“I can’t lose her,” he whispered. “I just got her and I want to keep her.”
“She’s not going anywhere.” I squeezed his hand and kissed the back of it.
“What about you?” he asked.
I paused. If he’d asked me this morning, the answer would have been different, but this morning was a lifetime ago. “I’m not sure,” I answered as truthfully as I could.
He nodded his head and held on to my hand tighter. If only it were that simple.
Chapter 28
“Who wants pizza?” Shoshanna yelled, almost back to herself after our field trip to the ER.
We were all in my suite: Luke, Shoshanna, Jim, Mrs. C, Edith, and me. The sisters had taken quite a shine to Jim and were fussing over him. Edith took his measurements and promised him a new sweater. I’d forgotten they knitted. It was difficult to see them as anything other than crazy, smelly, locked-and-loaded assassins.
Shoshanna held Luke’s hand and bounced like a little ball. “It’s over,” she said. “My cheek is killing me, but the wound is in a nice spot. It will look mysterious and sexy when the stitches come out.”
“I’ve got so many fucking scars,” Mrs. C boasted. “Let me show you a doozy.” She unsnapped her pants and began to lower them.
“Good God, no!” I moaned, and covered my eyes. I’d already seen her boobs, I did not want to add her ass to the catalog.
“All right, fine,” she huffed, pulling her pants back up. “I’ll show you all later when Miss Prissy Pants leaves.”
“Speaking of . . .” Luke said. “Now that this is done, I’m going back to Minneapolis. Who’s with me?”
The room went silent. Looks of horror spread across Shoshanna’s and the dykes’ faces. Jim was surprised and I was confused. What was the problem? Shoshanna was safe. We’d done our job. It was time to go . . .
“But the pageant,” Shoshanna gasped. “You are the star of the pageant. You can’t leave; poor Medusa will be bald. You’re Duke LeHump—my son.”
“Um, I . . .” Luke was at a loss; he glanced to me for help. I shrugged my shoulders and giggled. I was fairly sure we were stuck . . .
“Jim can’t do it since he was stabbed by a fucking lunatic,” Edith said with her arm protectively around her new boy toy.
“That only leaves Teddy, Rocky, Cesar, and Cheech . . . and you two,” Shoshanna whined, giving Luke one of those looks that he couldn’t say no to. “Please?”
“I’ll leave this one to Candy,” he said, ducking as I tried to swat him in the head.
“You suck,” I muttered, and realized all eyes in the room were glued to me. Fuck. I had no choice. I mean, what did I have to get home to? My time with Luke was limited. I knew in my heart I couldn’t give up what he needed me to, so could another day or two with him hurt? Who was I kidding? My heart was going to be in shreds when I walked away. Postponing the devastation was a better idea.
I peeked over at him. He was watching me with that wicked sexy half grin and a little part of my heart tore. He was so beautiful and so . . .
“We’ll stay,” I said, ripping my eyes from Luke. “But after the pageant we’re out of here.”
“Yay!” Shoshanna yelled, and the rest of the room joined in. Edith and Mrs. C, never ones to miss a performance opportunity, did a disturbing modern dance that ended in the splits. Jim pulled himself to his feet and gave them a standing ovation. I saw the old coots eye each other in silent psychotic twin communication. Whether Jim knew it or not . . . whether he still had a living biological family or not . . . he was about to get adopted by two insane lesbians. God bless him.
The pizza arrived and we ate and laughed. It was as if nothing had happened earlier. Shoshanna was a little quieter than usual and her vocabulary was less profane, but she seemed happy and content. I was amazed at how resilient people were. How life always went on even after bad things happened. Jim was deep in conversation with Shoshanna about his book and the lesbians listened attentively. The delight on their faces was something I’d never seen. They were with their idol and the young man who didn’t yet realize he belonged to them.
“Hey you,” Luke said, standing in front of me with his hand extended. “Come with me.”
“But Shoshanna, I can’t leave her and . . .”
“She’s fine. It’s over and Jim’s going to stay here tonight. You, on the other hand,” he said, giving me a look that made everything south of my belly button start to tingle, “are not.”
Everything else disappeared except Luke. God, how was I going to say good-bye? I stood and took his hand. I had no idea if we said we were leaving to anyone in the room. I forgot anyone else was even in the room. I placed my hand in his and I followed him. I would have followed him anywhere. I inhaled deeply and let all the turmoil in my mind fall away. I wanted to be right where I was . . . in this moment . . . with the man I had stupidly fallen in love with.
His room was dark and it smelled like him—all sexy and soapy and man. He turned on the bedside lamp and stared at me, as if he was trying to memorize me and I did the same.
“Luke, I . . .”
“Nope, not tonight. No talking tonight unless it’s yelling my name and comparing me to God.” He grinned and pulled his shirt over his head.
Why did he have to look like he did? He was so damn beautiful I had to sit. He wasn’t the broody, angry, closed-off guy that Steve used to know. I still saw the pain and violence of his past in his eyes occasionally, but it was less now. He was open and happy and so damn sexy . . . Was it me? Did I make him this way?
“I’d ask you what you were thinking if I wasn’t afraid of your answer,” he said, pulling me up from the chair and flush with his body.
“When you do that, I can’t think at all,” I said truthfully, lightly running my fingers over his chest.
“I don’t want to fuck tonight,” he said, and my eyes shot to his in disappointment. He chuckled and pulled me closer, putting his lips by my ear. “Let me rephrase that. We’re definitely going to fuck, but it’s going to be more. I want to make love to every inch of your body and then I want to do it again. And again.”
My knees buckled and I grabbed his shoulders for balance. “God, don’t say stuff like that unless you want me to pass out before we get started.”
“You’ll pass out,” he assured me as he lifted me and carried me to his bed, “but it won’t be until you’ve come so many times you can’t take any more.”
“Promises, promises,” I quipped shakily.
“Candace, I don’t make promises I can’t keep. Remember that.”
And he wasn’t joking—not even a little bit. At the rate we were going, neither of us would make it to the pageant tomorrow because we couldn’t walk . . . much less twerk.
“I think I’m dead,” I groaned, and laughed.
“Nah, you just need a little breather before you ride me like a cowboy,” he challenged. Every nerve in my body jumped to attention. How did he do that? Everything that I thought was worn out came alive at the thought of crawling on top of him and having him at my mercy.
I’d been tied up, spanked, and fucked so thoroughly I was crazy to want more, but I did . . . and it was clear from his perma-hard-on, he wanted it too.
“I’m not sure you can handle me, big boy,” I cooed, and ran my hands over my breasts, pinching my nipples and sending little shocks of pleasure through my body.
“Try me.” His voice was rough with desire. He put his hands behind his head and waited.
“You have to keep your hands there,” I told him. “You’re not allowed to touch me unless I tell you to . . . and you’ll have to beg.”
His sexy grin made me shiver. I got on all fours and crawled to him. I rose to my knees and arched my back. His hissed intake of breath was music to my ears. “You can’t touch my breasts,” I said, caressing myself. “Or this.” I ran my hands down my body and stopped on my stomach. “And you really can’t touch this,” I said as I slid my hand between my legs and pr
essed my fingers into my very ready and excited body. “Can you follow those rules?” I let my hips undulate as my hand teased my body.
“Yes,” he ground out as his hips began to move involuntarily. “I can do that, but you better fuck the life out of me or I’ll flip you over and fuck you so hard you’ll scream until you have no voice.”
My body shuddered and I almost came from his words alone.
“I’ll fuck you,” I promised. “But first I want something else.”
He groaned and closed his eyes and I took him in my hand and ran my tongue over the head of his cock. He jutted his hips up and tried to push more of his length into my mouth. I pulled back and released him. “Uh, uh, uh,” I scolded, and grasped his cock firmly in my hand. “You can’t move. I’m doing all the moving.”
“Fuck,” he hissed. “Just, please. Please.”
“Please what?” I whispered, pressing my rock-hard nipples into his thigh and letting my hair fall over him.
“Suck it,” he moaned. “Please, baby—suck it.”
“My pleasure,” I said, relaxing my throat and taking as much as I could of him into my mouth. I closed my lips and sucked as I pressed my tongue along the swollen vein on the outside of his shaft.
“Oh God,” he gasped, and grabbed the headboard. “Please let me move my hips, baby. Let me fuck your mouth—oh God, please.”
With a nonverbal refusal, I put my hands on his hips to still him. He swore as I moved up and down faster and deeper, applying a flicking pressure with my tongue that was sending him over the edge.
“Stop,” he hissed, pulling me off of him and up his body. “I want to come inside you.”
“You cheated,” I gasped, so turned on I was barely functioning.
He raised his head and pressed his forehead to mine. His breathing was labored and he was holding on by a thread. “Rules are made to be broken. Straddle me. Now,” he said in a low voice that left no room for argument. Not that I had any plans to disagree . . .
I spread my legs and did as I was told. I slowly lowered my body onto his and felt light-headed as we became completely fused to each other. He rose up and held my hips in an iron grip.
“Don’t move yet.”
My insides clenched with the most intense pleasure as we stayed motionless in the most intimate way. He slowly ground his hips, hitting spots that sent colors dancing across my vision. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back.
“Look at me,” he demanded. With one hand still firmly on my hip, he tangled his other in my hair, forcing me to his will. “This time you will know what I’m feeling. Not because my body tells you—because I’m going to tell you.”
“Luke, no.”
“Candy, yes.” Without taking his hand from my hair, he lifted me and slammed me back down on him, sending white-hot sparks through me. “I’m in love with you,” he said as he repeated his sexual torture.
I couldn’t speak—I could barely think.
He lifted me up and down in a rhythm that wouldn’t cease until we both couldn’t take it anymore. “You’ve made me whole.” The slapping of our skin plus the frightening words he uttered made the blood roar in my ears. “I’m different now and I won’t go back,” he grunted as he increased the speed, letting his hand fall from my hair and placing it back on my hip so he was in total control of the situation.
“Say it,” he demanded, raising his body to meet mine as he forcefully brought me down on him. “Say it.”
I trembled with desire and fear. Making love was one thing, saying it was something else altogether . . .
“I . . .”
“Say it, Candy. Give me the truth at least one time before you disappear.”
My body jerked and a feeling of despair mixed with the most intense sexual need I’d ever felt made me scream. I rocked my body back and met his with a desperate longing from an unlocked place inside myself. He had stolen the key and I knew he would never return it.
“I love you,” I gasped. Perpetual motion. I could deal with fast and hard—soft and gentle and real might break me. I rode him wildly and he held me tight. I tasted a warm salty liquid as my tears slid over my lips. The tempo danced toward violence as he crushed his mouth to mine, repeating the words that thrilled and destroyed me.
A tight coil of heat started down low in my belly and spiraled up through my body as I started to come.
“I’m there,” he hissed, and he bit down on the sensitive part where my neck met my shoulders. “Come with me.”
He didn’t need to ask. I clenched him like a vise as my body rocked with spasms. I cried out as he shouted his release. He rode out my orgasm, pumping into me more gently than he had been. I collapsed on top of him as the aftershocks shook me.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, and held me close as an avalanche of tears ran down my face. “Everything will be okay.”
“Luke, I . . .”
“Don’t talk. Don’t say anything. Just let me have this.”
I stayed silent, wrapped in his arms, and wondered who was crazier—me or him. Him for thinking we could get out of our profession and make a life together or me for thinking we couldn’t.
Chapter 29
We would handle the night before like the adults we were. We would avoid it. I knew I had looked better. I’d barely slept as I lay tangled up in Luke all through the night. I tried to memorize his scent and every muscle in his body. I slipped out of bed and went back to my room to get ready before he woke. The weight of the world sat heavily on my shoulders as I pretended today was simply another day.
“Are you going to wear that?” Shoshanna asked as she shoved a monster-size cheese Danish in her mouth.
“What’s wrong with this?” I asked, looking down at my jeans, kick-ass boots, and icy blue-fitted long-sleeve T-shirt that matched my eyes.
“You’re still Mandy Dandermanschmidt but you look like Candy Sanderson.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “I have to be Mandy?”
“Yep.” She grinned and offered me her half-eaten Danish. “Try this, it’s fucking awesome.”
“Um, thanks, but I’m good,” I told her as I halfheartedly pulled a hooker outfit from my suitcase.
“You okay?” Shoshanna asked, putting her small hand gently on my back.
“Yep.” I smiled and gave her a quick hug as I moved toward the bathroom to change.
“You know, Candy,” Shoshanna volunteered, “I just finished writing an intense chapter with Donna and Bruce.”
“Great.”
“Would you like to know what happens?”
“I think I already do,” I said sadly.
“Nah.” She laughed. “You only got to the false ending . . . the best is yet to come.”
I shrugged my shoulders and slipped into the bathroom before I started to cry. Shoshanna could never understand. She believed in fairy tales and happily-ever-afters . . . I knew there were no such things.
“Jesus Christ, this shit is uncomfortable,” Edith groused as she waddled down the crowded hallway in stilettos and a green rubber halter dress. “Rubber is for fucking tires. My tits are soaked.”
I bit back a laugh. I couldn’t have agreed with her more. I felt ridiculous in my tight leather pants and vest that was squeezing the life out of my boobs. We were a motley crew, but frighteningly, we didn’t stand out in the crowd.
Shoshanna was back in her purple rubber jumpsuit with a matching purple gauze pad covering her stitches. Where in the hell did she get that? She looked like a drunken rubber pirate who’d missed his eye when he tried to put his patch on. Mrs. C had donned a hot pink leather miniskirt and top that she’d clearly bejeweled before she’d arrived, and Luke and Jim rounded us out in leather pants, chains, and no shirts. Jim walked a bit gingerly, but apparently the pain meds were helping.
“So, Jim, not that I care either way,” Mrs. C said. “I have a question I don’t know the answer to . . . I’m thinking the answer is no, but the leather thing is throwing me off.”
I braced myself for a doozy.
“Are you gay or straight or bi or asexual or into . . .”
“Um, I’m straight,” Jim said, cutting her off before she said something so gross we’d all be sick. He was in for a world of pain with these two and I felt for him.
“That’s great,” Edith whispered loudly to her sister. “I want some fucking grandkids.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Jim asked, alarmed.
“Nothing.” Mrs. C punched her sister in the head and put her arm around Jim. “You’re looking great, baby. Just great. You have a girlfriend?”
“Not at the moment,” he admitted.
“Shoshanna,” Mrs. C yelled even though she was two feet from her. “Don’t you have an unmarried daughter?”
Holy hell, the laugh I’d held back earlier escaped and the look on Jim’s face was priceless. Those old biddies were going to try to marry Jim off to Sue Junior.
“Sure do.” Shoshanna’s eyes grew wide with glee as she eyed Jim in a whole new light.
“I’m . . . uh, really not on the market right now,” he stammered.
“I call bullshit,” Edith grunted. “Everybody needs to get laid. Right, Shoshanna?”
“That’s right,” she agreed. “You don’t even have to marry her,” Shoshanna explained logically. “Just get her knocked up so I can have some grandkiddies.”
“Wow, that’s quite an . . . um, offer, but I . . . um,” Jim choked out.
“Watch it,” Luke cut in with an evil gleam in his eye. “That’s my sister you’re talking about.”
“Right,” Jim stuttered, and checked his nonexistent watch. “Oh my God, we’re late to the signing.”
“He’s right,” I agreed, trying to help the poor guy out. “Those Street Walkers are going to get antsy. We better move it.”
Jim shot me a grateful glance. Luke grinned and slapped him on the back. “Welcome to the family,” he told Jim. “We’re seriously fucked up.”
We entered the large convention room and the crowd went nuts when they spotted Shoshanna. On reflex, my hand went to my gun, as did Luke’s, Edith’s and Mrs. C’s. Shoshanna and Jim gave us withering looks and we all sheepishly relaxed our stance. Ingrained habits were hard to break . . .
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