Sugar on the Edge (33 page)

“Filthy boy,” I say gently. “My heart is sure. My body is sure. Don’t be mad that I’m nervous. It’s not that I doubt you, but I doubt my friends and that they won’t see clearly. I just desperately want them to see the same thing that we see. I want the validation that what I’m thinking is the best thing to have ever happened to me isn’t a figment of my imagination.”

Letting out a deep breath, Gavin murmurs to me, “I’m sorry. You’re the best thing to have happened to me too, and I don’t want you to ever doubt my feelings on that.”

“I don’t. I couldn’t. You’ve shown me otherwise, too many times and in too many ways.”

We’ve been back from St. Lucia for just over a week, and I’m still riding on the high of the time I spent alone with Gavin. We had no worries, no obligations, only each other. The things he did to me… the words he spoke. It piled up, all on top of the other, until I was smothered in a blanket of care and devotion. I left St. Lucia knowing that I had found my other half, and I want to shout it out to the world.

I’m just terrified the world is going to shout back at me,
Sucker!

The front doorbell rings, and I pull back to look up at Gavin. He takes my face in his hands, and peers down at me with searing intensity. “Just remember this, and this is the only thing you need to take away from this conversation. After tonight is over, and all your friends unanimously give their blessing on our relationship, I’m going to fuck you so hard that you’re going to pass out from the pleasure. In fact, I’m thinking there might be some rope involved. You tied to the bed… legs raised high… my mouth on your pussy, until you come over and over and over again. I can’t fucking wait.”

My eyes practically roll into the back my head, and my panties go damp at the thought. Gavin did that on purpose… gave me a dose of my Filthy so my worries would go out the window. So I’d have something to look forward to, and so I wouldn’t forget that while the words between us seem to abound, we also have amazing combustion in the sack, which is further testament to the “rightness” of what we have.

“Oh, Filthy.” I sigh heavily. “You always know what to say to get my knickers wet.”

“Knickers?”

“Yeah… I’ve heard you say that a time or two.”

“I know… but it sounds weird coming from a Yank.”

I grin at him, he beams at me, and all of our doubts and misgivings are forgotten. He gives me a quick kiss and then pushes me toward the door to greet out guests.

“Girl… you don’t waste any time, do you?” Casey says to me with a wink as she leans her elbows on the kitchen counter and smirks at me. “From employee to live-in lover in a month’s time. Nice.”

“Leave her alone,” Gabby snaps as she dips a piece of celery into the buffalo chicken dip. She takes a bite, groans, and looks at me with praise in her eyes. “Oh my God, Savannah. This is so good. I have to have this recipe.”

“Yeah, leave our sweet Savannah alone, Case,” Alyssa says in agreement.

“What?” Casey says with her arms outstretched in mock surprise. “I’m just saying… our girl hasn’t looked at a man twice since we’ve known her and now she’s shacked up with a wealthy, famous author, who is smokin’ hot by the way. Well done. My point is… I’m totally fucking jealous of her.”

We all laugh, lift our glasses, and clink them together. Sliding my eyes over to the living room, I see all the guys standing around talking with plates of foot in their hands and one eye on the hockey game that Gavin put on when Hunter requested it. As if he can sense me staring, Gavin turns his head to me and his eyes are tender. He gives me a private smile and turns back to something Brody is saying.

“Well… I think it’s wonderful,” Alyssa says. “From the time of my first kiss with Brody to the time we started shacking up with each other was only a few weeks.”

Gabby nods her head. “The heart knows what the heart wants.”

“Wait? We’re talking hearts here?” Casey asks in bewilderment. “I just thought this was sex. If hearts are involved, I am so not jealous.”

Laughing at Casey, I throw a grape at her head and miss. “You’re so jaded, Casey. One day, love is going to hit you so hard that I’m going to just snicker at you while you stumble around all drunk from it.”

Leaning in closer, Gabby whispers, “So… is it love then?”

The other girls all lean in to hear my answer. A quick glance at Gavin and my heart starts to pound… as if it’s calling out to his. Turning to face the girls, I whisper back. “It is for me. I just haven’t said it out loud yet.”

“What about him?” Alyssa asks, voice hushed.

“I don’t know… I think so. I mean, we’ve opened up a lot with each other about our feelings, but we just haven’t come out and formally said we love each other.”

Alyssa snickers. “There’s nothing formal about love, Savannah. It’s hot, messy, and totally disjointed. My guess is you’ll say it at exactly the right moment, without any planning.”

“And if he doesn’t say it back?” I ask fearfully, because all along, I’ve thought that Amanda must have surely killed Gavin’s ability to love another woman again.

“You determine how important those words are and decide what to do from there. Love is about so much more than just words.”

“Okay,” Casey exclaims as she refills her wineglass. “This conversation is turning far too morose. I say we discuss something else… like… how is the sex, Savannah? I mean… look at Gavin. You just know that man knows his way around a woman’s body.”

All four of our heads swivel to Gavin and thankfully, he doesn’t notice.

“Am I right?” Casey asks and three heads turn to look back at her while she levels her gaze at me.

Leaning inward to whisper again, I say, “You don’t even know the half of it.”

“Tell me at least a quarter of it then,” Gabby says excitedly.

Grinning, I say, “Oh girls… the things he does with his hands and mouth alone are worth dying for.”

Alyssa rests her cheek in her hand and sighs. “Brody’s good with his mouth too. I love that. Don’t you love that?”

“Hunter too,” Gabby says. “It must be a Markham twin thing.”

We all giggle and sip at our wine.

“No fair,” Casey grumbles. “I haven’t gotten any good oral in ages.”

“That’s because you haven’t found the right guy, Casey. A guy that is really in to you is going to worship you with his mouth,” Alyssa points out.

“Yeah, but that implies a relationship,” Casey states firmly. “And as you old, monogamous women know, Casey Markham doesn’t do relationships.”

“Then you can forget the mind-blowing oral sex,” I tell her before popping a few grapes in my mouth.

“Well, let me live vicariously through you at least,” Casey says. “Tell me what he does with his mouth.”

It’s been all fun and games talking with innuendo, but I’m not about to share the intimate details of what Gavin does to me. That’s for me alone. But I do give her this. “Let’s just say my nickname for him is ‘Filthy’.”

Casey gasps. Alyssa sighs. Gabby says, “No way.”

“Yes, way,” I say with a grin, proud of myself that I shared something shocking with my home girls.

“Hey Filthy,” Casey calls out into the living room, and all four men turn around to look at her.

I slump down to the counter, my face flashing neon scarlet. Gabby and Alyssa giggle. A slow, sexy smile comes to Gavin’s face, and he starts to walk into the kitchen.

“What is it, love?” he asks as he looks at Casey with curiosity. His eyes flick to mine, and he takes in the droop to my shoulders and the pain of embarrassment on my face.

“I’m just wondering,” Casey says without preamble. “What exactly did you do to our sweet Savannah to make her give you your nickname?”

Gavin gives Casey a knowing smile and steps around the counter behind me. His arms slip around my waist, and he pulls me up straight from my hunched position. His face goes down and nuzzles at my neck for a moment, before looking back up to Casey.

“Now, Casey-love, I wouldn’t invite you into our bedroom, just as sure as you wouldn’t invite me into yours. But let me just say… my brand of filth compliments Savannah’s sweet very well. It’s a match made in heaven, I’m thinking.”

“Good one,” Casey says as she nods her head up and down.

Gabby and Alyssa sigh again.

Turning me in his arms, Gavin leans down, gives me a soft kiss, and then says, “Now, Sweet… stop telling the girls all of our sexy secrets or there will be no ropes for you tonight.”

He turns around to leave, and I’m left with three women staring at me with mouths agape.

“Did he say ropes?” Alyssa asks, astonished.

“That’s so hot,” Casey mutters.

“We’re so stopping at the store on the way home for some rope,” Alyssa says.

And we all bust out laughing.

Speaking of ropes, my legs are half asleep because of the soft, nylon rope stretched under the back of my knees and tied to the posts of the headboard behind me. Gavin had pulled them firmly before knotting them, causing my legs to spread wide and raise half my ass off the bed.

His face has been in between my legs for the last thirty minutes, and I’ve lost count of the major and minor orgasms I’ve had. He gently licks at me now, murmuring words against my wet flesh that I can’t understand, but I am beyond all reasoning or care of understanding.

“Enough,” I rasp out. I would push Gavin’s head away if my hands weren’t also tied to the headboard.

Lifting his head, Gavin’s eyes are dark and fevered as he looks at me. “You are so fucking sexy like this. I don’t think I’m ever letting you out of this contraption.”

“My legs have fallen asleep,” I complain without much vigor.

“Then I guess I’ll just have to concentrate your feelings elsewhere, right?” he asks, before lowering his mouth back on me again.

I’m bound so thoroughly, my hips can’t even reflexively jerk against the insane pleasure he’s giving me right now. My body is completely helpless… I can’t move an inch, which only makes me focus on the sensations he’s creating all the more. My awareness of what he is doing is so heightened that it makes the pleasure sharply exquisite.

He’s merciless. Absolutely focused and determined to make me come again, and I have to wonder what his ultimate agenda is. He’s showed me pleasure over and over again since we first came together, but he is relentless in his pursuit to drive me mad with need for him.

I sob, I strain against the ropes, I tell him to stop, and I beg him. He keeps on and on, murmuring words against me in between licking and sucking, and my brain becomes overloaded with sensation.

When I finally come again… what was that—four or five times—I momentarily black out by the conquering force of convulsions ripping through me.

When I come to, Gavin is kneeling by my knees, holding a pocketknife in his hands. He cuts one leg and then another free, and I groan as the blood rushes back through my sore limbs.

Lying down beside me, fully dressed still, Gavin starts rubbing my legs to help increase the circulation. I grit my teeth through the pins and needle-like pain but silently think to myself… that little bit of discomfort was so worth it.

“That was all kinds of hot,” Gavin says as he massages my calf.

“
That
was amazing,” I murmur.

“Told you I was going to make you pass out,” he says with a confident smirk.