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Savannah’s eyes flick between Brody and me for a moment, then she sighs rather audibly. “Fine. But hurry up, Filthy. You have promises to fulfill tonight. ”
I wince internally over her words because Brody seems to stiffen up beside me as we watch her flounce off to join Gabby, Alyssa, Casey, and Hunter.
Taking a sip of Scotch, I watch her thoughtfully. She’s f**king perfect. Perfect for me, that is, and I have to wonder what this means for my future. Just a few days ago, I had high plans to jet back to London when I finished my manuscript. Now I have no clue what to do. I definitely see something with Savannah for the future; I just don’t know what it is. I’m pretty confident it wouldn’t involve marriage, because with marriage comes the expectations of children. Savannah is the type of woman that would want children. Lots and lots of them, but that is something I crossed off my bucket list long ago and will never put back on.
I had my one chance at a child, and I failed miserably. I’m never going through that again, because the pain far outweighed the good. I’m never taking the chance of having to go through that pain again.
“Some deep thoughts brewing in that head of yours,” Brody says, and I turn around to blink at him. I had completely forgotten he was standing there.
“Savannah’s a deep woman,” I say. “She deserves deep thoughts, don’t you think?”
“She deserves the best thoughts,” Brody says, and I don’t miss the ominous tone in his voice.
I take another small sip of Scotch, appraising the man standing before me that Savannah has so much care and respect for. I have to say… the protectiveness in him over my woman both assures me and pisses me off. It’s nice to know Savannah has had someone looking over her, but that’s not needed anymore, so I decide to lay it on the line. “What’s on your mind, mate? Spill it. ”
“I don’t want to see her hurt. Savannah is a special woman; no doubt, you already know that. But she wounds easily. ”
“I have no intentions of wounding her. ”
“What are your intentions, then? You’re here just temporarily, right?”
I turn my head and watch Savannah as she sips at her beer and laughs at something Gabby says. If she laughed with me like that every day, I’d have to seriously consider staying with her forever. Or convincing her to come with me back to England. Regardless, the point being, I don’t think I can give her up.
Turning back to Brody, I tell him honestly. “My original plans were to leave as soon as I finished my manuscript. But I’m thinking that’s easier said than done at this point. ”
Brody seems to like my answer, and I can feel some of the ice melt away. “So what’s the problem? You can write anywhere, right?”
“That I can,” I tell him. “Seems like a simple solution, right?”
He claps me on my back and laughs. “Dude, there’s nothing simple about relationships. If it were easy, everyone would have them. ”
“You make it look easy,” I point out. “You and Alyssa… you’re about as tight as I’ve ever seen two people. ”
Brody’s eyes go soft as he looks at her. “We share a bond that’s hard to explain. ”
Holding up my glass of Scotch, I give it a little shake. “I’ve got a glass of liquor to sip at, so I got the time. ”
With appraising eyes, Brody stares at me. I can see the moment he feels like I’m worthy to hear his story, and it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with anything he knows about me. He’s trusting Savannah’s instinct about me.
Leaning back against the wall, Brody fiddles with the plastic cap on his water bottle. “Did Savannah tell you I was in prison?”
“Yeah… just that it was a drunk driving accident, someone died, and you went away for five years. ”
“That’s part of the story. The other part… the part that only a select few know, and that select few includes Savannah… was that I wasn’t the one driving the car. I foolishly took the fall for my girlfriend because she begged me to… and I paid the price by losing everything that was important to me. I lost my freedom, my medical career, and my family for a time. She took everything from me. ”
My jaw drops as I realize, at this very moment, Brody and I share something in common. We’ve both had loves who had taken something away from us. Granted, it was two very different ways in which we were hurt, but still hurt by women in a profound way all the same.
“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 f**k 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 f**king 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. ”
22
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 an
d 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 h*ps 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 f**king 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?”