Candy Ever After (Hot Candy Book 2)

by Jo Raven

  “Sit.” I grab the coffees from her hands, plonk them on a nearby table, wrap my arm around her waist and drag her to the armchair on the side. “I’ll get you your coffee. You need sugar.”

  “I’m fine,” she protests, but I ignore that. Obviously something’s wrong, and I’m gonna find out what it is. Can’t stand the way my vision goes black at the edges when she’s like this.

  As if I can feel her distress inside myself.

  I check the names on the Styrofoam cups and hand her the right one, then turn to give the other to Donna—but she’s not there. I faintly make out her form through the glass door of her small office.

  Huh. What the hell am I missing here?

  Leaving the cup on the table, I hunch down in front of Candy, wrap my hands over hers where they’re gripping the cup. “Talk to me.”

  She shakes her head, a blond strand falling over her eyes.

  “Come on, maybe I can help. You made this happen, got me a job. Let me in.”

  “You made this happen,” she whispers, and why are her eyes so damn wide? It looks like shock, but damn if they aren’t doing great things for my dick that’s hard as a rock already from seeing her, smelling her. Touching her. “Not me.”

  “Whatever. If not for you, I’d never even thought of working in a bookstore. Now spill. Are you sick?”

  “Sick?”

  “Yeah.” I frown. “Sick. Dizzy. You keep going pale and shaky on me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are.” Man, if her eyes widen anymore, they’ll pop out of their damn sockets. I glare at her. “Talk.”

  “You’re so charming,” she squeaks.

  “And you’re so fucking pretty.”

  We stare at each other. She’s bent over me, the golden brown of her eyes warm, and damn, I wanna lick her mouth, her neck, her tits, every inch of her body.

  “I’m not… This isn’t good.”

  Fuck. I look away and clench my jaw. “You weren’t serious when you gave me the card, were you?”

  Of course she wasn’t. She didn’t know me. I shouldn’t have sent that resume. What a fucking idiot I can be sometimes. Just because I’m so damn drawn to her…

  “Hey, I was serious. I’m glad you’re here.” Her hand brushes over my cheek, and I glance back at her. A flush has replaced the paleness of her face, and it’s a kick-punch to my chest.

  There’s something about flushed cheeks that fucking slays me.

  Something about this girl that fucking destroys me, and changes me, and owns me. Not a leash, but a link. A connection, an attraction I can’t fight.

  I reach for her, take her glasses off, pull her face down to mine and kiss her. I taste her mouth, and sure enough, it’s as sweet as her name and her scent promised. I start slow and gentle, but find myself falling into the kiss, losing myself in it, gripping her cheeks and going deep.

  Hard. I’m so fucking hard right now. So fucking gone.

  And she gives in, sweetly, letting me taste her, fuck her mouth with my tongue, her hands finding purchase in the fabric of my T-shirt, curling against my chest.

  Soft, molding against me, winding around me, so unlike a guy. So unlike Joel, who’s all hard angles and padded muscle, and—

  She pulls away, and I resist before my brain catches up. I let go of her face, and she sits back, panting, her face crimson.

  “Oh God, I shouldn’t have. Shouldn’t have gotten involved. Gotten between you. I never imagined you’d want… Okay, scratch that. I did imagine it, but I never thought that in real life you’d ever want—”

  “What are you talking about?” I stroke her cheek and scowl when she draws even further back, almost sprawling in the armchair.

  Just then, the door chimes. Candy straightens with a gasp, but it takes me a moment to look away from her lips and follow her gaze.

  Even longer to place the voice, a voice I know better than my own, when it says:

  “Hey, Candy. Please, don’t shoot. I bear coffee the way you like it.”

  Joel. Joel is here.

  With coffee for Candy.

  My hand drops from her face. “You’re nerdy girl?”

  Christ.

  She snatches her glasses from my hand, tucking her bottom lip between her teeth.

  “Jet?” When I turn around, slowly, bracing myself, I find Joel staring at me. “What are you doing here?”

  “I got the job,” I mutter, my thoughts sluggish. “What are you doing here?”

  Although I know. Suddenly it’s all perfectly fucking clear.

  He’s trying to get Candy back, like I told him to. Trying to win over a girl, the only girl he’s felt so strongly about since Ellen.

  I mean, what are the odds that she’d also be the one girl I’ve felt an instant connection to? The one I’d do my best to win over and take to my bed?

  Fuck. Fuck! I kick at the table legs and stalk away toward the shelves, the stares of both Joel and Candy burning the back of my neck.

  At least he didn’t see me kissing her. Jesus. Can’t risk my best friend, dammit.

  Life is a fucking bitch.

  ***

  “Hey, Jethro. Where are you?” a voice calls from somewhere in the shop.

  It’s Candy’s voice, and I sigh, scrubbing a hand over my face. “Here.”

  The display is done, books propped facing outward all pretty and nice, and fuck if they don’t like it. The customers, that is. I hope Candy likes it. I hope this stint will work out—that I can keep this job, and keep from jumping her again the moment she comes close.

  But when she appears in front of me, eyes warm and lips parted, the taste of them still lingering in my mouth, I don’t know if I can do this.

  I wanna say, fuck Joel. Fuck everyone. I want her. I want to kiss her again, touch her, explore her body. Sink inside her.

  But Joel’s all the family I have. I’d do anything not to piss him off. Even hide who I really am, and how much I want him.

  So yeah. Add to that the tiny detail of my missing diploma, and I don’t think this is gonna work out. A shame.

  I really shouldn’t start punching walls while at work—while on my first day at work, no less. With Candy staring at me like I’m an unexploded grenade.

  “What?” I grind out. “What is it?”

  “Are you okay?”

  And that’s when I realize my hands are curled into white-knuckled fists, and my jaw is clenched tight. Well, excuse me, world, it’s been a damn hard couple of weeks.

  “Yeah, peachy.”

  “Jethro…” She reaches for me and I jerk back, even as my body is straining toward her. “Crap, I’m sorry.”

  “Not your damn fault. I’m fine.”

  “You don’t understand, I—”

  “Nothing to be sorry for. I’m good.” I swallow hard, my mouth dry. “It’s on me. I assumed stuff I had no business assuming. I didn’t know you’re the girl Joel has a crush on.” I draw a deeper breath. “Is he gone?”

  “He has a crush on me?”

  This time I turn and drive my fist into the closest shelf, sending two books crashing to the floor.

  She gasps. Reaches for me again.

  Breathing hard, I step out of her reach and start toward the exit, pushing aside a cart full of books and bumping my hip into a heavy chair.

  “Where are you going?” She’s hurrying after me, dammit.

  “Out.”

  “Wait.”

  I shove the door and step outside, the noise of traffic slamming into me. I start down the avenue, wishing I had my smokes with me.

  “Jethro.”

  Fuck, she’s followed me out. I ignore her as best I can, opening my stride, no clue where I’m going.

  It’s gonna be fine, I tell myself. I will control the urge to press my body to hers, my mouth to her lips. I’ll keep my head down and work. I’ll help Joel regain his sex drive and get the girl, and once in a while I will allow myself to jack off to fantasies of them together.

  I kick a
t a wall in passing, garnering sour looks from passersby.

  It sucks. But I’ll get over it. Got over lots of much worse things in the past. This is nothing. Just because I want her doesn’t mean I get to have her.

  God knows I learned that lesson, received the message loud and clear many times over.

  Screw you, too, life. Bitch.

  “Jethro!”

  I realize I’ve stopped in front of a liquor store. Should I go in and buy something for later on? Get some buzz going. Unwind.

  “Hey.” She’s breathless as she catches my arm again.

  I pull free easily.

  I wish the grip were stronger. That she’d stop me from going, not let me go. Need someone to hold me down, keep me still.

  My feet won’t move anyway. I place a hand against the glass of the storefront, lean against it. My head is heavy so I press my forehead to the smooth, cold surface.

  She stands beside me, looking into the store. I steal a glance at her. The little frown. The long lashes. The smooth cheeks and neck.

  This isn’t her fault, but I’ve made her feel bad. No matter how much I wanted a minute to myself, she’s here, a warm presence beside me.

  “Hey.” I nudge her, and she shoots me a surprised look. “Everything’s okay. You shouldn’t feel bad, Sugar Pop. If nothing else, you gave me a job. Wanting you is my problem, not yours.”

  “It’s not…” She draws her lower, plump lip between her small teeth and damn, I’m getting hard already. “Not like that.”

  I wait for her to elaborate, explain what she means, but she only shakes her head, her cheeks coloring again.

  Cars pass behind us. Someone honks. A dog barks.

  Her hand slips over my arm again, and this time I let it. Let its slight weight, let its warmth seep through the thin cotton of my shirt and settle into my skin.

  “You’ll do fine at the bookstore,” she says. She leans into me, and a sigh escapes me. Her glasses hide her eyes, drawing all my attention to her soft mouth. “At the concert you said you lost your job. Like, suddenly.”

  I give a non-committal grunt. I told her that? Damn.

  “Can you talk about what happened?”

  No. “I kinda… lost it.”

  And I snap my mouth shut, tension rising up my back, curling around my spine.

  “Lost it?” Her repeating that painful word should cut like a knife, but her voice is so soft. Like kitten fur.

  Words start spilling from my mouth. “I worked at this bar. A guy got shitfaced and started shouting, then started smashing things and his fist into people, and I…”

  Freaked out. Lost my shit. Lost my mind. Lost time.

  Then I thought I saw someone in the crowd, someone who shouldn’t be alive, shouldn’t be here, and started throwing punches right and left, trying to get out.

  “Shit, forget I said anything.” I start to pull away. What the fuck am I doing, telling her this? I didn’t even tell J, and he knows how fucked-up I am. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It does,” she says, and I glance up at her. There’s a fire now in her eyes, and I can’t look away. “It does matter. Sounds like it wasn’t your fault. You shouldn’t have been fired.”

  “Life sucks,” I inform her, just in case she doesn’t know. Why would a pretty, nice girl like her know, anyway? “Life isn’t fucking fair. That’s how it is.”

  “You could sue the owner. You could—”

  “No.” I take a step back and shake my head. “It’s fine.”

  It’s humiliating enough as it is. Don’t need to rehash it in court. And I wouldn’t win.

  Plus, Joel would find out about it. Bad enough that the moment I got a job at another bar, I got into a fight, and he had to come and drive me home because I caught a punch to the face and wasn’t so steady on my feet.

  “We should head back,” she says.

  We walk together toward the bookshop, and I don’t even know what just went down—why I confessed to her things not even Joel knows, why her touch can feel comforting as well as electric, why I’m still here… No clue what just happened.

  Or why I don’t pull back when she catches my hand and gives it a squeeze before we enter the shop.

  All I know is she feels good, too damn good, and I’m not ready to give her up.

  PART II

  It’s like taking candy from two tall, muscular, sexy as fuck hunks

  Chapter Ten

  CANDY

  Title: Go Tantric

  From Candy Boys (Blog serial)

  “Suck me, Candy,” J-Two groans, sliding his cock against my lips. “You know you want it.”

  Oh yeah. I do. I’m riding J-One, who’s on his knees, his big dick thrusting deep inside me, and I’m close to coming, my belly tightening as he rocks into me, the taste of J-Two’s precum on my lips.

  I open my mouth and take him deep. He groans, fucking my mouth as J-One fucks my pussy, and it’s so good.

  I think I’m getting into this tantric sex thing after all…

  I screwed up.

  I want them both.

  Now they both seem hurt. How could I ever imagine they’d both turn out to be interested in me?

  How was I to know that Joel would be back after our disastrous first date? I mean, was it even a date? It sure felt like one, until he backed away.

  And then I didn’t expect Jethro to kiss me. Didn’t expect his mouth to be so hot and demanding, his grip so hard on my face, his gaze so vulnerable.

  Didn’t expect his confession to cut me to the bone, and his beauty to root me to the spot. Not as classically handsome as Joel, he nevertheless draws me just as much. I want to touch and caress and feel his skin, I want to brush my lips over his eyelids and lips, learn more about him.

  I didn’t expect this urge to protect him. A guy who’s at least six feet tall and fit and strong. There’s something broken in his gaze, and it hurts me to see it there.

  I bet Joel knows what it means. Not that he’d tell me.

  Lifting a batch of brand new romance books by Jennifer Armentrout, Jay Crownover and Sarina Bowen, Amy Jo Cousins and Garett Leigh, I place them lovingly on the shelf and straighten them, while thinking. Joel is so different from Jethro. Shoulders wider, jaw more square, gaze clearer and straightforward.

  He’d started after Jethro who’d stormed away, asking what he was doing here, and I told him. He’d seemed surprised, but said it was good for Jethro.

  He’s protective of his friend, too. I could hear it in his words, see it on his face.

  And then he apologized for the other night, told me to go make sure Jethro was all right, and left.

  Made me like him again. Like him more.

  He put Jethro before himself. Made his friend a priority. How can you not love that? That a guy who looks like a cross between a quarterback and a male underwear model can be so concerned about his friend.

  It makes my eyes burn suspiciously. Makes my heart beat more heavily.

  I can’t let myself feel anything for Joel. It’s too soon. Too unrealistic. Sharing one hot kiss doesn’t mean anything.

  And it doesn’t change the fact I’m still lusting after them both, and they have no clue.

  Only Donna keeps throwing me narrowed-eyed looks, as if demanding to know what I’m playing at.

  I wish I knew.

  I doubt I’ll see Joel again. I also doubt Jethro will touch me again.

  Shit.

  Man, this really sucks…

  ***

  But the bookstore door chimes the next day, and Joel enters, bearing coffee and donuts.

  “Candy, I’m home!” he calls out, grinning a manic grin, and I can’t help but laugh. “How’s my nerdy girl today?”

  Unexpectedly a lump forms in my throat. I am so frigging happy he’s back.

  Stupid, I know. I barely know him. Barely like him. But he’s been with me—in my imagination, at least—for so long, the thought of losing him so soon hurt.

  “Hey.” He puts down the coff
ees—an extra one for Jethro today, I notice—and puts his hands on my shoulders—warm, heavy. “I’m sorry, okay? Didn’t mean to get between you two.”

  I blink. “What do you mean?”

  “You like Jet. So I’ll step down.” He’s looking earnestly into my eyes, and I’m sinking in blue. “Jet always tells me I’m an arrogant bastard. I want him… I need him to be happy. He deserves it. Just tell me you want him, too, and I’ll leave you in peace.”

  Oh God. Oh my God. I can’t even. I can’t speak. The lump in my throat has grown so big it’s cutting off my breath. He’s sweeter than I thought. Selfless. How can I not fall for him all over again?

  And what can I do now?

  “Candy?” He searches my face with his eyes, then leans forward and brushes his mouth over mine. Scorching me, making me shiver from head to toe. His hands slide up my back to the back of my neck, cradling my head, crushing our mouths together. “Oh fuck,” he whispers against my mouth.

  He slowly pulls away, his eyes dark like the night. His broad chest is rising and falling rapidly, and there’s a bulge at his crotch that’s very eye-catching. Prominent.

  Not that I’m looking. Just saying. Besides, my glasses are fogging over. Not that I’m burning to fall into him, climb onto his lap and grind myself on his hard-on.

  Maybe I should release my death-hold on his arms.

  “Is that your answer?” He licks his lips, and all I can think of is kissing him again. “Your choice?”

  Is it? “Jethro doesn’t want me that way,” I mutter.

  His brows draw together. “He told you that?”

  “No,” I admit. “He didn’t.”

  The opposite, in fact. He said he wants me. That wanting me is his issue. He pulled away, because Joel wants me.

  And now Joel is doing the same to spare his friend’s feelings.

  Joel is watching me carefully, and before I speak again, he nods as if understanding something. “I thought so,” he says. “I won’t hurt him, Candy. I won’t.”

  Then he turns around and leaves, and I sink into the armchair in a daze.

  My life has suddenly turned into a soap opera. I want two guys, and I can’t be with either of them without destroying their friendship.