Chapter 29

Candace kept her features calm while dark excitement rose. Deep down, she already knew nothing would happen between him and Michelle. It was a relief to admit it. And also mildly upsetting, which didn’t make sense. With the Michelle issue out of the way…Help.

“I promised not to touch you. I’m not going to touch you. But—” he put his wine on the picnic table and she braced herself “—you can always touch me…or yourself.”

Oh, no. This was crazy. She was on fire, at the same time clenching her thighs prudishly together. She’d never…not in front of a man.

“Listen to what I want to do to you, Candace. Everything I planned to do when we woke up together on Friday and never got to. I’ve been tortured by the thought of it ever since. I want you to be tortured, too.”

He spoke in a low, mesmerizing voice of undressing her slowly, watching her breasts emerge, free and heavy, from the bra she imprisoned them in and exploring her nipples with his tongue. Her breath hitched in a gasp. He whispered her name, put his hand to his fly in a silent question.

She nodded as if she were in a dream, watched him unzip his shorts, pull open fabric to release his erection, the shaft strained hard and long. The sight nearly brought her to the edge; she began trembling uncontrollably from nervous excitement.

“Your turn.”

His eyes shone in the candlelight. A warm breeze caressed her and she shivered, though she wasn’t at all cold. Why not, Candace? There was no reason now other than her silly virginal reluctance, which the wine had loosened, and the strange dark fear burning in her chest.

She opened her legs slowly, shyly, moved the material of her loose shorts aside, then her panties. He made a sharp sound of agonized approval which spurred her fingers on to start a rhythm. She stared at the ground in embarrassment at first, then the arousal took hold and freed her to be bolder.

Soon she could look up and watch his hand working…then make herself meet his eyes. The connection raised the excitement impossibly higher. She stopped trembling, let out a soft moan of pleasure.

He went on, detailing his slow slide inside her, the way she’d feel on his cock, the way he wanted her face to look while he pumped her. Candace tipped her head back, braced one knee up against the arm of her chair, wanting him so badly she nearly gave in, crossed the few feet between them and straddled him. What was stopping her?

“Then I’d turn you over. Kneel behind you…” Too late. She lifted her head, wanting to see him when she came. Her fingers worked harder. She focused on his thick erection, then as her orgasm hit, she looked up, met his eyes, let out a soft cry, and saw the rush of his own climax seconds later.

They both collapsed in their chairs, panting, sated, smiling in the private darkness of their evening together.

Candace took in a long, stuttering breath. How had this happened? Nolan hadn’t touched her with his hands, but somehow he’d managed to touch her heart. The thrilling rush they just shared, which she’d never trusted another man enough to do, seemed as intimate as if they’d made love for real, skin on skin, arms around each other, bodies joined. What made her turn around so completely to trust this man.

It wasn’t only the wine.

Hours later, in bed alone, predictably, Candace couldn’t sleep. She could damn the red wine, but it wasn’t only that. She’d gone to bed late after sitting out on the lawn with Nolan, talking for hours, until the candles burned down to stumps. Very late. Way too late to take a sleeping pill. So she turned and twisted and dozed and turned and twisted some more.

So restful.

Finally, after dawn started to break, she gave up and got up, put on a robe she’d borrowed from Michelle and went downstairs, started her coffee and sat at the counter, sexy memories of the previous evening still burning through her, feeling happy and guilty and confused and elated and just about everything else she could feel.

Halfway into her coffee, she heard steps coming downstairs and braced herself. Not Michelle, too heavy. Nolan? So early? She hadn’t spent the night with him. He hadn’t asked and she wasn’t going to get that involved, not when she was about to leave town. Why commit emotional suicide when she didn’t have to?

The footsteps turned the corner. Candace gaped at the unfamiliar male silhouette. Who the hell was this guy? He crossed the threshold into the kitchen. Young. Torn, sagging jeans. Bedroom eyes. Piercing in his nose. Oh, Michelle. The “dreaded” phone call, the date last night—the artist guy, here in the flesh.

“Hey.” The man raised a hand in greeting. “How ’ya doing?”

“Uh…good morning?”

“You must be Michelle’s sister.”

“Yes.”

“I’m Sledge. Nice ta meetcha.”

Sledge. Oh, God. “Do you want some coffee…Sledge?” She could not call him that. She wanted him to leave. She wanted to go upstairs and haul Michelle out of bed by her feet and scream at her. Not to make more snap judgments, but “Sledge” had the look of all Michelle’s other bad-boy mistakes. What happened to the new leaf she was turning over? What happened to Nolan being The One? Did that make this guy The Two? Were The Three and The Four coming over tonight?

Her sister’s light footsteps sounded pattering down the stairs; she rounded the staircase, hand on the banister, swinging in a wide gleeful circle, stopped still when she saw Candace in the kitchen, then came forward.

Cautiously.

“Hey, Candace.” Michelle glanced nervously at Sledge. “You’re up early. I thought you’d still be asleep.”

“Hoped, you mean.”

Sledge glanced even more nervously between the sisters. “Yeah, uh, I think I’m gonna hit the road, thanks. Nice to meet you, Candace. Michelle, hey, c’mere.”

Candace stared at the table to avoid having to watch the slurpy kissing she could hear all too clearly coming from the back door. The exchange of thanks for a fantastic night. Sledge’s promise to call soon. Michelle’s wistful response, “That’d be nice.”

Then Sledge stepping through the door, the sound of it closing behind him.

Michelle turned, arms crossed across her chest. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“Really?”

“You’re thinking, ‘How could I pass up someone like Nolan for a creep like Sledge?’”

“That’s pretty much it.”