“It’s lovely on you but I have many more choices.”
“This one,” I insist. “When I decide, I decide. Thank you. It’s perfect.”
My hope is that this becomes a fast prelude to her departure and Rick’s exit from the closet, but she goes on and on about dressing the future first lady. When finally I’ve assured her that I’ve got perfect shoes and jewelry, and need to rest, we make it to the door.
About the time I get her out of the door, there’s a man walking up the steps, with a leather bag on his shoulder, whom I assume to be the doctor. He’s tall, a fit mid-sixties, his salt and pepper hair thick, his blue suit simple and understated.
“Candace?” he asks, his light blue eyes cold, despite his warm tone. “I’m Dr. Moore.”
“I’m Candace.” I step back. “Come in.”
He enters the foyer and turns to face me. “How are you feeling?”
I shut the door behind him and realize how awkward asking him to join me in a bedroom will be now that Dawn has left. “Better after some chicken soup. I’m finally able to hold food down.”
“Well good.” He motions the living area to the left. “Why don’t we just sit down and let me have a quick look? We have to keep our future first lady safe and well.”
If one more person says that “future first lady” remark to me again I might really be sick. Determined to get him out of here and hoping Rick follows us in this direction, I motion toward the living room. “Let’s just go right in here.”
“That works,” he says.
I lead him forward and sit down on the couch, aware that the kitchen’s open archway is to my right and within earshot. Rick could also come up beside us down a hallway toward the foyer. Dr. Moore sits down next to me and starts the typical doctor drill. “When did you first start feeling sick?”
“A few days ago. I’m fairly certain it was from some chicken I ate. Food poisoning.”
There’s a shift in the air, a jolt of energy that tells me Rick is nearby. I don’t know how, but the doc doesn’t seem to notice, staying on topic. “Very possible. Let’s get your vitals and make that future husband of yours feel better.”
I manage a weak smile and endure having my vitals taken while chatting about my medical history he doesn’t even document. “Any chance you could be pregnant?” he asks.
Unease slides down my spine when the question is really fairly standard. However, most women don’t have a man trying to get them pregnant and kill them off. “No chance,” I say.
“First and last day of your last period?”
I spit out my dates and thankfully we move on. Finally, he says, “All looks good and I know you say you’re feeling better, but a good prescription-level vitamin boost can do you wonders. We can get that in you today to help you be ready for tomorrow night.”
I’m not sure if it’s my adrenaline or Rick’s that spikes or a combination of both, but I’m suddenly on edge, literally on the edge of the cushion. The doctor reaches in his bag and pulls out a syringe. I’m immediately on my feet. “No,” I say. “No, I’ll pass.” I round the coffee table.
“It’s perfectly safe.” The doctor stands up. “This is—”
“No,” I repeat, and I swear I can feel Rick contemplating stepping in which would ruin tomorrow night, which means ending our chance to extract my father and get Tag out of the picture. “No, I’m fine.”
The doctor gives a strained laugh. “It’s vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and antioxidants. I don’t understand this reaction.”
And either will Gabriel. My mind races with an answer and I go to the only place I can—a place that won’t please Rick. “Look, doctor. I’m a few days late on my period when I’m never late. I made an appointment with my gyno for Monday.”
He blanches. “You said there wasn’t a chance of pregnancy.”
“I know what I said but that’s because Gabriel wants kids. Badly. If I tease him with this and it’s not true, he’ll be disappointed. But If I am, yes, he’ll be happy, but it also complicates his campaign.”
“Because you’re not married yet,” he assumes.
“Right.”
“Have you taken a test?”
“Not yet, but I will at the doctor on Monday. Just please don’t bring this up to him just yet. I don’t want him to fret at the party tomorrow night. It’s a big deal.”
“Yes, of course.” He returns the injection to his bag and settles the bag on his shoulder, removing a card from inside and offering it to me over the table. “I’m going to be your staff physician when Gabriel takes office. Let’s go ahead and get that moving for you as well. Call me after you talk to your doctor.”
I accept the card. “Of course.”
Thankfully he moves toward the door and I follow, offering a formal goodbye, before locking the door. Hurrying back into the living room, I find Rick standing on this side of the couch. “Why go there, Candace?”
“I couldn’t let him give me that shot and I knew you couldn’t either.”
“Pregnancy gives him a reason to come after you. So does that ring on your finger.”
“I didn’t want the ring on my finger. I had to wear it and you know it.” I pull it off and drop it to the ground. “And I did what I had to do. Killing the doctor killed our Saturday night operation. And I know you were thinking about it.”
He closes the few spaces between us, his long legs making short work of him stepping in front of me. He doesn’t touch me which tells me he’s pissed. “I would have given him his own shot. If it killed him, then fuck him.”
“And then he’d be dead, and we’d be screwed.”
“Pregnancy gives him a reason to follow you when we leave.”
“We both know he’s going to come after me and you. Isn’t that why you got Kane Mendez involved?”
“Yes. That’s exactly why.” And then suddenly he’s giving me exactly what I want. He’s touching me. His hands slide under my hair, and he drags my mouth to his. “Do you know how much I hate thinking about you with that man?”
“I’m not with him.”
“Do you know how much hearing you talk about being pregnant with his baby kills me?”
“I told you—”
“You will never fuck him again.”
The raw command has my nipples puckering and my sex clenching. “No. No, I will not.”
“Just me. Say it.”
“Just you, Rick Savage.”
And then his mouth is slamming down on mine, one hand molding me close, and I know this part of Rick Savage. I know where this is leading. I know the part of him that’s unleashed right now. This is the dark, gritty, damaged part of him, that I know better than anyone. I believe that. The part of him that can’t be leashed and I won’t even try.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Savage
I don’t just kiss Candace, I ravish her, I drink her in like a man lost in a desert, dying of a thirst he cannot quench. And I was until I found her again. What’s worse is, that desert was of my own making, a desolate fucking desert I’m done with because, thank fuck, she’s not done with me.
Hugging her close, I hold her like this moment is it, like this is the last time I might ever hold her again. I kiss her just the same, like I will never kiss her again. I’ve never kissed her with that kind of desperation before now, and not because I didn’t love her. I just always took for granted that tomorrow would come. And I always intended to come back, but I didn’t and now I know, shit happens. People die, tomorrow is not always guaranteed.
She knows this kiss is different, too. It’s in the way she kisses me back, the way she twists her fingers around my T-shirt. In the way she jerks back, parting our lips, searching my face. In the intensity of her green eyes when they meet mine, the sudden parting of lips, now swollen from my kiss, at what she finds, she orders, “Do not kiss me like this is goodbye, Rick Savage, damn you.”
She tries to dislodge herself from my grip but I hold onto her. “Don’t run.”
She gapes. “Run? Me? I’m not the one who ran.” I physically flinch with those well-deserved words, but she’s not done. “If you want to say goodbye, just say goodbye, Rick.”
“I’m not saying goodbye, Candace.” I catch her hair around my fingers and drag her gaze to my unguarded gaze. I let her see the torment in me. I let her see the guilt. I let her see the dark need in me that isn’t going away like I’m not going away. “This is not goodbye,” I repeat. “This is me making sure that you’re properly kissed, fucked, licked, and loved, the way you deserve to be.”
“It feels like goodbye.”
“No, and one day you’ll trust me enough to know that a dark night doesn’t take us there again. I promise you, you will. Soon.”
“How soon?”
“New York. It’s going to change everything.”
“Can we go now?” she asks hopefully, but we both know we can’t. We both know we have to see tomorrow out.
“I wish we could, baby. I wish we could.”
My mouth slants over hers, my tongue licking deeply, possessively and I make sure every answer she wants is right there in this kiss. I make sure she knows that I’m not fucking living another day without her. She moans into my mouth and when my hands settle on her spine, she arches into me. I rotate her toward the couch, pressing her against the back, my hands finding that soft smooth skin under her T-shirt.
Goosebumps lift on her skin and I tear my mouth from hers. “You have always been exactly what I need.”
“Am I?”
“Oh yes, baby. You are. I felt you even when you weren’t with me. Every day I was away, I felt you. I missed you. I needed the hell out of you.” I catch the hem of her shirt and toss it, my gaze lowering to her breasts, my fingers tracing the swell above the black lace of her bra, then finding her nipple through that lace.
She sucks in a breath and catches my hand. “Rick, I—”
“God, I love when you say my damn name.” My hand goes to her head, my finger catches the clasp of her bra, unhooking it as I lean in close, her nipples puckered between us, our lips a breath apart. “‘Rick, I’ what?”
Her fucking cellphone rings.
I grimace and snatch it from the floor by my foot, where it’s somehow landed. I grimace all over again with the caller ID that reads “Gabriel.” I toss the piece of crap onto the couch.
“Rick,” she hisses urgently. “What if—”
“No,” I snap. “Not now.” I cup her head again and step into her. “Not now.”
“But he—”
I kiss her again but she’s stiff now, unyielding because she’s thinking of him and it pisses me off. That asshole has interfered, yet again. He’s between us, he’s too fucking in between us.
My hand covers her naked breast, teases her nipple. She moans, and her tongue touches mine, and when I should be thinking about that nipple in my mouth, somehow her words come back to me: He wanted me to get pregnant. Or whatever the fuck she said. Close enough. The entire concept of her wearing his ring, her having his baby, drives me wild. That dark edgy feeling I know all too intimately is back, and it’s back with a punch of lust and desire. I’m hot. I’m hard, my cock is pressing against my zipper and her belly.
I reach down and stroke the seam of her jeans, and that’s all the patience I have. I have her zipper down in an instant, and I turn her, pressing her hands to the couch and dragging her pants down her legs. She’s naked in all of a minute and my shirt is on the floor with her clothes. I run my hand over her perfect, perky backside and give it a present, but careful, smack. She arches into the surprise touch, sticks that pretty ass in the air for me, and I suspect that is what she wants. She expects it and I give myself a long moment to imagine the way she’d arch in anticipation when I warmed her cheeks. I imagine how wet her sex would be when I slide my fingers and tongue intimately between her thighs. How hot she would be when I buried myself inside her after that spanking. How easily she’d forget Gabriel and all the fear. How emotionally exposed she’d be, how willingly mine. But that means me taking her fears, taking her doubts, from her. That means me leaving her nothing but me, here, now. I want to take her, to own her body and heart, but I’m just not sure that kind of dominance is what she needs from me tonight. She might offer herself to me freely, but it’s not right tonight, not with Gabriel trying to control her, in an entirely different way.
No. Dominance comes with a price when used unwisely. And I will not be unwise with Candace ever again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Savage
Candace grips the couch in front of her and I step to the side of her, one hand between her shoulder blades, the other sliding between her thighs, into the slick heat there. My lips beside her ear. “I want you this wet every day for the rest of our lives. Every day. For the rest of our lives.”
A soft sound escapes her throat, and she twists around to face me and my gaze rakes over her beautiful, perfect body. Just that easily I’ve completely forgotten all the dirty, nasty, dark sex we could have, we will have, to escape this hell, just not now. Suddenly, I’m dragging her against me all over again, kissing the hell out of her and I need, abso-fucking-lutely need, to be inside her.
Scooping her up, I cradle her to me, and when I carry her to sit on the couch I don’t lean her over it. I don’t spank her pretty little ass. I don’t tease her until she comes on my hand or my tongue. I still just need inside her.
I settle her in front of me but I also sit down and take her with me. She’s straddling me in a heartbeat and somehow my pants are down, my thick erection between us and I’m anchoring her, holding her as she slides down my cock.
Slowly, she slides down my shaft and inch by hard inch, takes all of me. And when we’re there, joined and intimate, our eyes meet, I feel the punch of emotions no one else creates in me. At that moment, every wrong move I’ve made in my life, every moment I lost with Candace, comes at me like a blade cutting my heart, but it doesn’t kill me. It tortures me. The only way out of this headspace is Candace.
I settle my hand under her hair, on her neck and drag her mouth to mine. “If I died tonight, I’d die a happy man.”
“Don’t say that,” she orders.
“Just speaking the truth, baby,” I say, squeezing her backside and arching her forward, the feel of her wet tight heat around my cock so damn good.
She pants a little and murmurs, “Rick.” Her breath is warm against my lips, and it’s her that leans in to claim my mouth this time. That press of mouth to mouth charges the air. We lick at each other, sway together, and suddenly we snap. Wild hunger dominates. I want to be deeper. I want her to ride me harder. I want her mouth on my mouth, over and over again, and her to meet my every move, every thrust. Every pump. We don’t last long, though. We’re too urgent, too needy. She digs her nails into my arms, stiffens and buries her face in my neck. Her sex clenches around me and instantly I’m shuddering, quaking with the intensity of what her body demands so damn well of my body. She relaxes into me and me into her, holding her, even as her damn phone rings again.
I curse and roll her to her back, grabbing tissue I offer her before I pull out. Irritated to be interrupted, I grab her phone that is now on the floor again, eyeing caller ID. “Three calls and four text messages. He’s a regular stalker.” I hand her the phone and sit up.
She takes it and holds it to her chest. “How bad did I screw up with the pregnancy test?”
I lean over her, my arm resting on the back of the couch. “You didn’t screw up. You did what you had to do. If fate is in our favor, the prospect that you’re pregnant makes Gabriel and Pocher want the press that gets them. If fate is not in our corner, they know you’re trouble, and you become a target now, not later.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Right now?” I kiss her nipple. “Get that call back over and then fuck some more. Then I’m going to make a few calls before we fuck yet again. Then we’ll eat ice cream and watch Sonic.”
“That�
��s it?”
“You did what you had to do,” I repeat. “Now, I’ll do what I have to do.”
I draw in a breath and exhale. “You’re going to kill Gabriel.”
“That might be too kind of an ending. A guy like Honest Gabe needs to suffer. And I’m just the guy for the job.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Candace
Rick stands up, adjusts his pants we never got off of him and walks around the couch. He then leans over it and pulls his shirt over my head. I slink into it and glance over my shoulder at him. “You look better in it than me, and I don’t want you naked when you call him back.”
“You’re wrong. I don’t look better in it than you.” My cellphone rings in my hand.
Rick’s expression pinches. “I’ll go get the ice cream. You know I like it all melty.” He winks. “The way I like you, too.”
The words are so very Rick Savage, but his energy is all jagged-edged and cutting. He pushes off the couch and walks away. My phone stops ringing and starts again. Anger jabs at me and I answer the call. “I was asleep, Gabriel. Do you want me to be well for the party or not?”
“You don’t sound asleep.” His tone drips accusation.
“Because you called me back-to-back.”
“You were supposed to call me when the stylists and doctor visited.”
I bristle. “I chose a nap over the call. I felt like me getting well was more important than the call.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“That I’m on the backend of this sickness and to rest.” It’s sort of accurate. “And to take vitamins.”
“Did you get a dress?”
That’s it. No how are you feeling? “Yes. It’s red.”
“I’m sending over jewelry for you to choose from as well. It will get there about the same time I do tomorrow night.”
“Which is when?” I ask, hoping I sound like a normal, interested future wife.
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