“You’ve been screening your damn cal s, haven’t you?”
Gracie sighed at the bel igerent tone. “What do you want, Dad?”
“They’re threatening to kick me out, Gracie. I need the rent paid.”
“No,” Gracie said. Oh, God, her heart hurt. It shouldn’t be this painful, she thought.
“What the hel do you mean, no?”
>
“I’m done, Dad,” she answered, holding her ground for the first time that she could remember. “No more cal ing and asking for money. I’m finished.”
“You ungrateful bitch!” he screamed, his words slurring just enough to tel Gracie he was already halfway to being drunk off his ass, and it wasn’t even noon.
“Cal me whatever you want, but I’m serious. You either get help for the drinking or lose my number. Either way, I’m done.”
“You can’t do this to me. I raised you! I kept a roof over your head when no one else wanted you!”
Gracie felt each word like a slap to the face. Her gaze shot to Wade’s across the room. Immediately he was in front of her, his arms around her in a protective embrace. “You have a choice to make, Dad. If you can sober up, then we’l talk.” When he started cursing her, her mother, her grandmother, God, Gracie hung up.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Wade said.
Gracie tossed the phone onto the table and buried her face in Wade’s chest. The tears came, and it wasn’t pretty. Once she’d cried herself dry, she pul ed back and stared at Wade’s damp pecs. “You’re al wet.”
He cupped her chin and raised her head until their gazes met. “I’m so damn proud of you right now.”
“It hurts, Wade,” Gracie admitted, her voice hoarse with emotion. “I don’t feel very good about what I just did.”
“I know. He’s your father, and that doesn’t change—no matter what. But you took a very necessary step today. Like you told him on the phone, he has a choice to make. The bal ’s in his court now.”
Gracie smoothed her palms over his hard chest. “Wade?”
He kissed the top of her head and murmured, “Yeah, baby?”
“Make love to me.”
“Always, my Fiery Angel,” he vowed. “Always.”
Then he picked her up and carried her up the stairs to their bed, where they made love for the rest of the afternoon. It was, Gracie thought, the best way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Turn the page
for a sizzling preview
of Lorie O’Clare’s
TEMPTATION ISLAND
An Aphrodisia trade paperback
coming August 2011.
Ric Karaka stepped onto the front porch of the large, old house and breathed in the morning air. He loved the smel of the island. It brought back memories, the first good ones he’d had, from after high school when he’d original y come to Lanai, one of the smal er Hawaiian islands.
The fresh air, often mixed with the aroma of some nearby flowering plant or tree, had an erotic edge to it.
He didn’t regret living on the banana plantation, although he was stil getting accustomed to al the silence and space. It was a far cry from the inner city in L.A.