Yours to Savor (34 page)

“That’s why I
can’t
sleep in,” she corrected. “At least, not before I met you.” She stood on her toes, the rain sending drops down into her eyes. She blinked them all away and placed a soft kiss on Brandon’s lips. “You did something special, Brandon. I don’t know what, and I don’t know how, but I hope that it lasts forever.”

“Forever?” Brandon repeated, distant. Sandra flinched immediately.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!
She knew the surest way to scare off a man was to make a boneheaded pronouncement like that. She had no idea what had possessed her to say it.
Idiot!

But Brandon surprised her when he tilted his head down and pressed his lips to her forehead. It was such a sweet gesture that it gave Sandra goose bumps.

“Yes,” he murmured as he nuzzled his nose in her hair. “Forever sounds like just the right amount of time.”

Sandra’s mouth dropped open, and her heart filled with unimaginable warmth. Before she could say anything, Brandon let her go and walked back to the salon. As he ducked in, he looked over one shoulder. “You said your sister Chloe died inside the house. You saw her there. But how did
you
get out?”

“Somebody picked me up and carried me out,” Sandra said. “A man. I never found out who. For so long, I hated him for sparing my life instead of my sister’s. But, if he hadn’t,” she smiled, “I wouldn’t have met you.”

Brandon nodded, barely seeming to hear. “We’ll be at Ocean Shores in about forty minutes,” he said as he stared out into the distance. “I’ll be inside till then.”

Sandra could tell his mind was elsewhere.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Brandon stared out at the horizon as he steered
VEGA
toward Ocean Shores. His hands moved of their own accord as his mind wandered. His head felt as if it were stuffed full of straw.

Just one weekend with Sandra, and he suspected he might be falling for her. He knew it was fast, but he recognized the feelings from what Clarisse evoked in him long ago. He had to be cautious. Yet there was something so refreshing about Sandra’s unspoiled innocence, about the way she’d responded to him sexually all weekend. It was like everything they did together was new to her.

It made sense, based on what he knew about her ex. Someone so insipid could not have taken her very far sensually. And before Henry, Sandra would have been a teenager—still a child, really, and unlikely to have been in tune with her own body. It was no wonder the heights he took her to
would be new. When she reached them, she’d been so astoundingly vibrant…

Unrestrained.
That was it. From the first moment he’d met her, Brandon had felt like Sandra was holding herself back. Like she was bound by something, restricting herself because of something in her past. Clarisse’s impression had echoed his own. But in bed, in her radiant afterglow, Sandra was
free
. Brandon wanted to instill that freedom on her
always
.

That was just the physical aspect, of course. While Sandra and Clarisse were two very different people, they both had that same intellect that Brandon found lacking in his usual women. Sandra had depth, character, and substance. In a very short time, she had proved she was exactly what he’d expected

But today’s revelation changed everything.

He could see Sandra now, at the railing below, looking out over the water. He wondered what she was thinking about. Her hair streamed back in the wind, and she shifted slightly, giving him a quick glimpse of her face. That look was enough to cement everything. There was no doubt in his mind anymore. He
knew
why she looked so familiar.

Sandra’s story had put all the pieces in place. Brandon denied the implication at first, but he hadn’t gotten far in life by lying to himself. The truth was vital. Right now, the truth terrified him.

His eyes clouded over as he sank into the dark recollection of a night long past. A night whose memory had been seared into his mind forever. It was the night that changed everything for him: the night he became responsible for a living person’s death.

Music blared all around him, but he was used to it. This wasn’t the first house party he’d crashed.

Brandon stood on the sidelines, observing everyone else having a good time. There must have been at least a hundred people crammed into the tight space, maybe more. He could understand how it might be intimidating if you weren’t used to it.

With so many bodies in one place, and the alcohol flowing, the crowd was boisterous. He looked out over the heads, watching people move in what little space they could carve out for themselves. He saw girls dancing with guys, guys grabbing girls, couples making out along the walls… Everybody crowded the closely packed dance floor. A roar went up from the middle as some guy chugged a six-pack of beers through a funnel.

Brandon stood taller, trying to reach a stream of cool air. The heat from all the bodies bothered him more than anything right now. It’d be no problem if he were part of the swarm, as he was most nights—but tonight, he was here on business.

Today was the day Brandon moved past small time dealing. Anybody with half a brain could make a few extra bucks selling pot on the weekends. And while Brandon had made quite a bit more than that over the last two years, it was time to move to more lucrative merchandise
.
He was seventeen, and living with his grandparents after leaving his real family behind. He knew time was running short before he graduated high school, and he had to find out
now
if he had what it took to get to the big leagues. That was where the real payoff lay.
It took skill and savvy to move up to that, but Brandon thought himself capable enough to succeed. He’d made enough money to pay for college, but he still needed
more
. He’d left his family behind, but he hadn’t forgotten them, and he knew how tight money was for his brothers and sisters. If he could just free them from those shackles…

Sweat trickled down his neck, and Brandon knew if he didn’t get a breath of fresh air soon, it would turn into a flood. The sweltering air made staying calm, collected, and sober all the more difficult. But he knew how vital having a cool head was. He had to be completely lucid to make smart business decisions. And so, hard as it was, he stayed on the sidelines, knowing he couldn’t engage with people as he regularly would—because he had to appear available for anyone looking for him.

But he couldn’t look like he was brooding or distant, either. He had to tread a delicate middle ground.

He turned his head and looked back out over the party. Flashing colors pulsed from the haphazard strobe lights arranged around the room, painfully out of sync with the song. But hell, what else would you expect from an amateur house party? Brandon knew if he had a nice buzz going, and dancing girls crowding all around him, the beat of the lights would be the least of his worries.

He looked around the room. On the far side, an open set of stairs led up to the second floor. Beside it, a heavy door marked the entrance to the basement. Both were guarded by a guy covered in tattoos, long, dark hair streaming to his waist. He had a skinny, intimidating biker look. He must have been at least ten years older than most of the people here.

Upstairs was where the real party was happening. Brandon knew, because that’s where he’d been at the start of the night. The owner of the house kept a low profile, but he and his friends brought the girls they picked out from the crowd on the first floor.

It was also where Brandon had met his first real distributor.

The basement of the house reflected the owner’s real business. Brandon hadn’t been allowed down there, but he suspected it was some kind of lab. This was a fairly affluent neighborhood. The perfect place to hide something like that.

“Hey.” Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Brandon turned around to find a pretty brunette, about his age, looking up at him together with a dark-haired friend. He thought he recognized the first girl from his school’s hallways, but didn’t know her name. “Hey, you’re Brandon, right?”

He gave her his most winning smile. “That’s right.”

“Brandon Galliani?”

He leaned one arm against the wall, doing his best to look casual, unimpressed. “Right again.”

The girl’s eyes widened. She grabbed her friend, and whispered something furiously in her ear. Her friend whispered back, shaking her head and trying to tug the brunette away, but she stood firm. “We heard you know of a… source,” she said, pulling away from her friend.

“I might.” Brandon beckoned them to step back to a quieter area. “Depends on who’s asking.”

“I am,” the girl announced. “And my friend.”

“And you’re looking for a source for who?”

“For us.”

Brandon nodded. “Alright. Do you know what you want?”

The brunette glanced at her friend and giggled, eyes eager. “We want to
party
!”

Brandon changed his mind. The girl wasn’t his age. She was younger. “I can help with that. What do you have in mind?”

“Um. Here.” She dug into her pocket, and handed him two crumpled twenties and a ten. “That’s fifty bucks. It should be enough, right?”

“Again, it depends on what.” Brandon frowned. “It’s for the two of you?”

The dark-haired girl started to shake her head, but the brunette overrode her. “Yeah. Exactly. So, can you hook us up, or what?”

“Well, I have this.” Brandon reached into his jeans pocket and took out a little bag of weed. “Fifty bucks is enough for the whole thing. It’ll last you a week if you toke every day. But, if you want to try something
really
cool…” Brandon took out a small, clear plastic box that used to house a signet ring. He motioned for the girl to come closer, and brought it up to her face so she could look inside. A white rock, about the size of a pencil eraser, lay on the bottom plastic.

“What is that?”

Brandon smiled. “That’s the good stuff. Cola.”

If he thought the girl’s eyes went wide before, he had been mistaken. Now, they opened up to twice their size. “Cocaine…” she breathed reverently. With an excited squeal, she turned back to confer with her friend. Brandon stayed back and let them talk. The way the brunette responded, he knew he had this sale in the bag. All he had to do was not fuck it up.

The dark-haired girl seemed even more aghast at the prospect of buying coke. Some type of argument erupted between the girls. The raven-haired friend kept shaking her head. Her gestures became wilder and wilder. But Brandon wasn’t worried. He saw the way the brunette’s eyes had lit up when he showed her the small rock. He had her hook, line, and sinker.

Her friend, however, was a different story. In the end, she threw up her hands, spared an evil glance at Brandon, and stormed off.

The brunette turned back to him, then, an apologetic smile playing on her lips. She ran a hand through her hair, straightening it. “Sorry you had to see that.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Of course.” The girl shrugged. “Melissa will come around. She always does.”

“So, have you decided, then?”

“Yeah.” She spared a dismissive glance at the bit of marijuana in Brandon’s hand. “I don’t want that kiddy shit. I want the grown up stuff.”