“You have to figure out the worst case scenario. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Try to keep that from happening. The rest of it will shake out.”
He stared at her, grin widening. “That’s terrible advice.”
“Isn’t it, though? But it helps, I think.”
~*~
She was drunk. They lay flat on their backs, arms touching because nothing but a full king size bed could have accommodated Candy-plus-one. The ceiling went in and out of focus, and her head felt pleasantly heavy. She hadn’t been this intoxicated in a while, but rather than panicked, she felt peaceful, safe, warm. Brave enough to revisit the issue of her fate.
“What’s going to happen?” she asked, after she’d unglued her dry tongue from the roof of her mouth.
Candy cleared his throat. “You’re gonna make sure I don’t fuck up this garage project.”
“You’re not sending me to Knoxville to be with Walsh?”
“Sweetheart.” He sighed deeply. “No.”
She didn’t understand why she was glad to hear that. God knew she loved King, and would have enjoyed living at his farm for a time, getting to know his new wife better, having girls’ nights with Ava Lécuyer.
But she was glad to be staying. Maybe that was just the Scotch.
Her mobile rang.
The sound shocked her so badly that she didn’t react at first. And then she jerked upright, head spinning, and staggered off the bed to retrieve the thing from the desk.
It was a strange number. Her fingers fumbled over the screen, damn the Scotch. “Hello?”
“Chelle.” It was Tommy.
“Tom!” She sat down heavily in the chair and clutched the back of it for support. “Where are you? How are you? Are you okay? You haven’t torn all your stitches, have you?”
He laughed. “I can’t tell you, fine, and no, I haven’t.”
She sighed, shoulders slumping. “Seriously. Are you okay?”
The laughter faded from his voice. “Yeah.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“You never believe me.”
On the bed, Candy had pushed upright, leaning against the headboard again, reaching to scratch at his spiky hair in a way that made his biceps bulge dramatically. She forced her eyes away from him, not wanting to be distracted.
“Where are you?” she asked again. “I tried to call you, but your number was out of service.”
“Phil thinks it’s best if I don’t tell you,” he said, and she could imagine his expression, the troubled light in his eyes.
“So I don’t blurt it out when I’m tortured for information?” she guessed. “I’m all the way in Texas. There’s no danger of that.”
Quiet a beat. “That isn’t why.”
“Then–”
“I think he’s afraid you’ll come here,” he said, and she could almost hear him wincing with regret.
“I…” The air went out of her lungs. “He thinks I would do something that reckless?” When Tommy didn’t respond, she said, “He doesn’t trust me.”
“It’s not like that.” He sounded miserable.
But it was, and the knowledge lay heavy between them now.
“You doing alright?” Tommy asked.
“Yeah. Fine.”
He tried to force some humor into his voice. “You get to see Candyman knock anyone’s teeth out yet?”
“No. But I’m sure it’s inevitable.”
He sighed. “Chelle. Don’t be angry.”
“I’m not.” And she wasn’t. She was devastated. And because she was, and because she was also drunk, her eyes filled with tears and she closed them tight, willing the emotion away, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.
She managed a shaky breath. “I want you to be very careful, okay? Don’t do anything stupid when I’m not there to advise you against it.”
“Chelle, it’s not forever. Just for a bit. Things will be back to normal soon.”
“Be careful,” she repeated. “I love you.” And ended the call before she embarrassed herself.
Speaking of embarrassment…Candy was still over on the bed, watching her.
She could not fall apart. Not an option.
Hands balled into fists on her thighs, eyes shut tight, she concentrated on her breathing. In and out. Focused on her tears, swallowed down the crying jag that threatened. She would not be weak. She would not prove her father’s fears.
“Michelle.” The bed creaked as Candy got up. His socked feet moved across the carpet, light scuffing sounds. One of his joints – a knee, probably – popped loudly and he grunted.
Knowing he stood over her, too proud to let him see her tears, she finally managed to clamp down on her outburst and opened her eyes, tilted her head back to look at him. His sun-bronzed, wind-lined face was so full of sympathy, her stomach recoiled in dread.
“What?”
“Phillip called me today,” he said, “just before church. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. That’s the conversation.”
She sucked in a breath. “What – what did he say?”
He exhaled deeply, huge shoulders lifting and then dropping. “What happened in London scared him bad. He said he’d had his priorities mixed up, and that it’s time he really thought about them.”
“No.”
“He wants you to get out. Transition into civilian life.”
“Oh, God…”
“And he said,” he went on, tone wry, expression pained, “that he trusted me to do the right thing by you, and help you get out.”
“Get out and do what?”
He shook his head.
She couldn’t process. Her mind wouldn’t categorize and stow like it always did. She just…she…
No.
Just no.
The tears came then, finally. After being checked for so long, they would hold no longer, a hot slide down her face that she tried to cover with her hands.
Candy sighed again. “Come here, baby doll.” And his big hands latched gently onto her arms.
She was shaking too badly to resist him, and like the doll he’d called her, he picked her up, tucked her in against the hard wall of his chest, and went to sit on the bed with her.
She hated herself in that moment, the way she leaned against him, unable to stop crying. But there was nothing to do but let it run its course.
~*~
He didn’t offer her any fake platitudes, or tell her everything would be fine. She couldn’t have stood those sorts of lies. Instead he was quiet, strong and solid around her, one large hand rubbing up and down her back.
Finally, the terrible hiccupping, breathless sobs quieted. She swiped at her face with her sleeve and sat up straight. She was sitting in Candy’s lap, his arms around her, and she’d left a big wet stain on his shirt…which was now clinging to his chest in an eye-catching way. It was cozy, intimate, and completely humiliating.
“Oh no.” She wiped her face again, sniffed, wriggled with the intent to get away. His arm tightened behind her back. “I’ve cried all over your shirt. I’m sorry. I’ll…I didn’t mean…I’ll go and fetch a towel.”
But his hand clamped against her waist.
“If you’ll let me up…”
“Michelle.”
She finally met his eyes, expecting him to be equally embarrassed, put out that he’d had to comfort her, repulsed by what was no doubt now a blotchy, puffy-eyed face.
But he was giving her a soft, patient look. In her current state, it completely melted her insides; like butter hitting a hot griddle, she went liquid inside.
“I’m sorry,” she said with a trembling sigh. “I must look a mess.”
“Still cute, though.”
A warning siren started up in the back of her mind. She wasn’t in any state to be making decisions. She needed to abandon his lap now.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, stupidly.
“You don’t have to be. You also don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I told Phillip I’d
look out for you. I didn’t promise him I’d help you run off and get a regular girl life.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
She couldn’t have looked away if she’d wanted to; her eyes were locked with his, and it was too difficult to process any of the swirling emotions that clouded her conscience. So she didn’t. She could only reflect, as she saw the intention in his gaze, that she’d known this would happen. A small awareness at the back of her mind, something animal and instinctual. The moment she’d allowed him to come in here and pour them both drinks, she’d sealed her fate. Their fate, actually: this wasn’t happening to her – him leaning closer, his hand sliding up to cup the back of her neck – but happening between them. The alcohol had burned away the haze of doubt, and her grief had sharpened her need to something acute and painful.
His mouth was hot, his lower lip sticky with Scotch. She was already drunk, but just that faint taste seemed to push her over the edge, everything going blurry and heated in her mind. All awareness faded; the world was nothing but his kiss.
And oh, what a kiss.
A patient, gentle, drawn-out sort of kiss, teasing at her lips, coaxing them apart. And she was starving for it. Christ. She balled her fists into the damp front of his shirt. When his tongue slipped between her lips, she couldn’t prevent the breathless sound that stirred in her throat.
He pulled back a fraction, his thumb against her windpipe, holding her still with the faintest pressure. His face was harsh with restraint, such total contrast to the careful way he’d kissed her. His eyes, bright as lit matchsticks, tracked across her face, searching for distress.
“You aren’t going to shock me,” she whispered.
“You sure about that?” His hand traveled upward, cupped the side of her face. His thumb pressed the center of her lower lip. “You’re sweeter than I thought you’d be.”
Her mouth went dry. Her pulse skittered. “Yes, I–”
He kissed her again.
She pushed every thought from her head, and fell into the moment, arms outstretched, mouth open, taste of sugar against her tongue.
Nine
Michelle
This was the joy of being with older men: their expertise.
Candy tangled his fingers in her hair and held her close. Gently assaulted her mouth, tongue plunging and retreating, working her jaw wider with a careful press of his thumb behind her ear. It was like he knew that it took her a while to warm up, that she wasn’t a zero to sixty kind of girl. That she wanted to taste her lover first, and melt slowly.
Her hands wandered. Across the broad expanse of his chest. The hard endcaps of his shoulders. Up his throat, his pulse thumping strong against her questing fingers. His jaw, the flex of muscle and tendon, the clean hard edges of bone, alive with movement as he kissed her.
Masculine, vital, lethal and big, all of him. And she wanted him. Was feverish for more.
He knew, somehow. Broke away from her mouth, trailed his lips across her face, her jaw, down her throat. Each touch of his lips to her skin sent a fresh jolt of awareness through her. An all-over tightening of her skin, a prickly, painful rushing in her veins.
She was ready for bed, and wasn’t wearing a bra beneath her shirt, so that when he drew it off over her head, the cool air scattered gooseflesh across her chest.
Candy pulled back so he could look at her, eyes bright. Heat rushed beneath her skin. A fast flash of self-consciousness. He’d been with so many women, some of them surgically-enhanced, no doubt. Would she measure up? Would he –
All worry vanished as he murmured in obvious satisfaction, reaching with both hands to cover her breasts. Warm, work-roughened palms chafing at her nipples. Strong, knowledgeable fingers cupping and shaping her.
Her neck weakened as she watched, her breasts growing heavy and achy in his hands.
When he ducked his head, she speared her fingers through his hair. “Please. Oh, yes.” His mouth was warm, his tongue expert against her nipple. Rhythmic suckling, first one and then the other. Until she was breathless and arching into his mouth.
He laughed, darkly, and shifted, laid her out flat on the bed in one sudden, world-tilting move. She gasped with surprise. And then he was above her, a great golden panther, expression full of wicked intent.
~*~
Candy
She was perfect, and by that he meant that she wasn’t, and that was too delightful and refreshing to go unacknowledged. He hadn’t known just how jaded he was until now, with this glorious girl laid beneath him like a sacrificial offering, her eyes dilated, her honey hair splashed across the pillow, her breasts shiny from his mouth.
It was all a show with his waitresses and groupies, from the posing, to the lip-biting, to the theatrical moaning. Every move was calculated, like they’d practiced in front of a mirror. Their tans were fake, their nails professionally lacquered. They slathered themselves in lotions, oils, creams and perfumes that tasted like chemicals against his tongue.
But Michelle was nothing but clean young skin, her movements unconscious, her eyes cloudy with real desire. She was too invested in the club to be looking for danger; she was after pleasure, comfort, escape. Things he knew well.
“Candy?” she asked, doubt creeping into her voice. “What are you doing?”
“Looking at you, sweetheart.” And he leaned down to kiss her again.
~*~
Michelle
He kissed her for an eternity, hands roving up and down the length of her body, pressing her leggings flush against her damp sex, teasing her. He stripped them off with a few quick tugs, and then it was his bare hand against her. God…
She was already wet and he trailed his fingertips against her slick folds, just teasing at first. She made a gasping, incoherent sound in the back of her throat and was rewarded by his chuckle, deep and dark. And by a more possessive touch. Parting her, entering her…
Then he pulled back and reared above her.
“No!” she whimpered, too far gone to be ashamed of herself for begging. “Wait, please, don’t stop.”
“Not stopping. Promise.”
In the golden lamplight, he undressed. She watched him strip down to all those gorgeous acres of skin, and her pulse throbbed in every inch of her overstimulated body.
Her imagination hadn’t done him justice. His shoulders seemed even wider now that they were bare, gleaming in the buttery lamplight. His chest was heavily padded with muscle beneath a light dusting of blonde hair, his pecs tattooed: the running black dog of the club logo, and portraits of a man and a woman. His parents, she guessed. Both of them gone, the burden of the club and his family resting solely on those broad shoulders.
She cut off that line of thinking with a loud clink of a mental file drawer. He was beautiful, but it was the man she was starting to see behind those blue eyes she was…having mushy feelings for. But she couldn’t linger on the sad things, the responsible things – not now. Not when she needed him to touch her so badly. So she shut it away.
His abs bunched up tight as he unbuckled his belt. He stripped off jeans and boots in an efficient sequence that told her he was used to ditching his clothes in a hurry. And then he was naked. And her left her mouth dry.
He was everything she hadn’t expected to want, and he was absolutely gorgeous. Enraptured, she watched openly as he pulled a condom from his wallet, tore the foil with his teeth, and rolled it on. She thought his hand lingered a little too long, squeezing around the base of his cock as he glanced up at her.
She wanted to laugh, looking at the size of him, thinking of her own size, wondering how bad it was going to hurt. But she reached out a hand for him, wanting him against her.
The bed dipped dramatically when he climbed onto it. Michelle put her arms around his neck when he settled over her, wanting to feel the thick velvet of his naked skin.
He smoothed his palms up the insides of her thighs, spreading them. His fingers found her sex, a hot slick of wetness at this point.
She dug her nails into the back of his neck. “Why don’t you stop calling me names and find out?”
He laughed out loud this time, all Scotch vapors and low throaty growl. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He teased at her with another finger, sliding in along the first. The stretch burned, just a little; she hissed through her teeth. “Hmm. See. Not ready,” he mocked, but his eyes were heavy and dark now with want. She felt his hard cock against her thigh, felt the heat of it even through the condom.
“You’re a tease,” she accused, breathless.
His fingers slid in deeper, up to the knuckle, and she clenched around them, stifling a curse behind her lips.
“Nah.” His voice was sinful at this point. “No, baby doll, I never tease.” He crooked his fingers to make the point.
“Candy.”
“Alright, sweetheart. Hold on.” His hips settled over hers.
His eyes locked with hers, and doubt caught at her again. She wondered what the hell she was thinking. And then the head of his cock pressed for entry, and she was consumed by the sensation.
He wouldn’t let her look away, his blue eyes holding hers tight, and he wouldn’t relent, but slowly, deliberately filled her inch-by-considerable-inch.
“You’re alright,” he told her. “Hold on, baby, I’ll go easy.”
She sucked in a deep breath and held it; tears pricked her eyes.
In, in, in. Jesus Christ, but he was big.
His hips kissed her thighs, and he was home.
“Michelle.” Voice strained. “Tell me the truth now. You weren’t ready, were you?”
She didn’t answer. What could she say? The evidence of her fright quivered in each finger and toe. And so she captured his strong jaw between her hands and pulled his head down, strained her neck to kiss him.
He kissed her back, tongue flirting against hers, lips coaxing, sweet. He held still above her, letting her adjust, letting her relax. He propped up on one arm and touched her with the other hand. Stroked her belly. Cupped her breast. Found her clit and probed delicately with his thumb.
Tastes Like Candy (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 2) Page 10
