Candy Ever After (Hot Candy Book 2)

by Jo Raven

  She really seems to take personal offense at that.

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  “Come out with me.”

  “No way.”

  “Candy…what did we say about fantasy guys?”

  “They are real. I met them both now, you know. In the real world.” And she saw Jethro at the concert, so she should know.

  “Yes, fine. But did either of them ask you out?”

  “One of them came close,” I say defensively.

  If I hadn’t let my big mouth run with no filter.

  “Or not.”

  “Bry…”

  “Let me do your hair. And make up your face. You’ll look so pretty. Come on, Candy…”

  “You want to use me like a doll to play.”

  She scrunches up her nose. “That sounds harsh. I just want you to let out your real you.”

  Okay… “My real me will be freed through the use of make-up and the curling iron?”

  “The outside reflects the inside.” She puts her hands on her ample chest, and her face contorts melodramatically. “If you look good outside, you will feel powerful inside.”

  There may be something in what she says…

  “I’m going now.” She waves a manicured hand at me and smacks her ruby-colored lips. “Think about it. Want to get the boys? Work a little for it. The offer stands.”

  I watch her go.

  Hey, I’m sure Joel would have asked me out had I not inserted my foot into my mouth. Right? Or is that really super-wishful thinking?

  What would I have to lose by following Brylee’s advice except for lots of time I could have put to better use?

  I blow a blond curl from my face, pull my braids back, purse my lips. Have I overdone it? Did I bury my real self too deeply? Also, do I look like a crazy person?

  It is a possibility.

  With a heavy sigh, I get up and open my closet. I push aside my Star Wars- and Lord of the Rings-themed clothes and reach for clothes I haven’t worn since before Liam.

  When I was still hopeful, when I still believed it was fine to lust after two handsome guys and want them both. That trying to get them wasn’t stupid.

  That I was a sex kitten with claws and I could dress to show it.

  ***

  Stupid or not, the next day Donna whistles when I enter the shop and put my purse behind the counter.

  “What happened to you?” She winks at me and flickers her tongue in and out like a snake.

  Creepy. “No idea what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do. Are we expecting Very Important Visitors?”

  “VIV?” I sigh. “Nope. Can’t a girl dress for herself?”

  “No,” Donna says matter-of-factly, scrolling through her emails. “Or we’d be lounging around braless, in yoga pants and with greasy hair every day. Hey, wanna hear the newest in the resume world?”

  “How about I go grab us some coffee first?”

  “Nah. You should wait.”

  Baffled, I linger at the door of her office. “For what?”

  “You’ll see,” she says cryptically, because she sometimes likes acting like an oracle and asshole all wrapped in one. It’s a hobby of hers.

  Sighing deeply, I go flip the door sign to OPEN and make sure everything’s ready. “Whatever.”

  Two minutes later, the door chimes and a familiar set of broad shoulders fills the opening. Dark, floppy hair, blue eyes, a panty-melting grin, cheeky dimple.

  Two Styrofoam cups with lids on.

  “Morning, ladies.” He thrusts the cups toward me. He’s a gorgeous sight, in his work suit, gray pants and blue shirt, gray tie, polished shoes… Woo. I’ve never seen him dressed up for work, and he sure cleans up good.

  Very good. Way better than my imagination ever made him out to be.

  This day is getting hotter by the minute.

  “Good morning,” I say uncertainly, not sure what’s going on, and making sure to check my chin for drool. Joel Kingsley is back, and he’s… brought us coffee?

  Donna appears and grabs one cup. “Thank you, sweetie.” She winks at me and wanders back into her office.

  Leaving me all alone with him.

  “This one’s for you,” he says, and I take the cup, my hand shaking. My name is scrawled on the side. “Lots of milk, sugar and cinnamon.”

  “How do you know how I like my coffee?” I blurt out.

  “She told me.” He nods in the direction of Donna’s office. “I asked.”

  “But why?”

  He steps closer, looking down at me, his blue eyes darkening. His chest is a wall of muscle, pecs straining through the fine fabric of his shirt. I want to grab his tie and pull him down for a kiss. I want to put my hands on his chest, feel its strength under my palms.

  I take a sip from my coffee.

  Scald my tongue.

  “Oh shit!” I jerk back, slap a hand over my mouth and manage to slosh hot coffee from the tiny opening of the cup cover on my hand.

  He grabs the cup before I drop it to the floor, handsome face scrunched up in concern. “You okay?”

  “Burnth my thongue.” I wave my burnt hand up and down. “Thit.”

  “Thit?”

  I swallow, blink back tears and sigh as the pain slowly subsides. “Shit.”

  He chuckles. I love the sound of his chuckle, low and deep, like thick, dark chocolate dripping on my skin. “Shall I bring you some water?”

  “I’m fine.”

  And he’s still there, still close enough to touch, to smell, and—oh God, he reaches for my face and cups my cheek in his big hand.

  “I like you, Candy.”

  “You do?”

  I take a moment to pinch myself and ow, that’ll leave a bruise.

  “Uh huh.” He steps even closer, and I’m wrapped up in his boy scent, his musk overlayed with a light aftershave of pine and citrus.

  Yummy.

  “I like you, too,” I whisper, wondering when the lights will come back on and someone will yell, “Cut! It’s a wrap!”

  “Well, ride me into the sunset,” Joel mutters, his grin tipping up on one side, his dimple winking at me.

  “I so totally would.”

  Another flash of darkness goes through his gaze. His hand is still on my face, and his thumb is stroking my cheekbone, back and forth, back and forth.

  “What are you doing to me?” His voice has dropped more, so deep I feel it vibrate under my skin. “I love this shirt you have on today.”

  Low-cut shirt, mini skirt, boots. The works. Brylee would be so proud. My chest flushes when his eyes dip low.

  “Thanks.”

  “Did you wear these for me?”

  “It’s for VIV.”

  He looks up from my chest, dark brows drawing together. “VIV?”

  “Very Important Visitors.”

  “Am I very important?”

  I gulp. “Anyone who brings me coffee is important.”

  “Even when it burns you?”

  “It’s not fun if it doesn’t burn a little,” I whisper back.

  He makes a sound deep in his throat, like a strangled groan. “Fuck, you’re driving me mad. One moment you’re funny, the next hot. The hottest bookseller I’ve ever met.”

  Met a lot of booksellers? I want to ask, but he’s walking me backward toward the shelves. He puts down my coffee on the counter, then we’re ensconced between two tall shelves, and he’s pressing me against the Children Books section.

  “I want to kiss you,” he says, his arms bracketing my body, gripping the shelves on either side of me, trapping me.

  “Please do,” I start to say when his lips crush on mine, warm and firm and tasting like spice and coffee, and I moan, unable to stop myself.

  So good. So much better than I ever imagined, and I have a vibrant, well-trained imagination. The way his mouth moves over mine is decadent, slow, sexy. By the time his tongue parts my lips, I’m running my hands up and down his body and sucking on his mouth like an alcoholic on
his last bottle.

  Then my hands find his ass and holy mother of God, this boy is unreal. That ass is unreal. His solid, round buns fill my hands, and they flex as his hips thrust against me.

  Letting me feel a very real, very solid and big hard-on.

  I make a small noise against his mouth—or in his mouth, probably, because by now my tongue is halfway down his throat—and he draws slightly back, his eyes dazed.

  “Oh shit.” His voice is thick and raspy. “I didn’t mean to tongue-fuck you here.”

  “But elsewhere?” I ask hopefully.

  “Fuck, yeah.” I like the way he says it so solemnly, like an oath.

  Then the door chimes, indicating a customer has just entered, and he pulls away, adjusting himself in his pants.

  Ugh. Sexy.

  And I don’t know what to do now with this impossibly gorgeous guy who’s just kissed me senseless against copies of Winnie the Pooh and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

  “Gotta go,” he says, straightening his tie, and another hot bolt of desire rushes through me. “I’m already late for work. Wanna go out for a drink sometime?”

  “Sure.”

  And of course he then rushes out without another word, without asking for my phone number or even my last name, leaving me to deal with the fact Joel Kingsley kissed me and wants to go out with me.

  ***

  “Forget about Jethro,” I tell Donna.

  “J-Two? Why?”

  “Just because.”

  Joel is here, and even if it’s half my dream coming true, I should grab it with both hands, right? How can I hope for more?

  Girl can’t have everything, right? That would be too much to ask. When life hands you one sex god you’ve been lusting over for years, you don’t ask, and where is the other one I wanted? You take the sex god and count your blessings.

  Besides, it may even not come to that. To sex, I mean. Maybe he will change his mind. And what if I’m not really into two guys banging me? Maybe I’m over that. Maybe letting Joel fuck me will cure me of my obsession.

  Maybe Brylee was right, and I’m too greedy. Maybe I’ll change my mind about wanting two guys.

  Oh come on, who am I kidding? I’m not going to change my mind. What am I, crazy?

  Wait, don’t answer that.

  After the customers leave and the shop grows quiet again, I go and lean in the office door. “Anything new?”

  “In the resume world?” Donna asks.

  “Yeah. I need the distraction.” I step around her tiny, cluttered desk and look over her shoulder. “Go on. Floor me.”

  “Did Joel kiss you?”

  “None of your business.”

  “I saw you.” She waggles her brows at me. I back away. This woman is scary. “Anyway. Back to more boring stuff. This one came in today.” She taps at the screen. “It’s kinda cute, actually.”

  “Go on.”

  “It says, ‘Books and I get along fine. I can organize, clean, feed them and put them in order. They are like drinks: you only mix them up when the customer asks and you only sell good quality.’

  I smile. “I kinda like this.”

  “Qualifications are all over the place. Mostly some work experience in various things, like construction and bartending and working as a cashier in retail stores. But I like this one, too.”

  “Interview?”

  “There’s a phone number listed. I’ll call.”

  “You do that.”

  “And what will you do?”

  “Donna…” My brain is full of that kiss, of Joel’s taste and scent and the feel of him against me. “He asked me out for drinks.”

  “J-One?”

  “Yeah. What do you think?”

  She leans sideway to give me a wink over the side of her computer screen. “Take a set of clean clothes with you and a toothbrush.”

  Oh God, I thought so, too.

  ***

  Next morning, I obsess over what to wear to work and end up with a variation of the previous day. My palms are sweaty, my heart pounding, and I tell myself I’m being stupid.

  It was just a kiss.

  Perhaps that was all it was. He may never show up again.

  But right after I flip the door sign to OPEN, he enters with the two Styrofoam cups and offers one to me.

  Then, even as more customers enter, he pulls me between the shelves like before and kisses me again.

  It’s even more scorching than the first time.

  And he asks for my phone number.

  Holy shit, Batman. This is really happening.

  My mind is so overwhelmed with all this that I’ve been neglecting my blog. There are books to be read and reviewed, comments to be answered and moderated, and I should be writing more scenes for my story.

  I’m distracted. Especially when he calls me and tells me about a bar called Crickets not so far from here. Tomorrow night. He’s picking me up from work.

  Change of clean clothes, I chant to myself. Toothbrush.

  Ohgod, ohgod, I have a date with Joel Kingsley. I mean, he said to go for drinks. But Donna is right. No two ways to interpret this one, right?

  Okay, there are, but they don’t count.

  And Jethro’s handsome face shouldn’t flash through my thoughts, not even for a second.

  “We want more J&J scenes,” Donna comes to whine at me as I prepare to go home for the night. “Hurry up with that next installment to the serial.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I feel…” I pause, confused. “I feel like I’m cheating on Jethro. By agreeing to go out with Joel, and it blocks me. This makes no sense, huh?”

  “Nope.”

  I shake my head, gather my things and go. I’m confused, and the only thing I know is that what I want is never going to happen.

  ***

  Clothes and toothbrush packed at the bottom of my purse, I let Brylee fuss over me. I’ve decided it’s the easiest course of action.

  Hey, I have a date with one of my fantasy boyfriends. I even shaved my legs. Woohoo! No more forest camouflage for this girl. I even evicted the bears.

  I let Bry smear color on my lips and then clear lip gloss. I let her choose my clothes—a rather conservative black dress she found at the back of my closet and a pair of her classic black high heels.

  I lean toward the mirror. I don’t look like myself. I’m not even sure I feel like myself, after all this time without caring about how I look—but the excitement over seeing Joel again, kissing him and hopefully spending the night at his place is stronger than the confusion.

  The thought I might catch a glimpse of the elusive Jethro while there keeps popping up, and I squash it ruthlessly, again and again.

  Joel and Jethro are just good friends. I’m not coming between them. And I can’t have them both. Kissing even one part of the fabulous duo is a miracle.

  You can’t have both, Candy. Be real. I mean, even Brylee is in shock, after learning who I’m going out with tonight. Donna seems to be taking it in stride, but she’s probably just hiding her shock better.

  Connie had a total freak-out in chat today when I told her. Sent all sorts of open-mouthed emojis, too.

  “Biatch,” she wrote, “you’re totally shitting me. I shall expect photographic evidence of any close encounter with J-One. Evidence! Or I’ll stop speaking to you.”

  “You just want them so you can pet your kitty to the photo of them.”

  “Kitty is purring. Also, by the way, what about Ellen?”

  Yeah, what about Ellen? She completely slipped my mind over the excitement of Joel kissing me and asking me out for drinks.

  How could I forget about her? Crap. If anything else happens with Joel, I need to clear the field.

  Before anything else happens.

  “So, this Joel Kingsley,” Brylee says. “I was talking to a guy who used to work at the college the other day, and he mentioned him.”

  I frown at my reflection. Brylee has appl
ied such a thick coat of mascara my eyes look like porcupines. I put my glasses on and sigh when my lashes stick to the lenses. “Mentioned him?”

  “Yeah. There was a scandal with him, wasn’t there?” Brylee asks.

  “Scandal? Nah.” I’d have heard about it.

  And if not, someone would have told me about it. My crush on J&J has never been a secret.

  “It was caught before it went viral.”

  “What did?”

  “The picture. A picture of Joel Kingsley, balls-naked, fucking some girls.”

  “Bry.” I’m more shocked by Brylee using offensive language than the fact Joel was caught with his pants around his ankles and his dick inside some random girl. “I would have known.”

  “No, because it was never posted on the internet. It was passed around through an app, and when the school found out, they put a stop to it.” She tsks. “I’ll find out more about it and tell you.”

  “Not sure I want to know more.”

  “Of course you do.”

  She’s right.

  “And the final touch…” She rummages in her drawer and pulls out a black choker, which she puts on me with a flourish. “All ready to go to the ball.”

  I study myself again.

  It’s me and it’s not me. I’m a nerdy girl. But I’m also a sexually frustrated vixen. I’m not light, like I told Jethro at the concert. There is some darkness in me. The things I want, the things I crave… they aren’t pure vanilla.

  They aren’t what most girls want.

  With less mascara, a less clingy top and shoes I can actually walk in… Yeah, this could be the new, updated me. The me who has a date with Joel Kingsley and may end the night with a glass of wine and a discussion about history and books, or more likely with wild, kinky sex.

  With his roommate watching.

  Oh crap, here I go again. No, brain. No.

  Why do I have a feeling this is going to be a disaster?

  Chapter Eight

  JOEL

  “You got this, mate,” Jet tells me as I do my stretches at the starting line. “You’re ready.”

  “Yeah.” Not sure I am. Running track is fun, but school competitions stress me out. What if I don’t run fast enough this time? What if I don’t win anything? What will my coach think of me?

  What will my parents say? What will everyone think?