Candy Ever After (Hot Candy Book 2)

by Jo Raven

  Fuck.

  He sucks harder, and I moan, my cock twitching. He strokes it in a firm, strong grip, giving it a twist with each upstroke. Expertly.

  Just like he’d stroke his own.

  Goddammit, I’m going to shoot my load, and he’s hard, too, I can feel him against my hip. It’s not off-putting, it’s… exciting.

  It’s like jerking off together, I think dazedly. That’s it.

  Sliding my hand down, I find his hard cock and grip it, giving it a squeeze. He groans against my neck, licks the bruised skin, then latches on my shoulder, as if he knows it drives me crazy.

  He probably does. Shouldn’t surprise me. There’s apparently nothing Jet doesn’t know about me, up to and including the fact that biting turns me on—who would’ve guessed?—and giving up control to him is fine with me, fine with my dick, too.

  He even knows how to release my cock to cup my balls and squeeze them, roll them around in his palm before returning to stroking me, making me curse out loud as the heat building at the base of my spine rushes to my dick.

  I come so hard I see stars, and when two seconds later his cock pulses in my hand, I don’t even have the energy to pull back before his cum splashes me again.

  He’s breathing hard, and he grins at me as he draws away. He wipes his hand on his leg and nods toward the shower. “Clean up time.”

  We’ve never done any of this before. Jacked each other off, showered together. I hesitate for a long second before I follow him under the spray. He doesn’t soap my back, and I don’t wash his hair, but we both wash quickly and efficiently, snorting when we elbow each other by mistake.

  Maybe this is gonna turn out okay. I’m still comfortable around him, and what happened tonight doesn’t seem to have changed anything, thank fuck. He wipes shampoo out of his eyes and curses, fumbling blindly for a towel.

  I pour the rest of the shampoo on his head and laugh my ass off as he tries to punch me.

  He retaliates by pouring shower gel all over my face.

  “Dickhead.” I shove him against the wall.

  He shoves me back. “Fucktard.”

  Maybe this is normal. Like him always slinging his arm around my shoulders and me ruffling his hair any chance I get.

  That’s what I tell myself as I dry myself quickly, bid Jet goodnight and drop face-first on the bed, falling asleep right after.

  Chapter Eighteen

  JETHRO

  If you asked me five years ago if life was worth living, I’d have laughed. I was in therapy. I thought I was going off my rocker. My family was gone, my sanity a frail thing. So if you asked me… yeah, I’d have given you the finger.

  But since then Joel taught me it’s not polite. That snarling is not as good as talking. That there is fun in life. That there’s more to it than fear and worry.

  That it’s okay to stumble, because he’ll be there to catch me. I owe him.

  I wish he’d let me teach him a thing or two, as well. I wish he’d lower his walls and let me in, let me touch him in a different way.

  Not that I think it will ever happen…

  You’d think after coming three times in one evening I’d drop on the mattress and pass out in two seconds flat, that I’d sleep through fire alarms and air raids.

  I thought so, too, but my brain won’t switch off. Okay, so bad sleep is not a shocker, not when it comes to me. I barely sleep on the best of days—but today was one of those best days, so what gives?

  It’s that I’m concerned about Candy taking off like that, I decide. Why did she panic? She knew the threesome was in the cards, and she’d just confessed to wanting it. She got off on it. Damn, she looked so hot as she came, first on my hand and then on Joel’s dick.

  So why did she run away? Was it too much? Did we hurt her in any way? Did she change her mind?

  Twisting on the bed, I lie on my back to stare at the ceiling. My cracked cell phone is on the bedside stand. I could text her. Call her. Ask her what happened.

  But that’s pushing, right? Like, if she wants to talk about it, maybe she will come to me. Maybe I should wait, give her time.

  I’m also concerned about Joel, although he’s right next door, snoring softly into his pillow. Did I push him too hard again? Did he buy my this-is-just-sex-and-nothing-more-to-me act?

  Does he even care?

  Fuck, no, I’m not going into this. As if my brain needs any more fuel, any more shit to grapple with. Insomnia is a fact of my life, and this is making it worse.

  I grab my drawing pad from the bedside table, thinking to work on the comic I’m creating with Joel’s story ideas. That usually relaxes me. I flick through the pages, smudging my fingers with black. They’re shaking.

  I drop the pad on the stand and sigh. A breeze is coming through my open window. With a frustrated sigh, I get up and pad over to look outside.

  City lights. They remind me of another city, another time. Another life, one I thought I left behind but I find every night in my nightmares. A place I both miss and dread. A time I was both myself and a frightened kid without hope.

  Joel made Madison my home, my city. He’s my country, my continent. My god. I’ll never forget all he did for me. I’ll fucking worship him, worship the ground he stands on, every day, for as long as he lets me.

  Shit, now I sound crazy. Maybe I am. Hell knows I thought so for a while.

  In the dark hours of night, as I lean out of my window, trying to find a sign, a path, I wonder if it’s ever going to be enough.

  ***

  Candy is avoiding me at work. After waking up and going in search for coffee in the kitchen only to realize Joel is avoiding me, too, this is fucked-up.

  Just great.

  To top it off, my concentration is worse than usual. I can’t set the books straight on the shelves, I spill coffee over a coffee table edition of Fantastic Animals, and when I stumble, stubbing my shoe into a display, I bring everything down with me.

  Candy comes to help me get up and straighten the place. She asks if I’m okay, and I only nod. My hands are shaking.

  Everyone’s freaking out. Maybe it’s my turn. Anyway, I’m tired. Been struggling to get on with the reading material for the GED, and it’s like banging my head against the wall. Throw in the fact I didn’t catch a wink last night, and I’m officially done in.

  “Jet…” Candy is stealing quick glances at me as she arranges the books in a circle on the stand. Today she’s dressed in a short dress with a wide skirt that shows off her curvy legs. “Did you have a fight with Joel?”

  “No, why?”

  “You’ve been scowling at me all day.”

  “I wasn’t.” Is that why she has been avoiding me? “Had a fight with books.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Reading. All those damn books for the GED. And the essays I need to write. Dammit.” I grip my hair, tug on it. “I’ll never make it. I’ll never pass that test. I should go back to bartending.”

  “No.” She rounds up on me, so fiercely I take a step back, my eyes opening wide. “You can’t give up. This is about your future. Do you want to be a bartender forever?”

  “Hey, I’m good at it. And at least I don’t have to write essays about it.” I can’t quite keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Maybe pouring drinks is all I’ll ever be good at.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with bartending.” She takes my hand, turns it over, studies my palm like she would a painting, turning it this way and that. As if it’s a book and she’s reading it. “The only question is whether it’s what you want to do for the rest of your life.”

  “That sounds like a long time nobody has any power over,” I grumble. As if anyone can know how long they’ll live. Life is too short.

  My hands are shaking again, and my breathing is harsh. It seems to echo between the shelves.

  “I offered to help you with the reading. Let me.” She takes my other hand, too, squeezes it. Her chocolate eyes are warm. No panic, no fear there. It’s so eas
y to fall into them, believe everything is okay. “After work. I have helped students with their homework before. I’m not a total newb. I know some techniques that you might find useful.”

  Hope flares in the dark pit that’s my mind today. “You were serious? About helping me, I mean.”

  She smiles, slowly and brightly, and for the first time I really believe she’d try, at least. Until she realizes just how bad my disagreement with reading is, that is.

  I’m not holding my breath.

  “Let’s sit here, after work.” She gestures at the armchairs and tables we have for customers to relax and leaf through books. “We could do an hour every day.”

  Better here than at home, I guess. Less likely that we’ll end up fucking on the floor with everyone being able to see us through the front window.

  “Okay.” I look down at our hands, held between us like knots, like promises. I wonder if she knows she’s giving me something nobody ever has, not even Joel.

  A direction.

  “Jet…”

  I pull her to me, hug her. I bury my face in her neck and breathe in her fresh scent, trying to control myself. My eyes are burning. “Thank you.”

  ***

  I admit I don’t believe she’ll do it until she seats me down after Donna has left and asks me for a list of the books I need to read, then finds one of them in the shop and hands it over to me.

  “Read me some,” she orders me softly, and I have no choice but to do as she asks.

  Because she wants to help, and even if my chest feels too tight with shame, I nod and open the book on the first page.

  When I first stumble over a word, I freeze, my finger pressing into the page until it’s bloodless. The second time, I stop and swallow hard.

  “You have a nice voice,” she says, and I glance up, finding her kneeling on the floor, at my feet. I jerk a little, but then her words sink in.

  “My voice?”

  “Mmm. Love it.”

  That makes me grin like an idiot, and I duck my head. “I suck at this.”

  “Not really. Just read that word again. Happens to everyone.”

  No, it doesn’t. But when she drapes her arm over my leg and props her chin on it, looking up at me with wide eyes, I do it, just to feel her there.

  I stumble over more words, and she repeats them with me, tickling my knee with her hand. I’m so distracted by that I forget to resume reading until she pokes me in the ribs with her other hand.

  “This is a boring book, isn’t it?” she says after a while, and I put it down, my stomach dropping.

  I was dreading this moment when she’d lose interest. Give up. I didn’t think it would come quite so quickly, but it makes sense.

  “Sorry.” I close the book. “I’m just stupid, I told you. This has to be damn annoying, and a waste of your time. I’ll just—”

  She lifts up on her knees and puts a hand over my mouth. My brows shoot up. Her hand smells of ink and roses. I give it an experimental lick, to see what it tastes like.

  Salty.

  “Ew!” She snatches her hand back and laughs. “You licked me.”

  “I want to lick you all over,” I admit, then snap my mouth shut.

  Not the time.

  My fingers start drumming on the book, and the heaviness returns to my chest.

  I start when she pulls at the book, prying it free from under my hands. “It’s a boring book. Not you, Jet. The book. If you say you’re stupid ever again, I’m going to lick you back.”

  “You promise?” I try for a lascivious grin, but my heart is pounding. I watch her as she gets to her feet, glancing at the shelf closest to us. “What are you doing?”

  “I think we should start with something more fun.” She trails her fingers over the colorful spines of stacked books, her lips moving without a sound. “Something like… this one.”

  She pulls it out and returns to her place at my feet. She plonks the book in my lap. “Read for me?”

  I stare at her, then at the book. “Harry Potter?” I frown at it. “There were movies with this, right?”

  “Yes, but the books came first. Have you read them?”

  Is she kidding me? I shake my head. “Isn’t it for kids?”

  “No, it’s for those who don’t want to grow up.” She smiles, and my heart is pounding even harder. My chest hurts.

  She’s not giving up. Not yet.

  And even though I never thought of the possibility of not wanting to grow up—why wouldn’t I want to? My childhood was hell. Leaving it was all I ever hoped for—the way her eyes sparkle when she looks at this book makes me want to prove to her that I can do it. That I can let her help me, and that it will make a difference.

  So I open the book and start reading.

  ***

  My head hurts from focusing on the letters and words for so long, but the book is funny, and her giggles have me grinning, despite my pitiful reading efforts.

  She takes a look at me afterward, asks if I’m okay, and I pull her up, on my lap, and kiss her. Hard.

  She’s breathless when we finally draw apart, and so am I.

  Then someone is knocking on the door of the shop, staring through the glass, and I make out Joel’s form.

  “I was waiting for you, asshat,” he grumbles the moment we let him in. “We were going to meet at the gym for some wrestling. You forgot again.”

  Dammit, I did. I hang my head, until Candy whispers something in his ear and then her arms are around me—and Joel slips behind me, molding himself to my back.

  Holy shit, it feels good to be held like that between them.

  “Let’s go home,” he says, his breath warm on the back of my neck, making me shiver.

  Fuck, yeah, let’s.

  And as I turn around, I see for the first time his neck where I sucked on him last night, and I get dizzy, all my blood heading south, thickening my cock.

  Holy shit, I marked him. He has a hickey, a dark bruise I left there. I wonder if he got into any trouble at work because of it, though I bet everyone thought it was a girl who put it there.

  Their arms go back around me, thank fuck because my legs are unsteady. I’m caught in a time warp as they pull me, still caught between them, out of the shop and to Joel’s car. I’m hazy on the logistics—where Candy left her car, what she told Joel, what he said back, when it was decided that we’re going back to our apartment, together, all three of us.

  Fuck if I care.

  Candy slips in the back, and I take the passenger seat. Her arms slip around my neck as Joel heads out into the traffic. Her hair tickles my jaw, her lips ghost under my ear.

  “You smell good,” she whispers, and all the blood rushes to my dick so fast I have to press down on my hard-on, trying to ease some of the pressure.

  Joel glances at me, at us, and his gaze grows hooded and dark. He puts on some old rock, and we don’t speak. There’s a hum in the air, a tension, anticipation that’s driving my mind right into the gutter.

  Not that it wasn’t there already, but you know… deeper. Images flash before my eyes of our bodies writhing together, and it’s all I can do not to come in my pants.

  I don’t even know how we manage not to jump each other’s bones during the fifteen-minute ride, how we manage to get out of the car and troop inside the building, Joel in our center, his arms around both of us.

  Candy stops us at the entrance, pulls out her phone and takes a selfie of all three of us. “Just for me,” she says and elbows Joel who’s frowning. “Relax. I won’t show it to anyone.”

  Then we’re inside the elevator, riding up. The moment we reach the landing and get out, Joel drags Candy to him and kisses her, then pushes her against the wall and kisses her again, while I fumble for my keys, turning crazy with lust.

  I finally open the door and step aside as they stumble past me into the apartment. Then Joel reaches out and drags me inside with them.

  We tumble on the sofa, tearing at each other’s clothes. Joel’s legs are u
nder me, his chest to my back, and Candy’s on top of mine as I helpfully tug her sweater over her head.

  Behind me I barely register Joel being just as helpful with my sweater. He pulls it off me, and I lift my arms as he impatiently rips it off me. He’s hard as a rock against my ass, and it sends a thrill of arousal through my balls.

  “No glasses today, Candy?” he whispers.

  “Contact lenses,” she gasps and I grin.

  “Damn. Don’t do it again.”

  I haul Candy to me to straddle my legs and push up her tank top to reveal her black bra. Her tits are soft mounds over it, and I put my mouth on them, first the left, then the right one, feeling her nipples hardening through the soft cotton and lace.

  “God, Jet.” Her hands go to my head as I mouth her nipples through the fabric, then reach behind her for the clasp of her bra and undo it, freeing her tits. This time I lick her flesh and shudder with need at her taste and smell.

  Hell yeah.

  Her breathless moan when I bite lightly on her nipple sends hot sweat down my back. My cock jumps, and my balls tighten.

  “I want your kitty,” I whisper, licking my lips, and her breath of laughter makes me harder.

  I want to taste her pussy, feel her quiver against my tongue and lips, see and hear and sense her come apart under me.

  Giving her nipple one last lick, I push her down on the couch and lift her skirt.

  “Oh yeah,” Joel breathes behind me, and the raw need in his voice makes my body tighten. “Go down on her, Jet. Eat her up.”

  A groan rises in my throat. Joel turns me on just by breathing on most days, but bossy Joel, well… He makes my blood run hot under my skin.

  Couple that with a nearly naked Candy spread out in front of me, and I’m on the verge of self-combusting. Her pussy is open for me, rosy and wet. Her thighs tremble under my hands as I push them further apart.

  Joel’s hand slides up my bare back as I bury my face between her legs, tasting her for the first time, and my mind reels. Fuck, I love eating pussy. Love how this girl tastes, so sweet, how she feels against my tongue, how she whines and twists, as if not sure she wants to grab my face and grind herself on my mouth, or get away from the sensations.