Broken Promises (Burning Mistakes Book 1) Read online

  “What if I can’t be the man she needs me to be?”

  “I should kick your ass,” he replies, shaking his head.

  I wait for him to indulge me with another response, something along the lines of ‘no one will ever be good enough for her, but you’ll do’, but he doesn’t. He pulls a bouquet of white and dark purple lilies out of nowhere and extends them to me. They’re Aubrey’s favorite, and as I’m about to reach out to grab them, he flashes me a crooked smirk.

  I retreat, picking up the little box instead.

  “Come on, Lambert,” he chortles. “You aren’t going to show up on your date without flowers. As your friend, I just can’t let you do that.”

  “And as your future brother-in-law?” I grunt, distrustful of his sudden extreme generosity.

  Vince snickers. “Take the flowers and get out. Your lunch break ends in fifty-five minutes.”

  “Who put you in charge?”

  “No one, I’m just fucking hungry and you need to cover for me when I go grab a pizza from Cosmo’s.”

  “Damn, pizza would be really good, right about now.”

  He forces me out the back door, but the second I step out, my feet cement to the pavement. Aubrey is sitting on the edge of the fire station’s backyard lawn dressed in a simple black sundress, watching the sunset. Her fingers are absentmindedly threading through the brown heads of the green reeds, and she’s smiling at whatever is going on in her creative mind.

  She’s so fucking beautiful…

  “You love her, Micah,” Vince whispers behind me. I turn around and see his reassuring smile. “You’re already giving her everything she needs.”

  Well shit. I definitely wasn’t expecting that.

  At the sound of my boots hitting the pathway, Aubrey’s attention shifts away from the tall grass. Her teal eyes lock with mine, and giving herself a light push, she leaps to her feet and crashes her small body into mine. She wraps her arms around my neck and without saying a word, her lips greet me, kissing me like we haven’t seen each other in days.

  Deep moans escape the back of my throat and she pulls back slightly. “Keep kissing me like that and I might have to keep you forever, Lambert.”

  I snicker. That’s definitely the plan, Bankes.

  I place her delicate frame back on the grass, and her eyes dart to the bouquet of lilies I have hidden behind my back. “I can’t keep anything from you, can I?”

  Her head falls to the side as she waits for me to give her the flowers. “Well, in my defense, you aren’t hiding them very well.”

  I grin and leave a peck on the tip of her nose. “Sorry about our disappointing date night.”

  “Quit it, Micah. You know I’m not the flower, fancy restaurant, expensive wine, kind of girl. As long as I’m with you, this” —she waves her hand in the air— “is all I need.

  “So no lilies next time then?” I tease.

  “Oh no,” she replies, grinning. “You can definitely get me the lilies as often as you like.”

  Her grin grows wider when she pulls out a small black envelope hidden under the darkest petals of her bouquet, and a sudden uneasiness stirs inside me. I glance over my shoulder. Vince shows no innocence. He simply winks at me.

  “What’s this?”

  I want to snag it out of her hands. I almost do, but stop myself because the second I reach out she’ll know I’m acting abnormally suspicious.

  “Asshole,” I mouth to her brother.

  He pops a brow, pretending to be vexed by my reaction, and for a second, I think I might be wrong. Maybe he knows how nervous I am right now, and wouldn’t pull something cruel on me.

  The second I hear Aubrey giggling, I know I’m wrong. So. Fucking. Wrong.

  “What?”

  She hands me the note when she’s done laughing at my ass.

  Don’t you dare suck his dick for this. The flowers are from me.

  Love ya, Sis.

  Vince xx

  “Hey, Lambert?” Vincent calls out from the backdoor. I turn around and spot my jackass of a best friend leaning on the gray metal door, grinning like he just won the goddamn lottery. “You owe me eighty-five bucks.”

  I flip him off, laughing, and right before he disappears, I spot him giving me a thumb’s up.

  “So?” I ask as we make our way toward the plaid blanket she laid out on the grass. “What did you bring us? I’m starving.”

  She pulls out a box of pizza from Cosmo’s and opens the lid: half pepperoni and olives for her, half pepperoni for me.

  I have, hands down, the best girlfriend in the universe.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Aubrey

  Present

  “So, I’ve been thinking,” Micah coughs, breaking the comfortable silence.

  I have no idea how long my head has been resting on him, he lost me the moment he started to thread his gifted fingers through my hair. What I do know is we’ve been outside for a long time because the sun set a long time ago, and the sky has gone completely dark. So dark in fact, we can barely see the stars. To be honest, I’m baffled that none of Micah’s co-workers have come out to warn us he was taking more than his hourly lunch-break; especially my brother.

  “How about we go see your parents this weekend?”

  My head shoots up from off his lap and I frown at him. “What? Why—no!”

  “Why not?” he responds, chortling at my mortified outburst. “I have the whole weekend off.”

  “Exactly. Why would I want to waste our entire weekend alone and spend it with my parents?”

  “Paying them a visit could be fun, Aubrey.”

  “Really? Fun for whom? You?” I pout. “Forget it, Lambert. It’s not gonna happen. Last time we went to my parents together, you spent the entire day working on your Ducati with my dad, and I got stuck making donuts with my mom. Besides, didn’t you just go there four days ago?”

  “Those donuts were delicious and that was more than a week and a half ago. What do you want me to say, Aub? Your father needed help with something, I wasn’t going to say no.”

  It’s the same vague answer he’d given me the day he told me he needed to go see him. He wouldn’t tell me why he wanted to go alone and when I questioned my brother about it, Vince insisted he had no clue what I was talking about. Truth be told, even though I was curious to know why he went, I like the fact that my boyfriend and my father enjoy spending time together.

  Unlike Vince and me, Micah comes from a broken family. He doesn’t have any siblings, his mother left when he was a teen and his dad is a mean drunk. Ethan, the owner of The Devil’s Gate, took care of him when no one would. He cares for Micah the way his parents never have and raised him as his own.

  Micah never talks about his parents, and the few things do I know is because my twin told me.

  I’ve never seen a picture, he’s never shared a name. Micah keeps his past locked up with the rest of his unspoken wounds, and would rather die hiding his pain than sharing it with the people who love him.

  But the truth is, I know. He might have never said anything, but I know. I’ve traced the white marks on his skin with my fingers and kissed the scars his asshole of a father inflicted with my lips. I’ve silently cried the pain he’s been through, and if there ever comes a day where he and his father and I cross paths, my face will be the last thing he will see before I put a bullet in his skull.

  It’s a promise I intend to keep.

  “Hey.” He caresses my cheek with his thumb, bringing me out of my dark thoughts. His lopsided grin makes my heart skip. “Aub, I promise when we go this weekend, I won’t even set foot inside the garage.”

  Liar, liar.

  I throw my leg over his hard muscled body to straddle him and tsk. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Micah Lambert. I know you. The both of you. He’ll find a way to lure you in with another one of his fancy tools, and then you’ll be a goner for the rest of the day.”

  “It was one time,” he argues poorly. He’s talking about
the time he had bike trouble, I’m talking about all our other visits to my parents’ house.

  “One time?” I pop a brow and when he releases a boyish laugh, his head falls back. “It’s the same thing every single time we go. And if Vince is there, we don’t see any of you all evening.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t you dare deny it, Lambert.”

  “But we’re talking about a Barracuda, babe.”

  Ah, yes, my father’s latest project… a real pain in the ass if you ask me. But I have to admit the ’67 Cuda will be pretty fucking wicked once it’s done.

  “It has a 426 cubic inch Hemi V8 engine with 700 + horsepower and a 727 Torqueflite—”

  “Micah?” I murmur, running my fingers across the rough stubble of his jaw. I can’t help wishing we were somewhere else, somewhere he would let his delectable mouth trail on every inch of my body, somewhere I would let my tongue skim along his chiseled abs and make him moan my name.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you know what a car can’t do?” My adventurous hands crawl underneath his shirt. Goosebumps emerge on his skin as my fingers explore and caress the lines defining the carved muscles of his abs.

  He mumbles something completely incomprehensible.

  That’s what I thought. I place my arms on each side of his head and lean in, offering Micah a full uncovered view of my cleavage. His eyes darken to my favorite smoldering gray. “And you know, I can most definitely think of another way we can spend our weekend. And hint, hint: my plans will involve you stripping me from my clothes.”

  His fingers dig into my thighs, and he pushes me down, forcing my hips to grind against his growing erection. The rough material of his jeans rubs against the thin lace of my underwear and I can barely contain the needy whimper escaping the back of my throat.

  “Aub?”

  “Mmm?” I reply, trailing my lips down his neck. I glide down his chest and stomach until I reach the top of his jeans. My tongue skims his sensitive skin, and a sharp hiss blows out of him.

  “Aub.” I ignore the warning in his tone.

  “Do you know what I really want to do this weekend, Micah?” I unfasten his top button and lick again.

  His hips jerk. “Shit—fuck—No?”

  “You’re going to take me to the busiest parking lot in Saratoga, and I’m going to ride you on the front seat of your Chevy.”

  “Fuck, you’re evil.” His throat vibrates.

  When I look up, meeting his hungry eyes, my grin grows devilish. “I’m guessing this means I won this conversation?”

  His head tilts back towards the sky, and a combined groan and exhale escapes the back of his throat. “Nope.”

  Wait––what?

  “You’re adorable when you pout.” He pulls my face up, and tenderly caresses my lips with his. “But I’m not joking. I promised your dad that we’d go, so we’re going. But, I do have a suggestion.”

  I huff. “And what could that suggestion possibly be?”

  “Well.” He raises a hopeful brow. “How about we do both?”

  “Or,” I counter, wrapping my arms around his neck. “We skip the visit, tell my parents I’m sick, and I self-medicate with your body inside mine.”

  He growls. “You’re fucking killing me tonight, Aubrey. You know that, right?”

  “That’s ’cause you know how to make me feel good, Lambert.”

  “And that has got to be the cheesiest and scariest shit that’s ever come out of your mouth, Bankes.” He chortles. “And might I add; not sexy at all.”

  I shrug with a crooked grin. “It was worth a shot.”

  His lips skim up my jaw, and the warmth of his breath against my skin causes another wave of shivers to run down my spine. “Trust me, Aubrey, I would love nothing more than to spend an entire weekend buried in between your thighs, but I promised your father I’d take you home, so I’m taking you home. He told me he wanted to hear your answer in person, so I have no choice.”

  My eyebrows knit together and I pull back confused. “My answer to what?”

  He sits up from off the ground and seats me in between his parted legs so that I’m facing him.

  I study his silence, waiting for him to say something. The longer I wait, the more nervous he gets. The more nervous he gets, the more anxious I feel. His quietness is driving me crazy. I reach out for his face and tenderly stroke his cheek. “Micah?”

  He grabs the sweatshirt he had rumpled up and placed on the corner of the blanket earlier when we sat down and places it on his lap. The fact that he can’t look at me makes me nervous, and I want to say something, but all words, even sounds, seem to be stuck in my throat. The expression of pain, want, and fear on my boyfriend’s face feels all too familiar. It’s creating an ache I can’t stomach.

  Tears fill my eyes and I’m thankful when the tall reeds beside us start swinging ferociously with the wind because it gives me something else to focus on.

  Two Years Ago

  “FUUUUCCKKK!” Micah shouts while I do another victory dance.

  It took me a while, but I finally decided I was done living away from my friends and family. New York City was great while it lasted, but this small-town girl was living a life she didn’t belong in. I’ve been back for eight months now, and I feel like things are finally falling where they’re meant to.

  I applied at SCC after my semester last spring, and was accepted to their teaching program. Most of the time when I’m not working or in school, I’m at Vince’s apartment which to my delight is also where Micah lives. At the beginning, my brother’s best friend and I were at each other’s throats, arguing and bickering about anything and everything. Vince would either ignore us or roll his eyes when we got into another one of our disagreements, but as months passed by, things changed. My feelings for Micah morphed from attraction to something more than friendship and by the looks of it, my twin has caught on because he’s been spending a lot more time at Leah’s lately.

  The thing is I couldn’t have stopped it if I tried. Micah likes to push each and every one of my buttons. He’s infuriatingly cocky, and as much as I hate to admit it, I really like it when he gets me riled up. He has this smirk on his face that gets me hot and bothered every damn time. The guy is smart. Book smart, street smart… he makes winning an argument downright impossible, but he’s also caring, loyal to a fault, funny, and I’ve never been around someone as protective as him.

  I close my eyes and groan. I’m in love with my brother’s best friend again, and every time I feel like the feelings are mutual, every time we get close, he pulls away.

  I hate it. But most of all, I hate the way it makes me feel when he does.

  “Dammit,” he grumbles, throwing his remote. I can’t stop laughing. “That’s like the third time tonight. How the fuck do you do it?”

  Pros of having a twin brother? When we were teenagers, his friends would always hang out at the house and play video games. I’m a quick learner. They showed me all the tricks until they got tired of getting their ass kicked. My specialty, however, is Call of Duty. I’m downright unbeatable.

  I shrug, swallowing a mouthful of my beer. “I don’t know, I guess I’m just very lucky.” It’s a lie. I always do the same thing, press on a combination of controls at the exact moment he thinks he’s winning, pop out of nowhere and blow up his ass.

  A knowing grin tugs at the corner of his lips when he grabs his Corona from off the table. “Like I’m going to believe your giggling ass.”

  “Hey, don’t hate the player, Lambert, hate the game.”

  “Oh, I don’t hate the player,” he mumbles against his bottle. “And I definitely love the game.”

  My brows pinch at his comment. He’s been saying things like this ever since I walked in, and I’m not going to lie, it’s getting really hard not to read into his words. It’s like everything has an underlying meaning tonight.

  Like he can read my mind, Micah flashes me a sexy smirk, and places his drink back on the table. “I
want a rematch, Firefly.”

  “Fine. But after this one, I really need to get back to my place and study.”

  He hands me my remote. “Next time you should just bring your shit here so I can help you.”

  Yes, because studying with you would not be dickstracting at all…

  Fifteen minutes into the game, and my ass is getting kicked like it’s never been kicked before. Every so often, Micah’s eyes flicker my way, he either throws me a teasing comment or shoves me to the side with his shoulder, making it impossible for me to concentrate. My mind keeps wandering, focusing on everything but the game.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  His lips curl into another one of his smiles that looks more like a smirk but makes my heart do flip-flops every damn time. “You can ask me anything.”

  “Why do you call me Firefly?”

  He pauses the game. From the corner of my eye, I see his face contort a dozen different ways and the emotions that stand out the most are a combination of pain and tenderness.

  “Because I like fireflies.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” He places his feet on the table in front of us and stretches back on the couch cushion. “That’s kind of like asking someone why they like sex.”

  “What?” I laugh. “That makes no sense. Sex is—”

  “Fun? Enlightening? Euphoric? Magical? Healthy?”

  I snort.

  “What?”

  “Well, I’m not gonna lie, I’m kind of feeling sorry for you right now.”

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

  “Because you just described sex as magical and healthy. I mean… who the hell have you been fucking if your first thought about an orgasm is that it’s healthy?”

  “First off, my first thought was fun. Second, I’m not fucking anyone right now and third, if you think you can do better, then go ahead, wiseass, I’m all ears.”

  “Not having sex, huh?” Of course, his admission doesn’t go unnoticed. Sue me.