll just realize I truly am a freak, a freak he’ll wish he’d never tried to figure out.

Still, despite everything inside me screaming for me to run, to flee faster than I ever have, as I stare into Brock’s eyes I feel like a magnet’s grounding me to this spot, to this moment, this very second in time. An internal clock’s ticking, the crashing sound of its pendulum tocking through my ears and reminding me that I’m running out of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years.
We’re each given only so much life, and I have yet to live a speck of anything that resembles one.

Running on empty and having absolutely nothing to lose, I nod. “Okay.”

“
Yeah?
” Brock asks, his expression a mixture of shock and uncertainty.

Another nod.

“Thank you.” A slow smile tilts his mouth, his gentle voice a caress. “You know if I weren’t behind this fence, I’d kiss you, right?”

I quirk a brow. “You know I may or may not let you, right?”

He taps my nose again and picks up his helmet. “I think you’re gonna be the ride of my life.”

“That’s possible,” I call as I make my way toward the bleachers. Rounding the track, I watch Brock jog over to his teammates with a smile worth a million Polaroids.

Nerves a scattered mess, I’m pretty sure the sun is melting the flesh from my bones as I climb the bleachers, finding a spot under an overhang. It offers little reprieve from the heat but will do for now. Considering I won’t get much in the way of studying done for the remainder of the day, I retrieve
Paradise Lost
from my satchel. Before I can read three words, I hear giggling along with footsteps traipsing their way toward me. I raise my eyes, noticing one of the cheerleaders headed in my direction is the chick who hijacked my spot in Ryder’s lap the day he decided to . . .
devour
me.

“Great,” I mumble, positive she’s about to start with me. Though Ryder said she was a hit-and-go type of thing, girls can go all
Carrie
over shit like this.

With a perfect button nose, waist-long chardonnay-hued hair, and full lips any girl would kill to have, the chick could seriously be a supermodel. “Amber?” she says in a Tinker Bell voice, extending a perfectly manicured hand to me. “I’m Hailey Jacobs. I’ve heard . . .
a lot
about you.”

I take her hand, convinced she’s up to something. I can hear it in
her overly sweet tone, see it in the way her periwinkle eyes are slightly narrowed, and feel it in the way she’s gripping my hand a little too tightly.

“Well, hi there, Hailey Jacobs.” My tone is sugar, spice, and everything nice multiplied by a thousand. “I haven’t heard a
thing
about you. Odd.”

Her eyes narrow further. She’s onto me as much as I am her. She turns and quietly dismisses her redheaded friend, who’s as equally snotty and uppity-looking. Hailey’s accessory casts me a shark’s smile, all teeth, letting me know she’s also hungry for my blood. On a huff, she turns on her heel, swinging her dainty little ass back down to her crew of jock-worshipping followers.

Hailey brings her curious gaze back to me, a fake-as-they-come smile plastered across her glossy lips. “So you’re dating Brock Cunningham?”

“Not that it’s any of
your
business, but I’m taking a ride with him after practice.”

A shadow of a pout darkens her face, just enough to let me know they must have some kind of past. “Brock’s
not
what he appears to be on the outside.” She snaps her bubblegum inches from my nose. “He wears an overcoat of some of the best charm out there to hide what lies beneath his . . .
front
. You’ll soon learn what that is. But he knows how to fuck for hours like a pro, and something tells me that’s exactly what you want. You
ooze
slut.”

She drags her attention out to the field, where Brock’s hauling his duffel bag over his shoulder, heading toward the locker rooms. She rolls her snake eyes back to me, a sneer curling her lips. “He’ll definitely take you for a
ride
, that’s for sure. And once he’s finished with you, he’ll toss you aside just like the rest.”

“You mean, he’ll toss me aside just like he did
you
,” I grit out, my mind warped by this bitch’s audacity. “That’s what you’re talking about, right? ’Cause something about
you
leaks bitter ex-girlfriend.
A bitter ex-girlfriend who’s going
Fatal Attraction
because she lost a freak who can fuck like a pro.”

A muscle twitches in her jaw, a clear indication that I’ve pissed the bitch off.

I continue, not quite finished. “Let me tell you something, Hailey Jacobs. I’m glad Brock knows how to fuck like a pro, because otherwise I’d get bored and toss
him
aside. Just to be safe, I plan on teaching him a few fresh tricks that you probably couldn’t think of. So while you’re chucking your sparkly pom-poms from one end of the field to the next, just know that I
will
be fucking the captain of the football team in ways he’s never been fucked before. I doubt that’ll garner me a toss aside.”

Eyes wider than tires, her dot of a nose scrunches up as she surges to her feet. “Fuck you!”

Trying to contain my laughter, I give an unaffected shrug, my eyes pinned to my book. “I go both ways, sweetie. Actually have been told I lick a memorable pussy. Just give me a time and a place.”

Though I have
yet
to swing to the other side—I like to keep my options open, thank you—that bit of made-up information works its charm. Speechless, Hailey whips around on an aggravated heel and bolts down the stairs without a backward glance. As I watch her join her cult, I can’t help but acknowledge that today is turning out to be far more exciting than I’d pictured.