Bury Me (The Ashes Boys Book 2)
Chapter 1
Screams.
They get my heart pounding, blood rushing through my head until it makes my eyes bulge, my ears buzz and my skin feels like it”s on fire, anytime I hear one.
Especially when I cause it.
Like now.
Ember’s fists pound against the back seat, the inside of the car boot, her feet kicking against anything and everything she can. It”s been going on for over an hour and she hasn”t even paused. Her knuckles must be bleeding, toes bruised, muscles burning.
But she doesn”t stop.
It gets my fucking dick hard.
The begging stopped when the car did, that was at least twenty minutes ago. She sobbed so hard I thought she was going to be sick, but she didn”t even heave, just swallowed down her words and continued to scream. Kick. Punch. I”m pretty sure I heard the back of her head collide with the carpeted floor a few times too, but I can”t be absolutely certain. Should have put a camera in the trunk to watch it back later. Tears and blood on her face, fear in her big blue eyes, I’d much rather get off to that than any fucking porn.
The boys got out, leaving me alone.
The two of us.
Me in the front seat while she fights against the inside of the trunk.
My grip tightens on the leather steering wheel, scarred knuckles blanching white against my cool-toned, olive complexion. It”s the scars that draw my attention, criss-crossed, jagged, some thick, others thin.
Will her knuckles match mine when she”s finished fighting me?
It”s that thought that has me grit my teeth so hard, my jaw cracks. I close my eyes, darkness beyond the windows, darkness beneath my eyelids. I take a slow breath, reach down to adjust my raging hard-on. Popping a boner inside a car with the girl whose blood is still on your dick and is locked up in the trunk is… well, society would say inappropriate.
Blinking, I stare at the green lights on the dashboard, the time reading five-ten a.m. I rub at my eyes, knuckles a welcome pressure over the heated skin. I feel bone tired, like I could sleep for a year, but I have a lot of shit to do today, bodies to get cleaned up. Phoenix and Flint give me the biggest fucking headache when it comes to Bonfire Night, but it was my decision to give the boys free rein one night of the year, let them blow off steam, so I have to just get on with it.
I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
Sighing, the screams and thumping making their way back to me has me opening up the car door, fingers hooking through the handle, I slide out, slam it closed and she doesn’t stop. I brace myself for the battering of her hands and feet, kicks and punches, I will relish in her fight, but I will destroy her this night if I do not put some space between us.
I feel feral, with her. It has been so long since I have seen her with my own eyes, not through photographs taken without her knowledge, panes of glass between us as I watched her work shifts at the coffee shop from the inside of my car just gasping for a glimpse of her.
She rarely leaves her house, it’s why I was so shocked to see her, it’s just, not something she does, goes out. Not without security guards and a driver.
Yet, she’s here, in the flesh, and I didn’t think there would be such a confusing mess of emotion swirling up inside of me. I almost want to let her go, even after years of wanting exactly this, having her, but she would run straight back to them and that is so much worse for her than her being here with me. I might want to hurt her, use her, but no one’s family should want to do the same, and hers do.
Have.
The boot lifts open slowly, cold air sweeping in, stilling her struggles, silencing her screams, the sound raw and broken from overuse. She is panting, blood staining the hem of her white, long-sleeved tee, her tight, high-waisted, black jeans hiding the rest.
“Ember.” It feels as though my tongue forks with her name, a little kick of the devil in my tone. “I’m going to lift you out, and I will take the bag off of your head, but you have to be fucking quiet.” I wait, hands fisted inside my pockets because I want to tangle them in her mess of tight, blonde ringlets and wrench her out of this car, let her bones crunch as she hits the ground. “If you make one single sound, I will lock you back up inside this trunk for the next week. Do you understand me?”
She nods beneath the hessian bag, the rough fabric scraping over the carpeted flooring of the car boot.
She flinches when I reach in, my big fingers curling around her upper arms, and I both love and loathe it. I grit my teeth, dragging her out, her legs wobbly beneath her as I plant her feet on the glistening concrete, damp from the earlier rain.
Smoke lingers in the air, the evidence of fireworks strewn across the concrete square we stand in between the six tower blocks of flats I own.
Ember trembles, and I can hear her teeth chattering, her skinny fingers knot together in front of her, blood dried on the backs of her hands, over her palms, soaked into the cuffs of her long white sleeves.
Holding onto one arm, I release the other, grip the top of the bag and yank it over her head, tossing it into the boot at her back.
Big sapphire eyes blink up at me, ashy blonde brows drawing together as she squints in the dark, the glow of an orange street lamp at my back, my shadow shielding her from it directly. Blood and tears streaked down her cheeks, her tight blonde curls sticking to the mess of her face.
She sniffs hard, wiping a bloody sleeve across her nose, over her eye, shoving hair back from her temple, tangling it further around her red ribbon. She blinks, dropping her arm back to her side, and breathes in deep. I stare at the roll of her throat as she swallows, tilting her chin down, flicking those big blue doe eyes up onto mine.
“Blaze, I-”
“Stop talking, what the fuck did I just say?” I snarl, shaking her with my hold on her arm, pinching her skin. She winces, sucking in a sharp breath through her teeth. “Just, be quiet. I tell you what to do. You do it. We’re not making negotiations. You’re not speaking. You are being silent and doing as I say.”
Ember says nothing, staring up at me with glassy eyes, that’s when she realises where we are. I watch the recognition flip a switch inside her skull as her eyes flicker erratically over our surroundings. She stares up as I start to drag her towards the entrance of Tower Four. Nodding my head to the members of our crew stationed in the shadows, all of them armed to the teeth with military type weaponry as we pass.
“Are we-” she clamps her shaky words back inside her mouth as I spin violently to face her, she stares at her feet, a sliver of space between us.
“Do you know how to follow any orders, Emberleigh?” I ask her lowly, dropping my nose to graze across her forehead, breathing her in, blood and smoke and me. “Or is it just mine that seem flexible to you?”
She shifts on her feet, still looking down at the floor, and it makes me want to snap her fucking neck.
I fist my free hand, tightening my grip on her arm with my other, “Look at me, Pretty Girl.”
Slowly, chin lifting, her eyes come to mine, tip of her nose brushing my own, “There she is,” I hush, smiling at her in the dark, flashing my teeth. “We’re going inside and if you upset me on the way upstairs, you’ll find yourself really enjoying the view of the ground, because I will throw you off the top of the fucking building.” Holding my eye, she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink, I smile wider. “You’d like that wouldn’t you?” I huff a soft laugh, breath feathering across her mouth. “You wanna die, Pretty Girl?”
I stare into her eyes, glassy with tears I want to scratch free, lick from her bloody face. She says nothing and I grin, biting down on my lip ring, curbing the desire to sink my teeth into her cheekbone.
“Good girl,” I whisper, feeling her tremble harder, my lips plucking hers with my words. “Now, let’s fucking go.”