by Cherrie Lynn
There was the music to face today.
She didn’t want to go. She could’ve lived forever in that hotel room with him, if it meant never having to face the world again. With his arms around her, she had the only thing she needed.
They stopped for breakfast and lingered over coffee, putting off the inevitable as long as possible. Her stomach felt jittery as she watched him, finding pleasure in even the most mundane things like his lips closing around his fork and the way he held his coffee mug. She would probably never get over her fascination with his mouth and his hands. Both were such efficient instruments at driving her wild.
Back at Kara’s, the crew was apparently still asleep. Brian said they’d probably only just gone to bed. Kara answered his insistent knocking with a big yawn, wearing a huge T-shirt and her hair an unruly mess. “Hey, guys. You look way too bright-eyed. Coffee?”
“Just had some, but I can always use more,” he said. They stepped in, and Candace had to laugh at the carnage of bodies and blankets and air mattresses strewn throughout the spacious living room.
“Yeah, we had a few more people come over last night,” Kara said, following her gaze as they walked toward the kitchen. She wasn’t bothering to keep her voice down. Given the snores, those guys could have slept through an earthquake. “Probably a good thing you two went elsewhere if you wanted privacy. Our neighbors are going to lynch us someday.”
“Sorry to get you up, but we need to round up my guys and get back home.” His hand stroked up and down Candace’s back. “She has finals starting tomorrow and I want to make sure she studies.”
“I told you I’d be fine,” she protested, giving him a pinch on the butt.
Kara was watching them with a knowing smile as she pulled mugs down out of the cabinet. “Awww. You guys.”
“By the way,” Candace said to her, “thank you. A million times.” The memory of the way it had felt when he stroked her depths with those beads still drove shudders through her.
Brian looked at her suspiciously as Kara laughed. “You’re welcome a million times. And I was joking yesterday. All I require as thanks is that you come with him whenever he visits us. We’d like to get to know you better.”
“Deal,” she said.
“I won’t let you corrupt her,” Brian said with mock warning. “That’s my job.”
It took forever to get the others roused, and then a heated argument ensued over who was going with Brian and who was staying to get some more sleep and riding back later with Connor and Tay. Since space was limited in Connor’s car, at least a couple of them were going to have to go with Brian.
“I’m never riding with anyone else again. I’ll find my own damn way,” Ghost complained. “Dragging my ass out of bed two days in a row…” He grumbled on into incoherence.
“Good,” Brian said, cutting him off. “All I know to tell you guys is to draw straws. And anyone scheduled to work tonight better have their asses there on time.”
A chorus of groans went up. “Shit, that’s me,” Starla said. “I’d better ride with you, then. Oh, Brian, I almost forgot.” She tugged her shirt up a bit, separating it from the waistband of her shorts to reveal a funny little happy face drawn on her midriff. “I got Jonathan Davis’s autograph! He was doing a DJ set at the club we went to after the concert. Can you ink it on when we get back?”
Brian grinned. “Cool. Sure thing.”
“Why can’t I?” Ghost asked.
Starla dropped her shirt and rolled her eyes. “Because I’d rather not be molested throughout the process.”
The closer they got to home, the tenser Candace grew. It was back to reality. Yesterday it’d been easy to pretend today wouldn’t come. Now it was in her face.
Brian kept a firm grip on her hand as he drove. At least she had him beside her now, and she wasn’t defending this all for nothing. He was hers, and she was his, and nothing her family could say or do would change that at this point. But it was going to get ugly. Really ugly.
“What do you want to do?” he asked after everyone was dropped off and they were alone in his truck. “Do you want to come home with me?”
She blinked at him. “Really?”
“Sure. You can stay with me as long as you want.”
That would be a dream come true. And it might actually have to happen before it was all said and done, but for now, she couldn’t ask that of him. It would only be more running. She had to try to get through this on her own.
“I would love that. Honestly. But…I need to face them right now.”
He gave her fingers a squeeze. “Then I’ll stay with you until you confront them. That’s an order. I’m not leaving you to go through it alone. I’d scheduled myself to work later, but you can hang out at the parlor with me.”
His tone brooked no argument, so she sighed and nodded. “Okay.”
Her apartment was silent as they entered it, as she expected, but it felt strange. Like the silence after the apocalypse. She didn’t know what she’d expected to find, but for some reason it was disturbing to walk into the normalcy of it now that the world had changed. It should’ve been trashed, or the electricity cut off, or the locks changed or something.
Brian shut the door behind them as she stood staring at everything, everything that wasn’t hers. Her gaze alighted on her cell phone sitting on the counter, but she was afraid to pick it up to see how many missed calls and outraged voicemails and text messages she had.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, feeling unsteady.
He was right there, guiding her toward the couch. “Sit down. It’s all right.” She dropped onto the cushion and he sat beside her, facing her. “Don’t let yourself get all worked up. You don’t even have to do anything today. Take some time before you agree to see them, let everyone cool off.”
“Cooled off isn’t really a state my parents ever get to.” She sighed. “It’s okay, Brian, I’m fine. I did what I did, I have to take the heat. I mostly hate that you’re going to be around to see this, but at the same time I’m glad you’re here.”
“Don’t you even worry about it.” He grinned. “You probably don’t know this, but in a verbal sparring match, my mom would make Sylvia Andrews look like a Chihuahua yapping at a mastiff. And you don’t grow up with someone like her without learning to hold your own.”
She relaxed against him, snuggling into his chest when his arms went around her. “Tell me about your mom. I’ve never met her.”
“What to say about Mom. Well, she’s highly opinionated, she can kick my ass one minute and be fiercely protective of me the next, and she’s famous for reverting to Italian when pissed off. But she hates my tattoos.”
“Are you close to her?”
He was silent for a moment. “I don’t see her nearly often enough. It’s complicated. But…yeah, my mom is pretty cool.”
“Do you think she’ll like me?”
“I think she’ll be crazy about you. How could she not?”
“Well, my own parents hate me, so it stands to reason someone else’s could, too, I guess.”
“They don’t hate you, baby. They can’t possibly. Anyone should be proud to have you as a daughter. That isn’t to say I know what the fuck their problem is, but it can’t be that they hate you, not in a million years.”
She could have argued with him, but she was too exhausted. He would see what she was talking about shortly, the open disdain and disappointment in her mother’s eyes whenever she looked at her. Candace had begun to detect it shortly after high school, but now there was no questioning it.
She was tired of doing that, anyway. Tired of trying to figure out what it was about her that disgusted her mother so. She didn’t want to think about anything else. And having Brian alone in her apartment was too much temptation.
It amazed him when she lifted her face from his chest and crawled over in his lap, straddling him and lowering her mouth to his. But as usual, it was insta-erection where she was concerned. He groaned into the sweet cavern of
her mouth, sweeping his tongue inside to taste more of her.
“You know that night you came over?” she asked between warm, melty kisses.
“Nah, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She giggled and circled the tip of his nose with her own. “I was standing in the kitchen, looking in here at you…and I had this very fantasy. Maybe a little different, but it was you sitting right here on my couch, me sitting on top of you. Only I was naked.”
Holy shit. He was already throbbing against her center, which he could imagine was hot and wet beneath her shorts and panties. His hands swept under her shirt and lifted. “I think we can fulfill that one.”
Quickly, she jumped up and shed her shorts, returning to him in her bra and panties. A few more tugs and she was braless as well, sitting astride him with those mouthwatering, pearly pink nipples at almost the perfect level with his mouth. He tasted each one of them in turn, giving them flicks with his tongue, finally capturing them in his hands. The sounds she made as he kneaded gently were delectable, helpless and enough to drive a man wild. Her fingers came up over his, and her head rolled back on her shoulders.
“Take your hair down,” he whispered, watching as one slender arm lifted and she pulled the scrunchie out of her hair, so that it fell in one luxurious shudder of gold waves about her slender throat. Some of the tendrils reached his hands. He wanted to ball it up in his fist. Wanted to push her down and shove himself deep into her mouth. There were a thousand things he wanted to do to her. But above all else he wanted to be inside the tight heat of her pussy again. That had been the most incredible thing he’d ever felt in his life.
She was already working on it, attacking his fly until she had him sprung loose and into her gentle hands. He sank into the cushion and let his head roll on the back of the couch while she stroked him. “Oh, God.”
“I want it,” she murmured, the simplicity of the statement sending another surge of arousal up his shaft as she lifted herself high on her knees and held his cock in position to impale herself.
“Sure you’re up to this?” he whispered, knowing the answer but needing to be sure.
“Oh, yes,” she breathed.
“Good girl.”
He reached out and tugged the crotch of her panties to the side, biting back a moan at how damp the fabric was. Given that, he had to touch her there, had to get some of it on his fingers, had to feel how hot she was. Otherwise the shock of her hitting his cock might cause him to erupt on the spot.
She paused to let him play, her thighs trembling. She felt so good, so swollen, so wanton. He loved that she needed him so much. When he couldn’t touch her another moment without losing his mind, he jerked her into position and kept her panties wrenched to the side as she eased herself down over him. Her little white teeth sank into that lovely, trembling lower lip as she did so, and he wanted to growl from the very sight of it.
This time, her body drew him right into her tight, wet heat, deeper, drinking him in. There weren’t words for it. Rivers of sensation shot up his shaft, pulling every muscle in his body to the breaking point. Candace moaned, wrapping her arms around him as he locked tight into her body.
He smeared his lips down her throat. “I love that. All wrapped up in you.” Grasping her ass cheeks in his palms—he wanted to weep, having an ass like hers in his hands—he slowly lifted her until he teased only the shallow depths of her pussy. Candace wiggled and bit his neck, rolling her hips in circles until he couldn’t stand it anymore and lowered her on him again. She threw her head back and gasped, that molten gold hair flipping back behind her shoulders. Just as he was marveling at how wet she was on his dick, her moisture flowing down around him, coating him…
“I didn’t give you time to put anything on,” she whispered.
Shit! He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten. It hadn’t even crossed his mind, and he was a stickler for protection. When it came to unwanted microbes, he was no less careless with his body than he was with his parlor, and you could eat off the floor in that place.
Even more unsettling was his lack of panic over the situation. In fact, he only wanted more of her, harder, faster, until he exploded inside her with no barriers between them.
That would be crazy at this point. He gritted his teeth in agony and forced himself to ease her up so he could dig in his back pocket for his wallet. Her mewl of frustration was almost enough to derail him from the clumsy endeavor of opening the little packet he extracted. “Trust me, baby, you feel so fucking good, it’s not like I want to stop.” The words tumbled out in a rush.
She leaned over to whisper in his ear, punctuating each word with a seductive nibble. “Hurry up, or I’ll start without you.” Then she treated him to the sight of her fingers trailing lightly down her belly, toward her pussy.
Dammit! Didn’t she know what that did to him? He growled, unable to get the damn latex on and unfurled fast enough, remembering how hot and wet and tight she’d been around him. Just as her fingertips disappeared between her legs, eliciting a moan from her lips, he seized her waist and yanked her up over him again. Settled her damp heat over the turgid head of his cock. Nearly died as she allowed herself to sink, swallowing him inch by inch.
“Do you love me?” she panted, taking him deeper, deeper.
Ordinarily, this would not have been the ideal time for a girl to ask him that question. In the heat of the moment, he would have gladly walked on his elbows for the rest of his life for this feeling. But he could honestly say now, with her, the answer he gave was the absolute truth. “Beyond all reason.”
“You’ll be with me no matter what?”
“You’d have to beat me away.”
“I don’t want to think anymore. I just want to know you’re mine and nothing else matters.”
“This is all that matters.” Digging his fingers into her ass, he showed her the rhythm and then turned her loose, watching as she moved on him. Her breasts swayed in front of his eyes and he reached up to cup them, rolling them in his palms so that her nipples stabbed into his hands.
She searched for the angle she wanted and found it, leaning back with her hands on his knees. When that wasn’t enough to anchor her, he grasped her forearms and she locked her hands around his in return, using his strength to keep herself from falling as she went after her own pleasure with a fervor that left him devastated. It was everything he’d felt last night to the nth power, her hot passage gripping him with such sweet need, he couldn’t breathe for it. Couldn’t think, except about her.
His release welled in his shaft, swelling him even larger inside her. This was going to be over way too fast, but they had all night. And tomorrow night. And forever, if she’d have him. The disconnect between his mind and his body wouldn’t allow for him to have any control whatsoever.
Thankfully, as with all the other areas in his life, she was right there with him. She clenched up around him and cried out as the surge overtook him and it was final: he wasn’t going anywhere. She was his, and he was in this for the long haul. Marriage, kids, little league, ballet recitals, soccer practice, grandkids, the whole bit. He jerked her close to him and cursed as she contracted around him, milking him for more and getting it. He knew he was a goner. And it was okay. It was all good.
It was more than good. It was the best damn feeling he’d ever known, as if all the wrinkles in his life were being smoothed out at once.
“Ohhhh, God,” she sighed as she came down from her own heights, melting like butter over him. Her thighs released their vise grip on his hips, and the biting crescents of her fingernails unclenched from his shoulders. He nuzzled under her chin and absorbed her post-apocalyptic shudders, smiling at the sound of her teeth chattering near his ear.
Gently, he lifted her so he could pull out, watching her expression slacken as the bead of his barbell slid over her sensitive, inflamed tissues. She settled back down and draped herself over him.
“Sorry about earlier,” he said. “I never forget. Everyone
would go apeshit if you got pregnant.”
“I truly, honestly don’t give a damn anymore.”
“I think I’m rubbing off on you in a bad way.”
“Unless there’s a major monkey wrench in my cycle or something, we should be in the clear.”
“Just so you know, I’m clean. I get myself checked every few months because of the job. I haven’t been with anyone since the last time.” He stroked her hair, urging her to lift her head so he could stare deep into her eyes. He wanted her to believe what he was about to tell her without a doubt. “I meant what I said, sweetie. I’m not going anywhere no matter what happens.”
“Brian, I know,” she whispered, frowning at him as if there shouldn’t have been any question. “I’ve never doubted you. I’ll see about getting on birth control as soon as I can so we won’t have to worry about it so much.”
He lifted her knuckles to his lips and brushed them gently. “You will?”
“I don’t want anything between us.”
“Me, either. Although you do realize, BC was a big, fat fail for my brother and his wife. As evidenced by baby Alex.”
“Yikes. That’s scary.”
“I suppose we can always double up when I’m feeling particularly virile.”
She burst out laughing. He loved that sound so much. It was clear as wind chimes, capable of turning even the stormiest of days into warm blue skies. “You mean there are actually days when you don’t?”
“Not really. Scratch that. I’m always pretty fucking virile.”
Chapter Eighteen
The knock on the door came early that evening.
It actually wasn’t a knock. A half-dozen fists could’ve been pummeling the surface outside. Candace and Brian jerked awake on the couch, where they’d dozed off wrapped in each other’s arms.
