Sugar on the Edge (27 page)

“I was pretty broken when I came out of prison,” Brody says as he continues his story. “Had given up on life… on people… on my family. I was existing in a world I didn’t know.”

His words are like a sucker punch to my throat, because I know exactly what he means. I know exactly how that feels. I open my mouth to talk, but my throat catches because of the rawness sitting there. I clear it and say, “How did you survive it?”

Brody turns from me and nods his head toward Alyssa. “I survived it for her. Because of her. All her.”

As I sip at my Scotch, Brody tells me how he had kept it a secret from everyone that he had not been the one driving. He told me that Alyssa came into the secret by mistake, by overhearing a conversation between Brody and his ex-girlfriend. How she kept his secret, and all the while shared his hurt and pain. How every time he was with her, talked to her, touched her… it became more and more bearable, until finally… he just couldn’t remember the darkness anymore.

He didn’t say it in quite those flowery words, and hey… I’m a writer so I tend to expound, but that was the gist of what he was telling me. By the time his story is over, I’m staring hard at Savannah because she’s offering me the very same path to salvation that Alyssa offered Brody.

This is not news to me. I figured that much out all on my own last night. But the moral of the story is the same… that not all women are created equal. That as humans, we can have untold suffering and still persevere and, above all else, there can be a full life after heartbreaking misery.

I suspected as much, but at least Brody is living proof that it is so.

Savannah and I end up staying at Last Call for the rest of the night rather than leaving to get our fill of each other. At this point, after listening to Brody, I’m pretty sure I’m not going anywhere after this manuscript is finished. I’ll have days and nights and more days and nights with Savannah, so the next few hours aren’t going to break me if I have to just watch her having fun with her friends from afar.

When we leave, Savannah is blitzed, and I’m thankful I limited myself to just three drinks the entire night, the last one having been drunk almost an hour and a half before we left. I’m completely fine to drive.

Where I run into trouble is when Savannah—who is a little too inebriated—decides to knock off an item from my sex wish list. She tries her damnedest to get me to pull the car over on the side of the road, so she can fuck me in my car.

I groan at the thought and groan more when Savannah leans over in the seat and palms my raging hard-on. She even leans over and kisses me through my jeans.

“Get back over in your seat, Savannah,” I tell her gently. “I don’t want you slipping out of your seatbelt like that.”

“Then pull the damn car over, Filthy, and prove to me why you earned that nickname.”

Chuckling, I grab her hand and bring it to my mouth, giving her a soft kiss on the tips of her fingers. “Oh, Sweet… you are absolutely perfect for me.”

She giggles as she turns to look at me. I give her a brief glance. Even though her blood is swimming with alcohol, her gaze is serious and intent. “I’m so fucking perfect for you, Filthy. We were made for each other.”

I can’t hold her gaze for long because it belongs on the road, but I murmur in agreement. “I think you’re right, love.”

I’m overwhelmed. Positively overwhelmed by Gavin’s fame. I had no clue.

We arrived in Chicago yesterday afternoon, where we promptly checked into the hotel. Then Gavin stripped me bare and made me come three times to his one. We showered, got dressed, and went out for some Chicago-style pizza. I loved it. He hated the doughy mess, proclaiming that New York-style was the only way to go.

I laughed at him then, and I laughed repetitively with him as we walked the streets of The Windy City, finally ducking into a small bar because it was practically Antarctic weather outside. We sat in a small booth in the corner, and I drank wine while he drank Scotch. We held hands, talked, laughed, and laughed some more. When it was midnight, he bundled me back in my winter coat, which I had to buy for this trip because I didn’t own one, and we walked back the five blocks to our hotel.

Back in the room, I let the two glasses of wine impassion my desires for this beautiful man. I pushed him down on the bed, unbuttoned his jeans, and stroked him with my soft hands. Then I put my mouth on him, and I licked, kissed, sucked, and licked and sucked, while his hands fisted my hair and his hips kept pushing up from the bed. His moans fueled me on, and I devoured him down without giving him any mercy.

“Christ, Sweet,” he panted when I was done. I crawled back up to lay beside him on the bed with a satisfied smile on my face.

“You give amazing fucking head,” he murmured while gathering me in close.

I smiled, completely happy with my life in that very moment.

I got even happier when Gavin tore my clothes off and extended the favor back to me.

The next day is when I got slapped in the face with Gavin’s success. His agent, Lindie Booth, met us in the hotel restaurant for breakfast. She was a no-nonsense type of woman… tall, regal, with jet-black hair and even blacker eyes. I guessed her age to be about fifty. When Gavin introduced me with an arm around my shoulder, she briskly shook my hand and said, “Pleasure.”

Then I was forgotten, and it was down to business.

As I ate my egg-white omelet, Lindie went over Gavin’s afternoon schedule, which included an appearance on a popular, national TV talk show, his signing at a major book retailer, and a party being thrown by his publisher for several of its more successful authors.

“Savannah… you should go out and see the city today,” Lindie had said as she looked across the table at me. “Gavin will be extremely busy, and we can send a limo to pick you up at the hotel for the party.”

“Savannah’s staying with me,” Gavin said before I could even open my mouth to respond. “She’s my assistant.”

“But… I have an assistant for you for the book signing, and I’ll be with you at the talk show,” Lindie said in disbelief.

“And yet, Savannah will still be there with me for both,” Gavin said smoothly, and took a sip of tea that he had ordered rather than his customary black coffee.

Lindie huffed and said, “Fine,” in a voice that didn’t sound all that fine, but then she moved on and prattled about various other engagements he had to attend in the next several months.

When Gavin walked on stage at the talk show and the audience went nuts over him, that’s when I started to get overwhelmed by his fame. The women were standing and screaming for him, many holding up a copy of
Killing the Tides
in their hands. I stood just off stage behind a partial wall so I could see Gavin, the talk show host, and about half the audience.

I was so proud with how he handled himself, addressing questions from the host and the audience. He cheekily talked about the erotic scenes, giving away no clear details of what drove his passion for writing them, but hinting thoroughly that they were extremely hot, and this I can attest to. Reading Gavin’s book made me squirm more than once.

I almost couldn’t breathe when one of the audience members asked Gavin if he was in a relationship with anyone.

He never missed a beat. “Absolutely.”

I about died when the talk show host asked, “And is that where you get all of those hot sex scenes you write about?”

I was mortified, but strangely pleased, when he gave a cocky grin and said, “There are no words I could write that would ever do justice to what we do behind closed doors.”

Mortified… pleased, and yes… I preened.

Lindie, who was standing beside me, just snickered.

The book signing was an entirely different matter. Whereas at the talk show, he was separated from the fans by a huge production stage, at the book signing, they were right up in his face. Now, granted, most of the people that came to have him sign their books were quite lovely. They were starstruck for sure, often clutching their hands to their chests with breathless excitement, or squealing over his inscription in their books. But a few… not-so-lovely ladies wanted pictures, and they pressed in unconscionably close to him. As his “assistant,” I had to take picture after picture of young, hot women putting their hands on my man and making outright lewd suggestions to him.

One woman, who was dressed in a slinky, black dress that hit mid-thigh with high-heeled, black leather boots and a cloud of curled hair around her painted face, actually handed Gavin her phone number.

“Call me when you get through with this signing, Gavin,” she said as she looked him direct in the eye. “I’ll show you Chicago like you’ve never seen it.”

To give Gavin credit, he handed the phone number to me and told the woman with a charming smile, “Now that’s an exciting offer, love, but unfortunately, I have plans tonight.”

My head snapped toward him even as I crumpled the paper in my hand. The woman never gave me a glance.

Unfortunately? Did he just say unfortunately?

I glared at him even as the woman was not about to give up. “Next trip then?”

“Sorry, love. I’ll have plans then as well.”

I waited for the woman to move out of line so the next hundred people standing there could get their turn, but apparently, there wasn’t much going on upstairs underneath all of that curly, dark hair. She leaned over the table, which effectively spilled half her boobs out of her dress. “You do understand what I mean when I say I’d show you Chicago like you’ve never seen it before?”

Gavin… that scoundrel, tilted his head back and laughed. He looked the woman in the eye and said, “I do, indeed, understand you. But this lovely lady sitting next to me,” and here he paused to put his arm around my shoulder, “would have something to say about it. You see, she’s the one that all my plans revolve around, and I’m quite positive she would not want me seeing Chicago with you.”

My face had flamed beet red over his proclamation, and I couldn’t even take joy in the way the woman huffed and then slunk away from the public humiliation Gavin just handed down to her.

He leaned over to me and whispered, “You’re beyond cute when you’re jealous.”

I nudged him in the arm and hissed, “I wasn’t jealous.”

“Sweet… it was rolling off you in vibes. So fucking cute.”

I held my tongue because the next fan in line walked up and had a semi-legitimate conversation with Gavin about his book, and my blood pressure started to ease.

“You are stunning tonight,” Gavin says as he holds me close and we sway to Norah Jones’
Come Away with Me
.