It meant so much to me that he cared so deeply. If it had happened to one of my dearest friends, I would be reacting the same way. This was my battle, though, not his.

"Who the f.u.c.k is this guy? What's his f.u.c.king name?" he growled out like an angry, caged animal, ready to pounce at any given moment. "I want his f.u.c.king name!"

I would do anything to soothe him-anything-except what he was demanding of me. I just couldn't. This wasn't his battle.

Shaking my head, I directed a disappointing look at him. "No," I softly whispered, dejected.

"Why the f.u.c.k are you protecting him?" He gave me a look like he thought I had lost my mind. "He f.u.c.king took advantage of you. He-he-" Roughly, he huffed out, trying to conjure up the words. "He-" he tried again as pain etched all over his face before giving me those eyes that reached deep into my soul, into my heart, telling me he felt my pain. "He raped you, Amber. How can you protect someone like that?" he asked in a little, broken voice that crushed me.

Rob raped me. But it wasn't that easy, was it?

"It wasn't as if I didn't enjoy it. I mean, I remember flashes. I remember liking it..."

What he did was wrong, but at the same time, I couldn't lay all the blame on him. I was the one who had placed myself in that position. Had I been a responsible adult, I wouldn't have been making such idiotic decision. Yet, I did and I was paying for it. So if I gave in and told him Rob's name, it was a whole different problem to tackle, and quite frankly, I wasn't ready to face that. I was too frightened, too broken to even consider spilling any of it.

"You were on f.u.c.king ecstasy; of course you f.u.c.king liked it! That drug was made for that specific reason," he harshly ground out, frustrated that I wasn't seeing his argument. "The point is, you said no, and he didn't f.u.c.king listen to you. I don't care what he told you, but under no circ.u.mstances can a guy force a woman to have s.e.x then persistently tell her that wasn't rape."

The second time he said the word rape, I felt as if chains were wrapped around my neck, controlling my breathing, choking me.

"This is all just too much..." Frantically, I sought his eyes, hoping he would stop for a second, because I felt like the walls were closing in on me, and I wasn't sure what I would do once I felt trapped. "I can't handle this."

Brody reached towards me, seeking my hand then tightly holding it in his. "Then let me handle it. Let me take care of this for you. Let me help-f.u.c.k!" he desperately begged, beseeching. "How did this happen? This is all my fault!"

"No, don't blame yourself." The last thing I ever wanted after confessing about that night was for him to feel guilty or feel as though I was his responsibility. I was far from that.

"I was hostile when you first got here. I was being a d.i.c.k because I couldn't stand the thought of you in Carter's bed, in his room, probably doing the things I used to do to you. It was eating me alive. I could barely sleep just thinking about it. In the beginning, I thought it was because Lindsey had gotten married. That influenced it, too, but when I came out of my room and heard you two laughing inside his bedroom-well, I knew you were a major part of my sleepless nights."

His confession rendered me-wtf? Did he just tell me he was jealous without really using the d.a.m.n word itself? What!

"Please ... Tell me who this f.u.c.ker is so he can be served for what he did to you," Brody pressed on, redirecting my thoughts back to the problem at hand, which was to make him stop pursuing Rob's ident.i.ty.

"No." I had to put my foot down, ready to be graced with his angry backlash. "I don't want people looking at me differently; they already do. No, I can't embarra.s.s myself this way. It's just too humiliating even thinking about it. And for me to go the route you intend to take? f.u.c.k, I just can't do it. I'm sorry. Call me a coward, whatever, but I can't f.u.c.king do it, Brody."

He stilled, not quite happy about my unwavering stance, then took another route. "If he's going to do this to you, he'll do it to someone else. Are you really going to let another girl go through this? You're all sorts of f.u.c.ked up. If you could prevent this, why wouldn't you?"

"Because..." I'm afraid. Because, once I do, there's no going back.

I would forever be a victim, and I didn't want to see myself that way. I could get through this without needing to tell the rest of the population about the humiliating experience. I couldn't bear it.

Giving him a pleading look, I said, "I have to go. I need to breathe." Hastily, I scoured the room for my purse, ready to head out the door. I could feel the chain around my neck tightening as the walls closed around me, ready to confine me, trap me.

"Let me come with you," he offered at the last second as I opened the door, about to sprint out of there like the hounds of h.e.l.l were chasing me.

Giving him one last glance, I said, "No. I need to be alone."

He solemnly nodded. "I'll stay in this room," he said, knowing where my thoughts were leading and willing to give me that breathing s.p.a.ce I was desperate for. "I'll wait for you."

I could have breathed out a thank you, but I didn't have the capacity to do even that. Brody was too much on top of everything else. I just couldn't deal with it all at once. He meant well, but at this moment, I needed to regroup and calm down.

I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't put myself through the process. Women had to be careful whom they partied with because no one was safe from predatory men. They were everywhere, and some got caught and punished, but some freely walked around as if they had done nothing wrong. And I bet with my life, most predators were free; little were caught because of women like me.

At the end of the day, I had to do what was right for me, though, not for everyone. I paid my dues by choosing a dark, stupid path, and I learned my lesson. Sometimes it was better to lock it down, suffer alone, and get through it the best as I possibly could.

Brody could judge me all he wanted, but I had been through so much as it was, so there was no way in h.e.l.l I would ever tell another soul what I had gone through that night. Relaying the story of that night had already been a nightmare. I couldn't go through that again. That was enough. It was all I could muster. No more ... no more.

For me to get through this ordeal, I had to learn how to forgive myself. Then, maybe in time, things would change for the better.

Chapter Twenty-One.

It was already past midnight when I decided to get in my car to aimlessly drive around. I felt like a woman on the verge of a meltdown, and no matter what I did, it seemed as if nothing was helping me lift my spirits. I wasn't necessarily crying, though my eyes were moist from the hard encounter I'd had with Brody. I wasn't necessarily angry, yet I could feel my temper flare at any given moment. It was as though I couldn't control my emotions and was simply watching it play out, praying I wouldn't do something I would regret.

Therefore, I drove while my mind busied itself playing images of Brody's horrified face, him blaming himself for what had happened, and then the genuine concern in his eyes when he told me he would wait until I came home.

My thoughts drove me to hit up the one spot that was always open to give me a helping hand-the liquor store. The moment I got there, I shot out of the car before barging inside the d.a.m.n place, going immediately through the aisles to the hard stuff. My eyes lazily scanned the bottles then decided on the Patron and Jack Daniels. The guy barely looked up to ask to check for my i.d. before he took the items and rung them on the till. After I paid with cash, I quickly jumped back inside the car and drove towards the beach, hoping the fresh air and the sound of the calming waves would clear my troubled mind.

With two bottles in hand, I lowered the windows down just so I could hear the sound of the waves crashing against the sandy sh.o.r.e. Then I opened one bottle after the other, taking a sip, tasting the one on my right before resuming the one on my left. I wanted to get lost, so this was the best I could do.

There was this rotten need inside of me to purge myself off all the awful things I had held inside for so long. I couldn't keep on going, living life the way I was: full of pessimism, insecurity, and lacking of self-worth.

So I drank until I no longer could.

Then, once I realized I'd had enough of it, I closed the cap on both bottles and drove back to Carter's house, hoping I could just get into bed and dream of another world, one where I was wanted and happy.

~A~.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting with Brody when I got back inside the house, but true to his word, he had stayed in Carter's room.

It was about five in the morning when I arrived, so I wasn't all that shocked to find him fast asleep on Carter's couch. What made me smile a little was the food he had on the table with a note stating that he brought it up there while he waited, as if he wanted to make sure he was there when I arrived. I stood there, mesmerized, as I felt all these powerful emotions surged from my heart while I watched him with careful eyes.

I scrutinized his beautifully chiseled face, seeming peaceful, while I stood in the quiet silence, etching him-this moment-into memory.

Maybe it was the intensity of my gaze that woke him from a deep slumber, but when he woke, he almost jumped out of his skin, shocked like a complete weirdo who'd caught a ghost staring at him.

"Amber?" he asked before he fully opened his sleepy eyes.

"Hey," I finally said, slumping next to him on the couch, still a little bit drunk, a little sprung on love, a little confused, and just a little, wee bit h.o.r.n.y.

Glancing at me, he took a quick sniff towards me, immediately detecting something.

"You've been drinking?" he asked before taking a major whiff of me like a dog that smelled food in the air. "I waited hours and hours for you while you were out getting drunk? Are you kidding me?"

"I'm sorry."

I watched his face run through all sorts of emotions before he hastily shook his head. "No, I don't want to hear that you're sorry. You can't keep doing this to yourself. You have to stop!"

"You're right," I meekly whispered before I brazenly stood up and began to strip my clothes away one by one, bit by bit, until I was left with my cowboy boots on. Alone.

"Amber." He stared at me wildly, probably half h.o.r.n.y and half p.i.s.sed off. I could see the flare of desire in his eyes the second he saw my naked body I couldn't blame him if he was both h.o.r.n.y and mad, but seriously, after the kind of conversation we'd had earlier, the stress from the past week, and all the bulls.h.i.t shenanigans I had gone through, I needed a break and wanted to feel pleasure. I also, in some ways, maybe needed one last tumble in the sack with him.

"If you want to help, I need you like this, inside of me, f.u.c.king me." Unblinking, I gave him a straight look, a little shy because he hadn't seen me naked in months.

"But you're drunk."

His immediate rejection shook my stance a little but not enough to stop me from pursuing the subject.

"I don't care. I want you so f.u.c.king much." Cupping my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, I bit down on my lower lip, enticing him to touch me, feel how wet I was for him. "I need you to make me feel good," I seductively said, slightly parting my legs before slipping my middle between my wet folds, sliding through the wetness there. Then I brought it up against his lip, slowly rubbing against it before dipping it inside his mouth. "Make me feel beautiful again."

l.u.s.t was potent in his eyes. I knew that look, the one that indicated how much he wanted me and no one else.

Getting ahold of his pants, I was shocked when he slapped my hands away.

"If you want me bad, then you're starting it all wrong," he ground out, his eyes clashing with mine-his with determination, mine with one objective in mind. "You have to kiss me first before you can f.u.c.k me. I'm not here just so you can use my c.o.c.k to make yourself feel better. No more of that." He relayed his conditions in a manner that told me he was dead serious, that I couldn't get my way without giving in to his demand.

"Jesus, fine, I'll kiss you," I said in frustration. He was making this so much more difficult than needed. At the end of the day, the journey wasn't important, the ultimate destination was. In this particular instance, it was his lusciously delicious c.o.c.k.

"Good," he rasped out, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "That's more like it."

Empowered by his inviting eyes, I decided to shift my body to straddle him. However, much to my shock, Brody wasn't having my bold motives. Instead, he gently shoved me back down on the couch, cheerlessly seating me right next to him.

"You can't seduce me with your p.u.s.s.y dry humping my c.o.c.k, Amber. If you want to f.u.c.k, you have to work harder than that."

f.u.c.king h.e.l.l. Why was he being such a f.u.c.king annoyance just when I needed him most? It wasn't like I was solely using him for such activity. Okay, maybe it was more like that, but it wasn't like he wouldn't get any pleasure out of it, either, so what was the big deal?

"You're making me work harder, all right," I retorted tartly. "If this was any other man, this wouldn't even be an issue."

He stilled, breathing heavily against my lips, exasperated. "What's my name?"

His random question threw me off guard. Frowning as I looked at him through my lashes, I raised my brow at him. "What are you on?"

"What's my f.u.c.king name?" he roughly demanded again, unrelenting.

f.u.c.k. Me. Literally.

"It's Brody. What the f.u.c.k is wrong with you?" I almost growled at him, confused and unsure about where he was taking this conversation, straying far from s.e.x and seemingly more into warzone territory.

His nose flared, still hung up on something I wasn't sure of. "Good. Now we both know I'm not just any other man, so don't insult me just because I don't want to jump your bones the way other men would."

Firing his words without a care, he kept on rolling them out of his lips. "Why do you do this to yourself? Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?" He glared at me. "Do you?"

Well ... uh... He had me there; I had nothing smart to retort back, so I stayed mum while I readied for further moral lecture.

"Stop making yourself cheap. I hate seeing you this way. You're beautiful, Amber. But my words are meaningless unless you believe them yourself."

Jesus. What was this? The Wisdom Brigade? It was probably six in the morning by now, and he chose this of all the times to give me some words of wisdom? f.u.c.king h.e.l.l. Coming back home, I had all sorts of ideas of what would happen once I got there. But this? This wasn't part of the plan.

I was drunk and feeling as though I was the ugliest fool there was for throwing s.e.x into his face then having him let me down by giving me this whole spiel. I was clearly mortified and aggravated, not to mention s.e.xually frustrated, as I roughly detached myself from him.

Why did I have to keep making such idiotic decisions? I silently scolded myself as embarra.s.sment left me.

I plucked my skirt off the floor, but lo and behold, much to my dismay and surprise, Brody took the rest of my clothing: my thong, my bra, and my crop top. My temper was about to skyrocket in a second if he chose this time to play his stupid mind games. This wasn't the time to f.u.c.k with me, most especially when I was naked.

"Give my clothes back," I softly demanded as calmly as I could.

The s.e.x Grinch wasn't paying attention to my demands, however. He completely ignored my question. "Where do you think you're going now?"

"Outside."

"Why? So you can f.u.c.k another man?" he grunted out almost in my face. "How often have you done that, I wonder?"

Oh, he did not just go there!

If he wanted to fight, well f.u.c.k, let's have at it.

"f.u.c.k. You! How dare you throw that in my face!" That was the nastiest insult he had given me to date, and I wasn't going to stand there and let him put bullets through my very thin sc.r.a.p of armor. "Why? How often have you done that, huh? f.u.c.king every girl out there and imagining it was Lindsey you're f.u.c.king!" My eyes grew wide as my hands got animated while I silently recalled all the women who had come and gone in his life. What a double-standard a.s.shole. "How often did you do that to me? Do you even know you called me 'Lindsey' after f.u.c.king me drunk? Do you?"

I was red with anger. If he wanted to let it all out, well, I had more to say. All these years, I had bottled everything in: every insult, each hurt, and the profound rejection I had constantly had to deal with. I was now ready for him to hear them.

He was so dumbfounded by my verbal outburst it took him about a full minute to find his voice again.

"I'm sorry. f.u.c.k, I had no idea."

"Of course you didn't!" He was too blinded by his own s.h.i.t to see my pain. "She's all you've ever wanted, and I know I'm never going to measure up to her. I'm only your second choice." It was a fact, one I had fully accepted, though it had taken years to achieve that. "You're here now because you can't have her," I unabashedly said, baring my heart, my emotions, no holds barred.

His throat bobbed. "That's not true-"

"Isn't it?" I shot back, fuming. I didn't understand why he had to deny the blatant fact. Everyone knew-every single f.u.c.king one-so why was he making me more of a fool by lying to my face? It was such an insult after what he and I had gone through. "I don't appreciate the lies, Brody. We all know who the reason behind your reckless behavior these past months was. Well, guess what? I'm done being the second choice! I'm done with you! I'm done loving you!" I could have dealt with a lot of things, but lying about something that was common knowledge was something I couldn't go through, especially from him.

For a moment, he seemed fl.u.s.tered about my pa.s.sionate declarations. "Please don't say that. We've always had this amazing chemistry. I know it took me forever to get here, but I'm here now." He paused, searching my eyes, my heart, trying to find a sc.r.a.p of who I used to be. "I'm here now ... before you ... ready to take the extra step."

How twisted was this? It had taken him the same years I had used to move on before he could get to this point. There was just so much that had gone on between us that I didn't see how any of this could work out. I had no gas left to keep going, to keep fighting. I was running on fumes, and it was either I save myself or sink to the bottomless hole that was my life these past years. I had to learn how to love myself, and to do so, getting rid of Brody and my toxic love affair with him had to go first. Then I could deal with the rest.

Making a sad smile, my heart broke before I even uttered a word. "It's too late. I don't want you, not like that. Not anymore."

"You don't want me?" he gruffly hissed out. "Are you crazy? You were just seducing me five seconds ago. You wanted to f.u.c.k me, so how can you look me in the eyes and say s.h.i.t like 'you don't want me'?"

"It's just s.e.x." I had to learn how to separate my heart when dealing with him. "I'm drunk and h.o.r.n.y. It's nothing you haven't done before."

His dark eyes turned deadly. "Is that why you're planning to leave? 'Cause you're drunk and h.o.r.n.y, and you want to f.u.c.k the first guy you see?"

Deep down, I knew he was mad, and maybe pushing his b.u.t.tons wasn't the wisest thing to do. However, he had pushed me over the edge, and I had too many pent-up emotions that needed to be unleashed. This argument was far from over.

"What's it to you, huh? I can do whatever I want," I baited him, hoping he would be up for another round of word bashing with me.