Sugar on the Edge (Last Call #3)(45)

“Why’s that?” I ask as we watch another horse come from around the side of the house and join the other two.

“They’re diet is very specific. If you were to feed something to them that they weren’t used to, it could make them really sick. Plus, they can be dangerous. You don’t want one to take a bite out of you.”

Fuck yeah, I don’t want that.

After a few moments, Savannah puts the Jeep in drive, and we meander through the dirt streets of Corolla. Pushing further away from the ocean, there are fewer houses and the dirt roads wind among a thicket of trees that Savannah tells me consist of wild persimmon, yaupon, myrtle, and red cedar. The trees are shaped and molded by the ocean winds, creating thick canopies and heavy shade as we drive along. We see several more horses and spend a good hour just driving around and watching.

Finally, Savannah heads us back to the beach, which is the only way to make our way back to Highway 12. Unless you know how to drive a vehicle on the beach, you don’t come to Corolla.

When we make our way back over the dunes and onto the harder sand, the ocean is revealed before us and my breath catches in my throat. Right before us stand five horses on the edge of the water, the incoming waves lapping around their lower legs. Savannah immediate stops the Jeep and puts it in park.

“Come on,” she says as she jumps out of the vehicle. As I exit, I watch as she reaches in the back seat, grabbing her camera bag that she had tucked in there earlier.

We walk around to the front of the Jeep and I lean back against the front grill, watching as she pulls her camera out. She removes the lens cover with deft fingers, flips a button, and makes a few adjustments to the settings. Savannah then walks a few feet forward, still a good thirty yards from the horses, and drops to her knees in the cold sand.

Camera to her face, she silently shoots picture after picture, her form still and gentle. The horses meander north, wading in a bit further until the cold water rolls in just under their fat little stomachs that Savannah told me earlier were often swollen because they will sometimes drink the saltwater.

Every few minutes, Savannah stands, walks a few feet down the beach—away from me—and continues to take photos. I sit back against the front of the Jeep, still warm from the engine, and listen to it making ticking sounds.

She’s so f*cking beautiful right now. Solely focused, enraptured with the beauty of the ponies walking through the frigid surf. The wind blows, lifting her dark hair all around, causing her to reach a delicate hand up to push at it time and again. I could watch her forever, I realize, and that thought causes my stomach to tighten in almost disbelief. Savannah is a pretty package, in some regards, like many of the other women I’ve used and then forgotten.

But she’s also more, and the more is something that pulls me to her. It’s her ever-changing seasons of personality, her bold moves and shy smiles. I want her desperately but, For how long? I ask myself.

Savannah finally rises from her last kneeling position, stretching the kinks from her back from holding said position for a long time. Turning to face me, she starts walking back. She has a well-satisfied smile on her face, and her eyes are sparkling as she gets closer.

With her camera in one hand, she walks straight up to me, never pausing in her stride, and my legs open up when she’s a foot away. She walks right in between them, lays her small hands on my chest, and stands on her tiptoes to kiss me.

Pulling away laughing, she asks, “Wasn’t that incredible?”

“Incredible,” I agree as I stare down at her, wanting more than anything to see that look on her face over and over again, from here to eternity.





Savannah lays asleep in my arms. Glancing at the clock beside my bed, I see it’s just short of ten o’clock at night. After our outing on the beach, I took Savannah out to lunch in Duck and then back to her little beach house, where I ordered her inside and told her to get a bag with few days of clothing.

She cocked her eyebrow at me in question.

“I have plans for you,” I told her simply.

“Like what?” she asked with a grin.

“They involve a bed, a couch, a bathroom counter, the back deck of my house, and probably the driver’s seat of my car. You’ll be occupied for a while.”

“Don’t you have work to do?”

“Yes, but I could use a break,” I told her, even as my mind calculated the hours I’d have to buckle down once I got my fill of her so I could get back to my writing.

“Well, I have work,” she said primly and didn’t move from the seat of the Jeep.

“Of course you do,” I said sarcastically. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t sleep at my house, right?”

“Oh, so we’ll sleep on the bed, the couch, the bathroom counter, the back deck of your house, and in the front seat of your Maserati?” she asked playfully.

“No,” I had told her. “We most definitely won’t be sleeping on any of those surfaces… except perhaps the bed.”

Savannah had scrambled out of the Jeep and within fifteen minutes, was back and crawling in my Maserati so we could go get started on my checklist of places I wanted to f*ck her.

Leaning over her as she sleeps, I can make out the planes of her face in the moonlight coming through the windows of my bedroom. She’s naked with the sheet and comforter pulled up to her chin, her mouth slightly parted as she silently breathes. I bend down and rub my lips against hers. She sighs into my mouth, so I kiss her.