STORY EXCERPT

Michael St. Clare stood by as he watched his only child, Cassandra, sob uncontrollably in her mother’s arms. He felt helpless as he paced up and down the glossy, wide-planked kitchen floor. He saw his distorted reflection in the old, rippled glass cabinets lining the room. His face was red, and he looked like he was ready to blow a gasket. He balled his big hands into fists. He wanted to hit something—hit it hard and not stop.

His beautiful girl was decked out in a turquoise-blue spun-candy confection of a formal gown that matched the eyes she had gotten from him. Hedy, his wife, said it was turquoise blue anyway. He didn’t know one blue from another when it came to ball gowns and such female fripperies. He just knew his baby girl had looked beautiful when she had come down the central staircase earlier in the evening. He was a master restoration carpenter and had restored every inch of the beautiful, old home with his own hands. The house just off Oglethorpe Square in historic Savannah was a masterpiece. He and his wife thought they might just keep this house and not put it on the market as they had done with the string of other homes he had restored around Savannah as his company had become the best historic preservation company in town.

His baby girl had been dating Beaumont Bainbridge, III—the third for God’s sake—since the previous summer when she had met him at the Savannah Golf and Country Club where she had taken a summer job as a waitress in the club’s Nineteenth Hole Café. Mike had been against the summer job on general principles. Cassandra didn’t need to work, and he would rather she just enjoy her vacation. But she had a stubborn, independent streak that she had inherited from him and their Scottish ancestors, and so he understood that she wanted to earn some of her own money.

Cassandra was crying her eyes out over a worthless, insensitive, rotten bastard of a boy—young man—who had heartlessly stood her up on the night of her senior prom. Mike’s heart had swelled with pride when she came downstairs, her beautiful smile wide on her face. She had been so excited waiting for Beau earlier in the evening. But after two hours had passed and the realization that the little weasel wasn’t going to show sank in, the look of utter despair on her face just about killed Mike even though she was not yet willing to give up. She just couldn’t face it and had been in denial. Mike knew that Cassie had been especially excited. She had just had her braces removed in time for prom, and Beau had not yet seen her without the hated metalwork. He knew his beautiful daughter would survive this heartbreak, maybe be stronger for it in the years to come, but the little asshole who had done this to her might not—not if he got his hands on him first.

Mike’s icy-blue eyes clashed with Hedy’s greenish-gray ones over Cassandra’s shoulder. She was silently willing him to calm down. She was probably the only person in the world who could get him to do that right now. The previous summer Cassie had straightened the corkscrew curls that she had also inherited from him, much to her dismay. Now, tendrils were starting to pop out of the grown-up chignon hairdo that she and his wife had created for her long, and now fashionably straight, hair as she sobbed in her mother’s arms. They framed her beautiful, tear-stained face. He kept his own hair ruthlessly short to control the curls, but he understood that wasn’t an option for a young girl. He knew Cassie would far rather have had the wavy, dark-auburn locks that adorned his wife’s head than his crazy blond hair. He thought her hopelessly curly hair was beautiful, especially when the platinum streaks in the golden mass caught the sun on the beach. As a toddler, her turquoise-blue eyes and wild blonde hair had been adorable. Even though it was now straight, it was still beautiful as far as he was concerned.

When she didn’t have the time to straighten it, she usually kept it tamed down in a French braid that bounced on her slender back. She was a beautiful girl with long, coltish legs, and although her figure had not yet filled out, the promise was there. Hedy had told him that she had been a “late bloomer,” too.

“Momma, I just don’t understand. Maybe Beau had an accident driving down from school. Maybe…” The little prick was nineteen and a sophomore at Emory University in Atlanta. He had been the assistant tennis pro at the country club the summer before. He was the nephew of one of the club members who had gotten him the job. He and Cassie had met and dated the entire summer and had continued to date on school vacations during Cassie’s senior year.

“Baby, I don’t think that’s the case. Please take a deep breath and try to calm down now. You’re going to start hyperventilating. I know this is a heartbreak for you, but I don’t think we’re going to know what happened tonight. There is still time, and if you want, we can call your cousin, Derek, to take you to the prom. We don’t have to…”

“No way, Mom. I’d rather die than go to the prom with my cousin—nothing against Derek, but everyone knows he’s my cousin, not my boyfriend. Everyone knows I’m supposed to go with Beau. It would just be too humiliating. Maybe I’ll just say I got sick. Maybe I’ll just die of a broken heart tonight and not have to tell anybody anything. That would be the best.”

Mike sighed. “Cassie, you’re strong. You’re a St. Clare, descended from Scottish royalty, and don’t forget it, girl. You’ll get through this. I know that you don’t think so right now, baby girl, but you will. Someday, you’ll laugh about this.” His wife looked over Cassie’s shoulder and gave him “the look” that said “Shut up now, or I will maim you.” He just didn’t know what to do or say to make it better for his beautiful daughter, the light of his life.

ADULT EXCERPT

“I don’t know, Beau. I don’t know if I can trust you not to screw me over again. I’m confused, and I don’t understand how I’m feeling right now. I’m still mad as hell at you, but you touch something inside me that no one else has ever touched.” She shook her head in bewilderment.

“Did you think when we made love all those times that I was looking to screw you over? I can promise you that I wasn’t. I was confused by you, annoyed by you, excited by you, but I never wanted to hurt you. I wanted to spank your butt a couple of times, but that’s not the same thing.”

“Do you remember that beach party at Devon’s parent’s cottage on Tybee Island that summer before senior year when I was working at the club? It was great—the music, the bonfire, all our friends. We had so much fun. And then we dated all of my senior year whenever you could get down from Atlanta. You were so cute, such a gentleman, and very attentive. I never could have imagined you would want to hurt me like that.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you. I made a stupid mistake, and believe it or not, it’s affected my life to some extent as well. Not that I thought about it all the time. I won’t lie to you to make myself look better. But I never did forget it, and when I did think about what I’d done, I felt like a real shit. Please forgive me.”

He kissed her again, and when she sank into him, he untied the strings of her bikini bottom. He re-tied the strings and put it over his arm so it wouldn’t float away on the waves. He watched her reaction carefully, and when she didn’t protest, his heart skipped a beat. She hadn’t said she forgave him, but she wasn’t stopping him either.

Her center was now crushed against his middle, and his erection was straining to get free. He pushed his trunks down and secured them over his arm as well. Now they were skin-to-skin under the water, and there wasn’t a soul in sight. The rocking motion of the waves and the feeling of her body pressed to his was sublime. He could spend the rest of the day right here with her thighs locked around his waist. Only one thing would make it better. He lifted her into position and thrust his hard cock into her warm pussy. The shaft of pleasure that sizzled down his spine made his legs weak. He braced himself against the roll of the waves and began to rock her with short, hard thrusts while he gripped her hips. He lowered his head and nosed the scant coverage of her bikini top aside and took the salty tip of her breast into his mouth. She groaned, and he thought he would lose it. This was the one woman who had the power to rock his world. He’d made love to a lot of women in a lot of places, but he knew even if they went no further than this moment, it would always be one of the highlights of his life.

* * * *

Cassie threw her head back and gave him her throat. She couldn’t stand to keep looking so deeply into his eyes as he entered her. She was afraid of what she saw there, afraid to trust her own judgment and emotions, never mind his. The intimate caress of his hard cock in her hot pussy was enough to send her over the edge, but she held back. She wanted these moments to last forever. They might be all she ever had of him from now on, and she knew these memories would be precious no matter what happened between them. He continued to pump into her as his husky voice whispered sweet nothings in her ear in the sexy Southern drawl she couldn’t resist. Her breath quickened, and she exploded into an exquisite climax as she convulsed around him, milking his thick shaft with every thrust. His hard cock pulsed his release as he kissed her with a fierceness that took her breath away. She rested up against his wet chest until their hearts stopped pounding. Finally, they both floated in the warm waves, their hands clasped together, content to drift in the warm surf as they watched the puffy clouds pass by.