Sugar on the Edge (Last Call #3)(16)

I walk over to my purse on the kitchen counter and grab it, rustling around inside for my keys. Keeping my eyes averted from his, I say, “That’s a shrimp stir-fry in the wok and there’s some rice in the pot next to it. I um… left you a few other things in the fridge.”

Heading for the front door, I hear him open the refrigerator. “What’s all this?”

Turning around, I bring my gaze to his and he looks confused. So I elucidate. “I made you a few casseroles. Instructions are taped to the top on how to cook it. That will hold you over until Friday.”

I reach for the doorknob, but he stops me. “Why don’t you stay… eat dinner with me?”

My jaw sags a little, completely caught off guard. This was the guy that was manhandling and cursing at me a few hours ago, and now he’s inviting me to eat with him?

“Um… I really should get home,” I hedge, because it just feels totally awkward to share a meal with this man.

Gavin walks over to the stove and lifts the lid off the wok. He takes a sniff and his lips curve upward. Turning to me, he says, “Stay. This is way too much food for just me.”

My eyes dart around the room, my brain frantically trying to come up with an excuse to decline his invitation. He doesn’t wait for me though, reaching into the cabinet and grabbing another plate. “Come on. I don’t bite,” he cajoles.

“No, you just threaten and intimidate,” I mutter softly.

“I heard that,” he says with a grin.

I can’t help the smile I give in return and with a sigh, I drop my purse to the floor by the front door. Walking back into the kitchen, I take a seat at the kitchen island and watch as Gavin fills my plate up. He grabs a fork and knife from the drawer, handing it across the counter to me.

“What’s with the nice act all of a sudden?” I can’t help but ask. I figured if I could call him an * earlier and retain my job, he wouldn’t be too perturbed over that question.

Shrugging his shoulders, Gavin fills his plate up and walks around the counter to sit beside me. “I guess I had a great day writing, despite the caterwauling noises you were making earlier.”

My cheeks heat, but he’s opened the door to my own curiosity. I had Googled Gavin a few days ago, and was surprised to find he was a New York Times best-selling author. His first book, Killing the Tides, was a huge, international success and sounded so intriguing, I one-clicked that bad boy for my Kindle.

“I bought Killing the Tides a few days ago and started reading it in my spare time,” I say before popping a shrimp in my mouth.

“Really?” he asks with amusement. “So what do you think of it?”

“It’s really great,” I say after swallowing my food. I spear a sugar snap pea and open my mouth again.

“No… what do you really think about it?” he asks, his gaze probing, his meal neglected.

Setting my fork down, I turn slightly in my chair to face him. “I think it’s raw, disturbing, and overwhelming. It reminds me of you.”

Picking up his own fork, he stabs a shrimp and gives me a dark smile that sends shivers up my spine. “Good answer.”





Savannah doesn’t know me well at all, but she understands that Killing the Tides was borne of a pervasive darkness that’s within me. While she’ll never know the hell I was mired in while I wrote that manuscript, she understands fully that every word in that book was inked in the blood of my wounds.

But I don’t want to talk about that.

“So tell me, sweet Savannah,” I drawl. “What did you think of the erotica component?”

I take immense pleasure in the redness that stains her cheeks from my question, and I know without a doubt that she’s read enough of the book to get to the first sex scene. While the plot line is simple… a hero with magical powers tries to save modern-day Earth from a demon uprising, I wove some hardcore erotica into the story that was nothing more than my baser desires being revealed. During the time I was writing the book, I experimented in some twitchy kink, visiting various sex clubs throughout London and the surrounding areas. I’ve pretty much tried it all—BDSM, fetish, swingers clubs, voyeurism, orgies—you name it, I’ve sampled. I used those experiences to spice up what, I thought, was an otherwise unoriginal story. In fact, but for those erotic elements, Killing the Tides would have gone nowhere fast.

In that first sex scene, my hero ends up saving a woman who was on the verge of being devoured by a particularly nasty demon—one that had the spirit of an incubus and who had made the woman so consumed with lust that she was in pain.

I mean… what was the hero to do at that point? Fuck her, right?

And so he did… in a dark alley in the middle of New York City. He pushed her skirt up, ripped her panties off because she was begging with tears in her eyes, and f*cked her hard. Her cries of pleasure and relief filtered out onto the streets, and a few miscreants stopped to watch while my hero nailed her over and over again.

Savannah doesn’t answer my question, chewing on her bottom lip with her eyes pinned to her plate. I feel the need to make her uncomfortable for some reason, so I push at her.

“Come on, sweet girl,” I murmur. “What did you think when Max f*cked that woman against the wall?”

I watch as she swallows hard, her hand gripping her fork so tightly that her knuckles are white. I think she’s going to ignore me, or maybe even throw her plate at me, but instead, she raises her eyes and her voice is steady. “I think your hero was trying to f*ck his own pain away,” she says. “After his parents were killed at the beginning of the story, I think he stopped caring about propriety. Yes, he was fueled by an almost unquenchable need to help others, almost as if he was trying to make up for not saving his parents, but he also took stupid risks, allowing himself to lose control.”