The Last Girl (Sand & Fog #7)

by Susan Ward

  “I can’t, Damon. I’m tired, and if you love me as you say you do, please leave while I’m sleeping.”

  I ran into my bedroom, locked the door, and curled up on my bed to cry.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I woke with a jolt, wearing yesterday’s clothes. I stared at the door. It was silent beyond. Had Damon left as I’d asked him to?

  In the bathroom I splashed water on my face to clear my cheeks and eyes of tear marks and ran a brush through my hair. I couldn’t wait another second to know if he’d done as I asked, even as afraid as I was of discovering my flat empty and us officially at an end.

  As I went down the hallway, my forward motion stopped, and my eyes went wide. Damon was fast asleep on a chair in the kitchen.

  Quietly, I went to his chair and stared down at him. There he slouched in his shorts and shirt, his hair unruly around his gorgeous face, his dazzling eyes hidden from me. It hit me then, hard. I couldn’t believe everything this man had done to get me. He amazed me.

  “You’re so remarkable, Damon,” I whispered without reservation because I knew he couldn’t hear me. “What are you doing with a girl like me?”

  His lids lifted, startling me. “The girl like you left Paris. Then California. Where else would I be?”

  My face burning, I sprang back. “Damn it, why did you pretend to be asleep?”

  “I wasn’t pretending. I heard your voice and that was all it took to wake me. What did you mean by a girl like you?”

  A sweet softness came to his eyes as he waited for my answer and I crossed my arms as if annoyed. “I didn’t mean anything. Can we drop it?”

  He stood then, hovering over me, every line of his face taut with determination. “Do you want me, Khloe?”

  “What? Did you go through all this to have sex with me again?”

  “No. Not that I don’t want that, but more than that.”

  My heart started to pound. “I don’t know what you’re asking me. Christ, Damon. I haven’t even had a cup of coffee yet.”

  I started to move away, and his fingers closed around my forearm, stopping me. “It’s a yes or no question, Khloe. You don’t need coffee for that. Do. You. Want. Me?”

  “Hmm?” I murmured, trying to buy time because he was right, I knew what he was asking. “Are we talking sexually or metaphorically?”

  “I know the answer to the former, but since you turned my question into two questions, answer both of them.”

  He shot me a wry look that made me smile. It felt good to be with him. It always did...even when his gaze turned heatedly annoyed with me. “Okay, okay. Yes, to the first question. And I’m not sure about the second, but I’m teetering toward yes.”

  “Was that so hard?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why is it hard for you to answer that question when it should be obvious I asked it because I want you? It’s important to me that you know I’ve never experienced anything like us. We’re not just sex for me. We’re more. I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel the way I feel about you. Now that I know I can...I need to know you want more from me.”

  I stared at him, astonished by his easy ability to put between us how he felt without losing an ounce of his regal bearing and command. I felt exactly as he did. But what we were was so new to me I wasn’t ready to be as open about it.

  I swallowed the emotion in my throat. “I want more.”

  “Tell me what more means to you.”

  He’d asked it as though it were an easy question, but it wasn’t. He brought me to him and surrounded me with his arms. “Damon, please.”

  “I want to feel the way you make me feel. I want to spend as much time with you as possible, whatever it takes. I want to make you laugh and smile. I want to wake up in the morning with you. Don’t think, Khloe. Just speak. Just tell me what I have to do to be with you.”

  I pressed my cheek against his heart. It was racing and anxious, just like mine. He always looked so in control. I never imagined I could make him feel as vulnerable as he made me feel.

  The rush of tenderness that swept through me was powerful and my words tumbled out. “I want you always to be kind to me the way my dad is to my mother. Share with me everything you’re doing, even if it’s a stupid text about nothing. I want awesome sex. I want to be the only one you have it with. I want to feel the way I feel when I’m with you. And you can’t push me for more than I can manage. I can’t manage the spotlight, Damon. We stay off the grid always or we walk away from each other now.”

  “I won’t push and no spotlight. I don’t know how we keep us private, but I’ll figure it out. Whatever it takes, I’m willing to do it if it means I can be with you.”

  I stared into his eyes and how he looked at me was where I wanted to be. I didn’t know how we would make us work—his complications and mine—but then maybe they’d work out on their own if we let them.

  “I love you, Khloe.”

  It hurt to hold back from him. “I love you, too.”

  “We can make this work.”

  “There’s so much I have to tell you about me, Damon.”

  “Nothing you tell me will change anything. There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me end us. Nothing anyone says will ever change me wanting to spend the rest of my tomorrows with you.”

  His arms flew around me and he crushed me to his chest. My heart beat faster and faster each second of our kiss. Dreams were dangerous, but I was willing to dream a little more for Damon.

  Epilogue

  Khloe

  ONCE UPON A TIME THERE was a girl and a prince. He rescued her from the wandering circus, guys like Zane and Cade, and the bubble where she could never be a real girl. And they lived happily ever after...

  The End...not really.

  Damon Saxe

  WELL, THAT’S KHLOE’S version of our story. I like that she remembers us that way. But as these things usually work...I have a different version.

  For me, our story starts after Venice.

  The End

  Continue with Book 8 of the Sand & Fog Series with Khloe & Damon in The Last Guy

  Available for Preorder!

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  September 10, 2018!

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  The Parker Series Books:

  Lost In Him

  Caught In Him

  Found In Him

  Only Him

  Broken Crown

  The Girl of Sand & Fog

  The Girl in the Mirror

  Ethan

  Gone Guy

  Return to Us

  The Last Girl (Releasing 2018)

  One Last Kiss

  One More Kiss

  One Long Kiss

  One Forever Kiss

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  Dillon Warrick books (M/F Romance):

  Pistol Whipped

  Take Down (Winter 2018)

  Graham Carson books (M/M Romance):

  The Manny

  His Man

  All In

  Skyler Mathews (M/M Romance):

  Skyler

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  EXCERPT

  Chrissie Parker and Alan Manzone

  Lost in Him

  The Parker Series Book One:

  THE ROOM IS SO QUIET it is deafening.

  I find Alan on his bed, casually reclined against a stack of pillows, dressed only in flannel pajama bottoms, and reading—of all things—the Wall Street Journal. There is a fire lit, the silver candlesticks flicker with flame, the bedcovers invitingly turned down as if in preparation for some sort of romantic scene. But he is focused on the Journal.

  He doesn’t look at me and I feel stupid hovering by his door, so I start to wander around the bedroom, trying to still my frantic pulse. It’s a good thing that it’s an interesting room, otherwise my deliberate study would seem silly.

  Even Alan’s bedroom is something I find weird and demands a certain amount of mental analysis. It looks like something from a nineteenth century English manor, elegant to the point of being almost a touch prissy. There’s an antique mahogany king-sized bed facing the fireplace; floral wingback chairs with pillows positioned before the hearth; and high-tech conveniences camouflaged in antique furniture. There’s a Monet on the wall; tall, polished sterling silver candlesticks; crystal; and fine, leather-bound, first edition books of classic literature. I sink down before a small, mahogany table where I find a stack of newspaper: Barons; the New York Times; the Washington Post; and the Daily Telegraph.

  The warmth of the fire surrounds me like a caress, but I am quaking like a leaf. I wasn’t sure what Alan expected after he walked out of the kitchen. It would have been logical to assume that I would leave. But he knew I’d follow him. I don’t know why he’s ignoring me now. I look at the lit candlesticks—he wanted me to follow him.

  I bite my lower lip and stare at my knotted fingers. I stayed alone in the kitchen for what seemed like ages, and now that I’ve done exactly what he expected me to do, nothing.

  I struggle for something to say to break the silence. “You do have seven bedrooms. I counted them twice. But there are seven only if I include yours.”

  He folds the Journal, tosses it on the table and fixes those penetrating, mesmerizing eyes on me. “Is this the room you want?” he asks, his voice gentle. “I meant it when I said you could have any room. It doesn’t have to be my room for you to stay.”

  Does he not want me in his room? A ragged breath forces its way from deep in my lungs. “Do you want me to go?” I murmur.

  “Of course not. I want you here.” His voice is husky, and his eyes are wandering in a leisurely hold that is tender and oddly comforting.

  EXCERPT

  THE GIRL OF SAND & FOG

  OH SHIT, SILENCE. I don’t like the way Mr. Jamison is staring at me at all.

  He leans over his desk, scribbling frantically on the dreaded pink sheet. He holds it up to me and points to the door. “Principal’s office now, Miss Stanton! If you can’t be respectful of the opinions shared in class then keep your opinions to yourself. We don’t criticize each other’s ideology. Not in this class. We encourage open and respectful dialogue.”

  I gather my things, feeling the heavy stares and smirks of the silent room, and strangely I realize that I am even more irritated since I haven’t been booted from class for the British vulgarity, but for showing disrespect for liberal politics.

  I snatch the pink slip and smile, but then again, what should I have expected? I mean really. I’m in an affluent city in Southern California.

  I shove the door open a little too hard, not giving a shit and not even provoking comment from Mr. Jamison. I must have really rocked his world and I think I’ve finally found where intolerable conduct goes over the line with my teachers. Any language that isn’t politically correct speak crosses the line and will be dealt with. No one even seemed to notice that I’d call the girl a “twat.” It’s not on the description of my infraction, and the twat comment is where I would have started listing my crimes and offenses.

  I show the pink slip to the office secretary and am instructed to sit down on the waiting room sofa outside the principal’s office. After five minutes, the door opens and in meanders a boy, pink slip in hand, who is directed by pointed finger to the seat across from me.

  He drops heavily on the bench facing me and says nothing. He closes his eyes and crosses his arms.

  There is something strangely familiar about the guy, but I chalk that up to probably having passed him in the hallways. He isn’t exactly cute, but he isn’t exactly unattractive either. He is interesting, quite a unique specimen at Pacific Palisades Academy. He has that guy’s guy intensity that radiates an air of not giving a shit, though somehow in a strangely intelligent way, and I am surprised to find it mildly thrilling.

  He is taller than me, a good thing since I rarely find guys of adequate height for my five-foot-ten-inch frame, and he has a lean, nicely muscled body like a surfer, a slightly worldly aura somehow accomplished by his clothes that are more European style than American, and the most penetrating hazel eyes I’ve ever seen.

  Interesting. I can’t tell what he is, since he’s such a hodgepodge of mismatching things that it is impossible to identify the group he falls in with at school.

  I sit there staring at him, fiddling with the pink detention slip, and when the office secretary leaves, those hazel eyes open and he asks, “You’re Kaley Stanton, aren’t you?”

  Shit, not this again. And it’s such a disappointment because there was a slight prick of interest before he spoke and his voice—well, I never expected that—but it made the hairs on my body stand up.

  “Oh, fuck me!” I snap, letting loose my fallback response, the knee-jerk reaction that comes from perfect strangers knowing my name.

  “Not on the first detention.”

  That is the first quick comeback I’ve heard in two months here. I try hard not to smile and can’t stop myself. Arching a brow, I counter, “I’ll probably be here next week. Maybe you can fuck me then.”

  Those hazel eyes sharpen on my face. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

  I tense. Why would he think I’d recognize him? “No. Should I?”

  The guy shrugs. “What landed you in here?”

  “Fomenting political insurrection. You?”

  “Jerking off in the gym.”

  It is hard to tell if he is serious or just trying to shock me. Masturbation is a perfectly acceptable topic of conversation at PP Academy. PP Academy...I laugh, stare at him hard and say, “I’m glad you didn’t offer to shake my hand.”

  The boy doesn’t smile and I bite my lip to stop my laughter.

  “You look and sound just like your dad. Sans accent, of course,” he says in a heavy, all-knowing way, irritating me and sounding as though he’s irritated by his own discovery.

  OK, it’s time to stop this now. The boy is messing with me, but unfortunately I’m a little off-kilter from my bizarre internal response to him and whatever it was I heard in his voice when he made that annoying assumption on my parentage.

  I snap, “How would you know?”

  “I just saw him a month ago in Munich,” he replies casually, twirling his own pink paper around his finger.

  “Did you really? Do you have a psychic hotline? Do you speak with the dead as well as see them? My dad has been dead over ten years.”

  The guy shrugs again, leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. “You’re funnier than Alan Manzone. He’s a real prick these days.”

  Before I can stop myself, yet again I respond to his baiting. “Alan Manzone is a prick every day.”

  The boy just shakes his head. “No, he’s actually a really cool guy.”

  “He’s a narcissistic asshole.”

  “You really hate him, don’t you?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Probably,” he says. “Do you want to
get out of here? If we stay, Williams will keep us until after six cleaning the bleachers. We won’t get in trouble, you know. No one wants to deal with my mother so they won’t call her. I don’t think they’ll call Chrissie either. I never stay for detention. Do you want to get out of here?”

  I stare up at him apprehensively. Who is this guy? He says everything with such an air of knowing unenthusiasm. Debating with myself over whether to leave with him, I ask, “If you don’t stay why were you on the bench?”

  “I saw you leaving class with the pink slip.”

  That pleases me more than I want to be. Direct and honest in a no-bullshit type of way. Another rarity at PP Academy.

  I give him the stare. “You know, you could have just said ‘hi’ to me in the halls. You didn’t have to be a stalker about the whole thing.”

  “Sure, I could have. But meeting on the detention bench makes a more interesting story, don’t you think?”

  “Interesting for who?”

  “My mom and dad, who by the way, think that I am gay.”

  That level of honesty wrapped in self-confidence is too appealing. I don’t want to get close to any guy, something tells me especially not this guy, but somehow I feel myself being drawn to him.

  I sink farther back into my seat. “And are you gay?”

  “Hell no. I just like to fuck with my dad.”

  EXCERPT

  BROKEN CROWN

  I SHUT OFF THE SHOWER, deciding not to call Chrissie. I dress for an excursion on my bike. Traveling the rural splendor of the United States on a Harley is one of the few things left in my life I still enjoy. The decision this time has nothing to do with savoring the scenery. The days it will take to travel from New York to California will give me a chance to back out if sanity decides to return. The call ahead of time will do neither of us any good if I decide not to see her.

  I sink down onto my bed to make two phone calls. I tell my assistant to clear my calendar for the next month, and hang up as she bellows every reason why that isn’t possible. Then I call the garage to get my bike ready.