by Logan Fox
“What’s wrong?” I murmur, struggling to focus on his face so close to mine.
“I promised we’d go into the station tomorrow and give them a statement.”
I nod, and then scan his face, waiting for more.
“You’re okay with that?”
“Yeah.” I nod and then bring my head up, begging for another kiss.
“What…what are we going to tell them?”
I’m not sure what I hear in his voice, but it doesn’t sound like my Josiah. I wince as I struggle up to my good arm, leaning on my elbow. “The truth,” I say.
“They’ll…but…what about…us?” He’s intent, jaw ticking as he waits for my reply.
“I’ll hand them a pitchfork myself,” I murmur through a smile.
This time, when I beg for a kiss, Josiah obliges.
I want more. I know he does too. But tonight, the devil’s hot breath isn’t blowing against the back of our necks anymore. I think, for the first time since we’ve met, we know there’s time.
Time to get to know each other. Every quirk, every pet peeve, every inch of our bodies.
Time to figure out what we want, and how we’re going to get there.
Time to fall in love.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Candy
I don’t even realize I’m fidgeting until Josiah takes my hand and pulls it away from my mouth, where I’d been biting my thumbnail.
“What’s the worst thing that can happen?” he murmurs.
Before, I’d have been pissed at him for being so damn calm. Now that strength, that calm, it flows from him to me, filling me up.
“I don’t get why she came,” I say, shifting on the hard seat.
We’re back at the police station. It’s bright and sunny outside, but in this small, chilly room, time doesn’t exist.
“Does it matter?”
“Stop being so reasonable,” I snap, but my heart isn’t in it. Not really.
I slept like the dead last night. I woke to Josiah shaking my shoulder, a steaming cup of coffee on the hotel room’s nightstand.
The policewoman was still there, and she did nothing to hide her disdain when Josiah and I walked out of the room holding hands. I guess she’d been clued up to who we were since I last saw her.
On the way to the station, she’d told us my mother would be sitting in on the interview.
Interview—like I was applying for a job. I guess it’s not politically correct to call it an interrogation anymore.
That was what felt like an hour ago.
I hear her high heels and turn to the door a moment before it swings open.
Mom’s cheeks are flushed. I only know this because, for once, she’s not wearing pancake-thick makeup. Her lips crumple when she spots me, and she holds out her arms.
I don’t go to her.
I don’t even stand.
“You look…” she begins, but then trails off as her arms drop back to her sides.
Like shit, I know. Forgetting the arm brace, I could have been in a car crash how scuffed and bruised I am. Thankfully the damage from the scalpel is just superficial. She can’t possibly see the lump on my head, but I’m reminded every time it gives a dull thump. The paramedics cleared me last night—no concussion or anything like that—but I still have to go and see a doctor today to make sure I don’t have internal bleeding or something.
I’m not quite sure the paramedic believed me when I said I’d been hit over the head with a bottle of tequila.
At least, that’s what Josiah said happened.
“What are you doing here?”
Mom flinches at the tone of my voice, but fuck it; I’m done being nice to anyone who doesn’t deserve it.
“I worried when you didn’t call back. Then I couldn’t get through on the house phone.” Mom’s eyes dart to Josiah, but they return to me almost instantly, as if she can’t stand the look in his eyes. “When I finally got through, the police…”
I shrug with one shoulder, and look away. “You don’t have to be here. Might as well go back to your boyfriend.”
“Candy, please—”
“Mrs. Bale?”
I glance up at Detective Reed and feel some of the tension leave my body. Thank God. Now we can get this over with.
Reed pulls out a chair for my mom, positioning her opposite me and beside him as if they were planning on tag-teaming the interview.
Thankfully, Reed’s patience hasn’t improved much over the last twenty-four hours. He gives up trying to get us to incriminate or contradict ourselves.
“So, what happens now?” Josiah asks. He’s been careful not to touch me after my mother came into the room, and that lack of connection makes it feel as if he’s tugging at me with some ephemeral force I can’t quite understand.
Maybe it’s post-traumatic stress or something. Like, I need to have his arms around me to feel safe now.
Is that how it’s always going to be?
Instead of answering Josiah, Reed turns to my mother. “We might have some more questions further along, but for now, this is being treated as a case of self-defense.”
I almost look at Josiah, but manage to keep burning-open eyes on the detective instead.
He stands, and my mother stands a second later. She follows him to the door and holds a hushed conversation with him just out of earshot.
Something brushes the side of my hand. Josiah slips his pinkie finger over mine and gives me a tiny squeeze.
For the first time in what feels like forever, my lips twitch into a small smile. Mom finishes up whatever she’d been discussing with the detective and comes back over to us.
Josiah leaves his hand where it is, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
“Well, thank goodness for that. He says you can come back to Ohio with us.”
Us?
I shake my head.
Mom frowns.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I tell her.
Irritation immediately replaces her faux-motherly concern. “Excuse me?”
“I said, I’m not leaving with you.” I get to my feet, and Josiah’s standing a second later. He grabs my hand and slips his fingers between mine.
Mom’s eyes drop, but her eyebrows shoot up. She lets out a huff of a laugh and crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m sorry, did I give you the idea you had some kind of a choice?” Her voice rises in pitch, the angrier she gets. “I’m sorry you went through the shit you did, Candace, but if you think for one minute I’m just going to—”
“What?” I cut in, lifting my chin. “Abandon me? Because you already did that.”
She takes a step back, mouth falling open. “I couldn’t find you.” Her eyes scour me then Josiah. “I guess you two were…busy or something.”
My smile inches up, but it grows cold too. “Go back to Ohio, Mom.”
“I can’t leave you here,” she says flatly. “You’re still a kid.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“No.” She shakes her head, but there’s something in her eyes…is it reluctance? “I won’t.” Mom reaches for me. “You’re coming—”
“She’s not going anywhere.” Josiah moves in front of me and gently pushes aside my mother’s arm. She holds it out for a second longer, blinking up at Josiah like she’s never seen him before.
“She’s my daughter. You have no—”
“And I’ll look after her better than you ever did. Than you ever could.”
A shiver tears through me as I bite the inside of my lip. I’m grinning like a damn idiot now, but I can’t help it. I lean to the side, peeking at my mother around Josiah’s arm.
“You have no right talking to me like that. I’m your stepmother!”
“You’re nothing to me,” Josiah says. “And I suggest you leave, before I get Mr. Dench involved in proving that.”
If Mother’s face was white before, it’s gray now. “I’m not leaving here without my daughter.”
“Suit yourself.” Josiah glance
s at me, takes hold of my wrist, and draws me out from behind him.
For a heart-stuttering moment, I think the tables have turned. That this was all just a sick joke at my expense, and he was in fact—literally—handing me over.
But then he calmly pushes my mother aside and herds me to the door. He opens it for me as he stares back at my mother. “You’ve had years to start mothering her,” he says.
His eyes meet mine, and just like before, strength flows into me. I look back at Mom in time to see her deflate as Josiah adds, “Bit late to start now.”
“You can’t live on the beach,” Quinten snaps. His scathing glare should have set my hair on fire…but I let it slide right off me.
“Sure we can,” Candy says, sitting forward and squeezing my hand.
When we’re around Uncle Quinten, we don’t bother hiding our affection. He’s never commented on it directly, but his opinion is clear from the way he twitches his mouth.
He could suck a dick for all I care.
“Definitely not before you finish school.” Sitting there in his suit and tie, prim and proper hands shuffling around his papers as if he’s permanently trying to put them into order, he could be our actual Uncle and not just the family lawyer.
“It actually says that?” I crane forward, but Quinten hurriedly closes the file.
“You don’t trust me?”
“Not one fucking bit,” I say through a chuckle before sitting back in my chair.
We’re still in the same hotel. It’s been a week, but there’s been no reason for us to leave yet. Besides Diana, no one’s tried to claim us at theirs, and the hotel doesn’t seem to have any issues charging my credit card for the stay.
“Your trust will remain in my care until you’re twenty-one,” Quinten says. “And your father’s life insurance policy might still be in a state of…flux…for a few weeks until the claims investigation runs its course.”
Candy’s grip tightens, and I glance at her from the corner of my eye.
We got the news a few days ago during one of our ‘discussions’ with Reed. He doesn’t like to call them interrogations, even when that’s exactly what they feel like. We’ve both been cleared, of course. Everything we told them corroborated with the evidence they got back from my father’s autopsy report.
And holy fuck, I still can’t believe it, but we told them everything.
The pills I’d found in Dad’s drawer? Rohypnol. Fuck knows where he got it—it’s the kind that doesn’t turn blue in liquid, which, according to the cops, is kinda difficult to find these days.
They also found a bunch of illegal porn on a laptop he had stashed away in one of his safes. Even an old film reel—stuff from the eighties. Seems he’d been feeding his urges for several decades before Candy walked into his life.
I’d told them about how he tried to gas me. They said they’d reopen Bonnie’s case and see if there was any evidence that her suicide had been a setup. I didn’t do it for closure—I know he was involved. Perhaps not the first time around, but definitely the last.
“Why do we have to pay for a hotel room when we can live at the beach house?”
Quinten sighs and rubs the length of his nose with a finger. “School.”
“We’ll do it online or something. The place has got wi-fi.”
“I can’t…I mean, there has to be someone, a guardian or something that can—”
He cuts off when I lean across and pat the back of the hand he still has pressed over the file. “What do you think I’m paying you for, Uncle?”
He grimaces at me. “I can’t abandon my entire practice just to babysit you, two delinquents.” He glares at us each in turn. “I have a business—”
“We won’t tell if you don’t.”
We stare at each other for the longest time. Quinten’s the first to blink, and I take that as a victory.
“I’d have to check in every few days,” he grumbles as he starts packing things away in his briefcase.
“Perfect,” Candy chimes. “We’ll let you know if we need groceries. Just call us before you leave town.”
Quinten pauses to sneer at us again. “That’ll cost extra, all those extra miles—”
“And worth every penny,” I say, making Candy laugh. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Candy and I have a pizza downstairs with our names on it.” I stand, straightening my clothes, and Candy rises with me.
We follow Quinten down the hall, Candy peeking up at me through her lashes when I squeeze her ass through her jeans.
I’m sure even the staff are starting to wonder what goes on behind these locked doors with the constant do not disturb sign hanging from the knob.
I like to think they stay awake at night wondering if we’re really racking up such a massive Pay-Per-View bill, or if we’re busy doing things no brother and sister should ever do.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Candy asks as we enter the elevator behind Quinten.
“I’d rather not,” I say, not bothering to lower my voice. “Uncle’s hair is already almost all gray.”
We’re still chuckling when we get off the elevator, and Quinten storms past us, hand white-knuckled how he grips his briefcase’s handle. We don’t make it anywhere close to the hotel’s restaurant, of course. I drag her into the women’s bathroom, and after a quick check to make sure we’re alone, lock the door behind us.
She squeals when I squeeze her ass and then bursts into giggles when I come up behind her and tickle her neck with my lips. I unbutton her fly and shove her jeans to mid-thigh, kicking open her legs and bending her over the sink.
Yeah, it’s crude and disgusting to have a quick fuck in the bathroom, but I can’t keep my hands off her. And when she bucks into me as I come, grinding against my hips as she watches my reflection, I know she feels the same.
We’re punch-drunk in love with each other, but even knowing we still have decades of quickies and lovemaking sessions ahead does nothing to extinguish my visceral need for her.
And God, that makes me happy.
“I’ll have to make that up to you later,” I say, as I zip up my fly.
She lets out a low laugh and holds up two fingers like a hippie at a peace walk.
“Twice?”
Candy bites the inside of her lip. A third finger joins the second.
“Damn, darling, you drive a hard bargain.” I come up behind her and wrap my arms around her, burrowing my face into her hair. “But, I think you deserve at least four orgasms tonight for having to deal with that prick Quinten.”
“Deal.”
I turn her to face me and cup her face in my hands. For a moment, all I can do is drink in the sight of her until my entire body fills to the brim.
I should be devastated at the cost of my happiness, but I’m not. In fact, I may just be a selfish prick, but I’m convinced the universe still has a fuck load of making up to do. For the shit Candy and I put up with, we both deserve a happy ending bursting with happiness, and life…
And love.
All the love we can bear.
Epilogue - Candy
“Jo. Jo! Wake up!” I grab Josiah’s shoulder and drag him onto his back. He grunts at me, slinging a hand over his face to shield the sun from his eyes.
“Christ, what? Is there a fire?”
I bark out a laugh and straddle him, bouncing up and down on his lap like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Candy, God.”
I stop bouncing the moment his dick hardens. Biting the inside of my lip, I try to slide off him with a mumbled, “Sorry.”
He grabs my hips, keeping me in place. “Too late for that, darling. Now tell me what was so important you had to get my dick hard?”
I giggle at his serious expression, knowing he’s just being grumpy for the sake of it. I don’t mind. I love it, in fact. Sex is off the charts on any regular day, but when I make him angry…
He bucks into me, and I squirm around in delight as a delicious ache ignites my core.
But all that
can wait.
“Guess what I found?” My toes curl against the silky sheets as I wait for Jo to answer.
That sullen expression slides off his face. His eyes widen as his fingertips sink into my flesh. “We got mail?” He pushes up to his elbows, slapping the sides of my thighs when all I do is nod furiously at him. “And?”
I hold up the envelope from Cornell University. Jo’s eyes dart to it, then back to me. “Open it!”
The envelope trembles. “I’m too scared.”
“Scared for what?” Jo snatches it from me. “You graduated with full honors. They’d be fucking idiots not to have you.”
“But what if—?”
Jo pauses in the act of tearing open the envelope, and then puts it down on the bed beside us. Unsurprisingly, it’s easy to keep my eyes on him and not on the envelope.
Yes, getting into Cornell means the world to me…but a life without Jo isn’t a life worth living. I knew that back then, and that knowledge has only grown stronger.
“That there—” he points at the envelope “—that’s an acceptance letter.”
I draw my lip into my mouth, watching him with wide eyes. He sits up in a rush, hugging me so hard I squeak. But I’m gripping him too, clinging to him like he’s my life raft.
I guess, in a way, he is. If it wasn’t for him…
“In fact, we’re gonna celebrate before we even open it,” he says, leaning back from me. But as soon as he catches sight of my face, the pride on his face melts away. “Hey…what’s wrong?”
I sniff, shaking my head and then nuzzling into the side of his neck, so he won’t see me crying. “I’m so happy,” I mumble.
“Me too,” he says. He strokes the back of my neck, shifting my hair aside so he can rain tiny kisses on my skin. “But I want to make you even happier.”
I giggle through another sniff when he tickles the side of my neck with his stubble. It’s been weeks since I took my last exam, and we’ve been laying low in the beach house the entire time. Honestly, there’s no reason for us to leave this place. We’ve got cable, satellite Internet, a pantry that could see us through the apocalypse, and a very reluctant babysitter who stops by once a week with groceries and silent reprimands written all over his aging face.
