Man Candy

by Amanda Young

  MAN CANDY

  Amanda Young

  ®

  www.loose-id.com

  Warning

  This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id® e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  * * * * *

  This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable.

  Man Candy

  Amanda Young

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by

  Loose Id LLC

  1802 N Carson Street, Suite 212-2924

  Carson City NV 89701-1215

  www.loose-id.com

  Copyright © June 2007 by Amanda Young

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared in any form, including, but not limited to printing, photocopying, faxing, or emailing without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC.

  ISBN 978-1-59632-491-6

  Available in Adobe PDF, HTML, MobiPocket, and MS Reader

  Printed in the United States of America

  Editor: Jana J. Hanson

  Cover Artist: April Martinez

  Chapter One

  The sun shone brightly, not a single cloud daring to mar the baby-blue perfection of the sky. Not quite eight a.m., it was already close to eighty degrees. A perfect Monday morning for Aaron Samuels’s daily walk to work. Living less than a mile from both his job and college, he’d never seen the point of buying a car. With his meager salary as an administrative assistant at Remora’s Construction, he could scarcely afford the upkeep and insurance anyway.

  Under his breath, he whistled a song, some little ditty about love and loss he’d heard on the radio before leaving home. His sneakers made good time over the cracked sidewalk, drawing him closer to his place of employment.

  On his way in, he passed by a Starbucks and was tempted to buy himself a cappuccino or one of those frothy drinks everyone on TV always raved about. A quick tally in his head of the amount of money he had left for the month, and he changed his mind. He could wait for a plain old regular cup of coffee once he got into the office. That wouldn’t cost him anything, and it was just as good. No sense in spending money when he didn’t have to.

  He smiled good morning at a middle-aged woman in cutoffs and T-shirt who speed-walked passed him, a tiny Chihuahua on a leash in front of her. With a glance both ways, he jogged across the road and picked up his pace.

  Not usually a morning person, today he was happy and chipper as could be. Things were beginning to look up for him. In the past month, he’d aced his final exams and graduated in the top ten percent of his class with a degree in horticulture. On the recommendation of his counselor, he’d dared to reach for the stars and had applied for management positions at several companies and nurseries. He was surprised to hear back from Lowe’s within two weeks. He’d made it through the grueling interview ‑‑ something he’d never been good at ‑‑ and landed a job as floor manager over the garden department.

  Aaron approached the squat brick building that housed the Remora’s Construction office and entered through the dingy glass door. He made a mental note to grab some glass cleaner to take care of the smudges. Cleaning wasn’t in his job description, but appearances could make all the difference in how a business was perceived. He didn’t mind going above the call of duty for his boss. Logan Remora was a great man to work for, had been exceedingly kind to Aaron over the four years he’d worked as Logan’s assistant, and Aaron didn’t mind doing a little extra now and then, if it helped make things run more smoothly for the man. It was the least he could do, especially now that he would be putting in his notice.

  A disconcerting ball of sadness formed in the pit of his gut at the thought of moving on and leaving his current position. He’d grown comfortable at Remora’s Construction and didn’t look forward to starting over elsewhere, though he had to admit that he was excited about the raise he would garner. The increased salary would be more than appreciated by someone who lived off of Ramen Noodles and Pop-Tarts a lot of the time.

  What he didn’t look forward to was leaving his boss shorthanded at the end of the week. He would’ve liked to have given more notice, but the new job required he begin next Monday, and he wasn’t about to start out a new position on the wrong foot by trying to wheedle for more time. He just hoped he didn’t put Mr. Remora in a bind.

  Aaron stopped midway down the short hall between two identical doors, one with blue, curlicue lettering spelling out Interior Design by Jake, the other with straight black script declaring Remora’s Construction.

  Twisting to his right, he unlocked the door leading into Remora’s Construction and stepped inside, locking it back up behind him for the time being. Mr. Remora’s twin brother, Jake, owned the interior design company. While the brothers ended up working together on several projects a year, they both seemed to prefer to keep their businesses separate. Which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Aaron, considering the overhead and other costs, but as a lowly assistant, he didn’t have any right to tell anyone how to run their company. His job was to make coffee and fetch files, not to tell them how to improve their business efficiency. Or, it would be his job for the rest of the week. After that, he was on to bigger and better things.

  He dreamed of having his own landscape design business one day. This was why he’d majored in horticulture and minored in business. With his degree, he would be able to handle the design aspects and the office. A bit of a control freak, he didn’t like the thought of depending on someone else to do that work for him. Although he probably would have to hire some help, some little flunky not unlike himself, to do all the things he didn’t care for, such as answering the phones.

  The thought put a smile on his face as he bypassed the drab front room ‑‑ occupied by his small desk in one corner, and a grouping of four chairs and a table littered with an assortment of old magazines in another ‑‑ and walked into the tiny kitchenette. There he busied himself with making a fresh pot of coffee, the special dark roast his boss liked best, before returning to his desk and checking to see if there were any messages on the machine.

  He scribbled down a couple of messages about scheduling an appointment for estimates on work, and another from Jake, reminding his brother about some after-hours business meeting they had to attend later in the week. He booted up his computer, an old dinosaur of a desktop, so it could warm up while he went out to clean the filthy glass doors. He ran into the bathroom and grabbed a roll of paper towels and a half-full spray-bottle of glass cleaner from beneath the sink before heading out. As he stepped out the door, he once again glanced across the hall at the pretty design on Jake’s door. Logan should do something more like that on his entrance, he thought, instead of sticking with plain black lettering. Jake’s was so much more appealing.

  Aaron shook his head, shaggy auburn hair falling over onto his forehead, and misted the glass with cleaner. He tore off a fistful of towels and wiped down the glass, using long, smooth strokes to keep it from streaking.

  Sometimes it was really hard to remember that Logan and Jake were related, much less identical twins. Each man was attractive, with thick dark hair, eyes so deep brown they bordered on black, and
a naturally tan complexion that hinted at their Mediterranean heritage, but those basic features were where the things they had in common ended. Everything else about them was polar opposite. Jake was friendly and artistic, always very proper about things, and supposedly as gay as the day was long, though Aaron had never seem him with either sex outside of business. Logan was the embodiment of exactly what someone would expect a general contractor to be: rough around the edges, a bit uncouth at times, but an overall nice guy. He even married his high school sweetheart right after graduation and was still married to her.

  Which made the way Aaron felt about Logan all the more inappropriate and uncomfortable. It was true that people had no control over who they fell in love with, because he’d been in love with his boss for the last four years. No matter how many dates he’d gone on, or how many men he’d let fuck him into oblivion, the hopeless yearning he felt for a man he could never have would not go away.

  Thank God he wouldn’t have to worry about having temptation so near after the end of the week. His greatest fear was that Logan would somehow find out his secret and confront him about it. He would shrivel up and die if that happened. It was one thing to be attracted to someone straight, another thing to be attracted to your boss, or even a married man. All those things combined, however, were a nightmare waiting to happen, the equivalent of when he’d had his pants yanked down in front of the entire sixth-grade class by that bully, Mike what’s-his-name. That one still haunted his dreams on occasion.

  A rough hand slapped down on Aaron’s shoulder. He jumped and spun around, dropping the paper towels to the ground, where they unceremoniously unrolled out over the slate-grey linoleum.

  “Hey, Aaron, calm down. It’s just me. I didn’t mean to scare ya.”

  Aaron tilted his head up and stared into Jake’s eyes, a shade lighter than ink, and felt himself relax a tad. The defensive set of his shoulders eased, and he took a relieved breath. “Shit. How many times have I asked you not to sneak up on me?”

  Jake laughed, the heavy rumble building up from deep in his broad chest. A chest currently covered in a salmon-colored shirt ‑‑ silk, if Aaron guessed right ‑‑ and coupled with a stiffly pressed pair of beige Dockers. Knowing Jake, the shirt was probably from some obscure fashion designer no one had ever heard of. He was like that. Always up on whatever the latest up-and-comer was producing. Not for the first time, Aaron wondered why he couldn’t have fallen for Jake. He didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of landing either of them, not a skinny, freckled little nerd like him, but somehow being rejected by Jake seemed like less of a tragedy than the unrequited feelings he harbored for Logan. At least with Jake he could’ve made a move and been shot down. That was probably half his problem right there ‑‑ without being able to express his feelings for Logan, they coalesced into a huge, over exaggerated ball inside him and festered there with no way out. He hoped that was the problem, anyway. With time and distance, he was sure the feelings would dissipate. He hated to think otherwise. Endlessly carrying a torch for someone he couldn’t be with was too torturous a thought to contemplate.

  “Sorry, bud. I called out to you, but you were a million miles away. Must’ve been thinking about something good, too, because I know washing the windows isn’t that damn interesting.”

  Aaron rolled his eyes. “Oh, it is. I have a secret fetish for windows. Like to spend my free time jerking off on them. You just caught me cleaning up my mess before the big boss man comes in.”

  Jake chuckled and slapped him playfully on the shoulder. “You’re too much, Aaron. I’m going to miss seeing your cute face around here when you finally land a job with that spiffy new degree of yours.”

  Aaron felt heat suffuse his face, both at the offhand compliment and the reference to his leaving. With his fair complexion, he imagined his face was the color of beets. Blushing was one of the many downfalls of being a natural redhead. “Yeah, about that, I ‑‑”

  “About what?” Logan breezed through the entrance door and strolled up to them in his usual uniform of tight, worn denim and a faded company T-shirt stretched across his wide shoulders. His obsidian gaze traveled back and forth between Aaron and Jake. “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time than stand around harassing my help, Jake?”

  Aaron couldn’t help himself. He visually devoured every ridge of muscle in his boss’s chest and abdomen, clearly delineated in form-fitting black cotton. The jeans hung precariously low on his narrow hips, as if a stiff wind would blow them down at any second. Aaron would have given his eyeteeth to see that happen just once.

  Logan cleared his throat, and Aaron realized he’d been caught staring, which, in turn, made his face flame even hotter. He sputtered, “Uh, what were you saying, Mr. Remora?”

  “I asked if Jake was bothering you.”

  “Uh, no. We were just talking.”

  Logan’s gaze seemed to soften. “Good. How about some coffee, Aaron? And how many times do I have to remind you to call me Logan? You’d think you would be comfortable enough to call me by name by now. You’ve been under me forever.”

  Don’t I wish? The only time I’ve ever been under you is in my fantasies, and I call out your name plenty in those. Aaron felt his face heat up at his wayward thoughts.

  Jake smirked. “Told ya, I wasn’t bothering the kid. I was just telling him that we’re going to miss him when he leaves.”

  “Leaves?” Logan turned those perceptive eyes toward Aaron. “Have you found another position already?”

  Shit. This was so not the way he wanted to give his notice. He’d imagined a whole little speech where he told Logan how much he’d enjoyed working for him and about a hundred other things that completely flew out of his brain while he had two identical sets of eyes curiously staring at him and waiting for an answer. He felt like he was under a microscope. Naked, under a microscope, and falling short of expectation.

  Aaron resisted the urge to squirm. “I, um, was just about to tell Jake here that I accepted a position with Lowe’s.”

  “That’s fuckin’ great, man. I bet you’re thrilled.” Jake clapped him on the back again. A little harder this time, almost too forcefully, because he listed to the side a bit, his shoulder brushing over Logan’s arm. Little tingles crawled down his arm and made his fingers itch to reach out and squeeze the corded muscular forearm within his reach. God, he was pitiful. He really needed to get a life.

  He glanced up at Logan, curious about how he’d taken the news, and found an odd expression on his face. Logan caught his gaze and nodded. “That’s great. Congratulations. When are you supposed to start?”

  “Uh, well, about that...” His gaze shot down, and he pretended to pluck lint off his polo shirt. He tried to pick and choose his words, but nothing came to him. Better to spit it all out and get it over with. “You see, they want me to start right away, so I’ll only be able to finish out this week. Friday will be my last day. I’m sorry.”

  Aaron glanced back up. Logan was studying his face like there was something hanging out of his nose. His hand rose to make sure there wasn’t. Logan nodded. “Sure, no problem. I’m sure I can get a temp agency to send someone out.”

  “Thanks, Mr., err, Logan. If you’d like, I could call for you and see if they’d be able to send someone out early, so I can walk them through how you like things.”

  “Yeah, that’d be good, Aaron. Thank you. About that coffee?”

  Aaron knew a dismissal when he heard one. “Coming right up.” He turned and ducked into the office. Before the door closed behind him, he could have sworn he heard Logan telling Jake to stay away from his assistant.

  Weird.

  He’d have to remember to assure Logan that Jake wasn’t bothering him. He liked talking to Jake. The man had a zany sense of humor. As he poured coffee into Logan’s favorite Virginia Tech mug, he decided just to pretend he hadn’t heard anything. With him leaving at the end of the week, it was a moot point anyway.

  Chapter Two

>   Tuesday turned out to be a nasty, dreary day. Angry clouds obscured the sky and threatened rain for the better part of the morning. As promised on Monday evening, the temp agency sent someone around noon. Unfortunately, the woman ‑‑ and he used that term lightly because she couldn’t have been a day over eighteen ‑‑ they sent must have thought she was on some blind date reality show. She spent what little time she was there ignoring Aaron’s attempts to teach her anything about the position, choosing instead to bat her eyelashes at Logan every chance she got.

  Thankfully ‑‑ because her feeble attempts to get Logan’s attention grated on his nerves ‑‑ his boss was out of the office for the majority of the day, on one call or another, doing estimates for potential clients. At five on the dot, Aaron happily sent Bimbo Barbie home and placed a call to the agency, informing them that her services were no longer needed. Since he didn’t want to get her in trouble with her employer, he made up a lame excuse about her not being qualified for the position instead of telling them that she was completely incompetent. They offered to re-screen their potential candidates and send someone else.

  He hoped whomever they sent would work out, because he was running out of time. His job wasn’t hard, but there were a lot of little details he wanted to pass along. All the odds and ends that made the business and Logan’s schedule run smoother. Simple things, like how Logan took his coffee, or the best way to take messages so Logan would better understand what was expected of him when he returned calls.

  Aaron had run things from behind the scenes for so long, he wanted to make sure all his hard work didn’t fall apart without him. It had absolutely nothing to do with wanting to make sure Logan was taken care of. It didn’t. Logan had a wife to see to his needs. He didn’t need Aaron, his dorky little twink of an assistant, to worry about him.